Stephanie Lewthwaite
Lecturer in American History, Faculty of Arts
Contact
Biography
My monograph Race, Place, and Reform in Mexican Los Angeles: A Transnational Perspective, 1890-1940 (University of Arizona Press, 2009) examines the impact of reform policy on Mexican immigrant and second-generation Mexican American communities in Greater Los Angeles. The book highlights the shifting boundaries of race and citizenship in the Progressive and New Deal eras. In particular, it assesses the significance of reform for shaping processes of acculturation and racialisation. It also explores the impact of reform in generating new patterns of cross-border and second-generation activism.
My current research project is a book-length study entitled Remaking Modernism: Cross-Cultural Encounters in Hispano Art, 1930-1960. The research for this project was supported by a small grant from the British Academy and a one-semester fellowship from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, in Spring 2010. The project explores the role of Spanish-speaking Hispano artists in shaping modernism in New Mexico between 1930 and 1960. I examine a generation of Hispano artists (sculptors, mixed media artists and photographers) who became both cultural brokers and agents of aesthetic experimentation. In particular, I explore the connection between primitivism, modernism, and transcultural relations, and the ways in which these networks created opportunities for ethnic agency and artistic innovation.
I would be happy to support students working in these general areas: race, ethnicity and immigration in the Southwest; the history of people of Mexican descent in the United States, and Latino/a history and culture more generally; early twentieth-century social reform programmes in relation to immigrant-born and second-generation communities; the role of Latino/a art and culture in shaping ethnic, regional and (trans)national identities and Latino/a visual arts more broadly. My research has relevance for students working on borderlands history and culture and for those taking a transnational approach to American Studies.
Teaching Summary
Taught modules
Immigration and Ethnicity in the United States: A survey of immigration to the United States from Europe, Asia and Latin America from the nineteenth century to the present day, with an emphasis on the making of immigrant communities, cultures and identities.
America's Borders: Culture at the Limits (co-taught with Dr Gillian Roberts): This comparative and interdisciplinary module on the Mexico-US border and the Canada-US border from the colonial period to the present uses a range of historical, cultural and literary texts to explore America in hemispheric context.
Latino Expressive Cultures: An interdisciplinary survey of Latino cultural expression from the colonial period to the present, focusing on the genres, forms and sites involved in the production and consumption of Latino culture: art, architecture, music, testimony, fiction, performance, and religious expression; tourism, heritage, museum and media industries; elite, popular, and everyday cultural expressions.
The Latino Expressive Cultures module stems directly from my current research project on Hispano artists in New Mexico, 1930-1960, and my ongoing intellectual engagement with Latino cultural politics. I believe that good research feeds good teaching and vice versa. My current research expertise has generated new opportunities in teaching, in particular by changing the methods I use in the seminar context. In turn, teaching students using new source materials drawn from this project has undoubtedly helped me test, refine and widen my research expertise.
I also am a regular participant in centrally-run widening participation events such as workshops and master classes for Sutton Trust, Get on 4 Uni and KickStart. I am also involved in co-organising taster days for local primary schools. In my role as Arts Faculty Widening Participation Officer, I consider the dissemination of staff research expertise and teaching practice an integral aspect of our role as academics and fundamental to the University's engagement with the wider community.
Research Summary
My current research project is a book-length study entitled Remaking Modernism: Cross-Cultural Encounters in Hispano Art, 1930-1960. The project explores the role of Spanish-speaking Hispano artists… read more
Selected Publications
STEPHANIE LEWTHWAITE, 2009. Race, Place, and Reform in Mexican Los Angeles: A Transnational Perspective, 1890-1940 University of Arizona Press. (In Press.)
STEPHANIE LEWTHWAITE, 2012. 'Modernism in the Borderlands: The Life and Art of Octavio Medellin' (forthcoming) Pacific Historical Review. (In Press.)
STEPHANIE LEWTHWAITE, 2010. 'Modernity, Mestizaje, and Hispano Art: Patrocinio Barela and the Federal Art Project' Journal of the Southwest. 52(1), 41-70
STEPHANIE LEWTHWAITE, 2012. Mediating Art Worlds: The Photography of John S. Candelario New Mexico Historical Review. 87(1), 33-67
Current Research
My current research project is a book-length study entitled Remaking Modernism: Cross-Cultural Encounters in Hispano Art, 1930-1960. The project explores the role of Spanish-speaking Hispano artists in shaping modernist culture in New Mexico between 1930 and 1960. I examine a generation of Hispano artists (sculptors, mixed media artists and photographers) who became both cultural brokers and agents of aesthetic experimentation. In particular, I explore the connection between primitivism, modernism and transcultural relations, and the ways in which these networks created opportunities for ethnic agency and artistic innovation.
I am also editing a special issue based on the papers delivered at the April 2011 symposium Art Across Frontiers: Cross-Cultural Encounters in American Art, which brings Native American, African American and Latino/a art into comparative perspective. My research paper considers the significance of contemporary Hispano artists who rework Spanish colonial art forms in New Mexico.
Past Research
My past research culminated in a monograph entitled Race, Place, and Reform in Mexican Los Angeles: A Transnational Perspective, 1890-1940 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2009). This project examined the impact of reform policy and ideology on Mexican immigrant and second-generation Mexican American communities in the rural, urban and suburban territories of Greater Los Angeles. The book highlights the shifting boundaries of race and citizenship in the Progressive and New Deal eras, assessing the significance of reform in shaping acculturation, racialisation and new patterns of cross-border and second-generation activism.
Past and forthcoming publications include:
* 'Mediating Art Worlds: The Photography of John Candelario,' New Mexico Historical Review (forthcoming, January 2012) * 'Modernity, Mestizaje, and Hispano Art: Patrocinio Barela and the Federal Art Project,' Journal of the Southwest, 52:1 (Spring 2010), 41-70 * 'Race, Place, and Ethnicity in Progressive-Era Los Angeles,' in William Deverell and Greg Hise (eds), A Companion to the History of Los Angeles (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 40-55 * Race, Place, and Reform in Mexican Los Angeles: A Transnational Perspective, 1890-1940 (University of Arizona Press, 2009) * 'Border Crossings and Visual Culture: Mexican Immigrants and American Reformers in the 1920s and 1930s,' in Izzo, Mariani, and Zaccaria (eds), American Solitudes: Individual, National, Transnational (Carocci Editore, Roma, 2007), 285-97 * 'Writing Reform in Early Twentieth-Century Los Angeles: The Sonoratown Anthologies,' Journal of American Studies, 41:2(2007), 331-64 * 'Race, Paternalism, and "California Pastoral": Rural Rehabilitation and Mexican Labor in Greater Los Angeles,' Agricultural History, 81:1(2007), 1-35 * 'Racialized Bodies: Public Health in Early Twentieth-Century Los Angeles,' Reviews in American History, 34:4(2006), 482-90
Future Research
Contemporary Hispano art in New Mexico and its relationship to Spanish colonial art forms in the museum and the marketplace.
Latino visual arts more broadly with an emphasis on modernism in the period 1930 to 1960.