Guest lecturer to provide insights from the suburbs

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Dr. Joanne Jacobson, professor and chair of the department of English at Yeshiva University in New York, will speak at Oklahoma State University on "Double Vision: The Imaginary of the American Suburb,” Thursday, April 2, at 4 p.m. in Morrill Hall, Room 303.  Sponsored by the American Studies Program and the OSU Department of English, the talk is free and open to the public. 

Jacobson’s lecture explores the idea of “the suburbs” as a foundational part of the post-World War II American landscape and post-World War II American life. Through American writing and, more recently, American television, she’ll peel back the layers to reveal a double life in suburban America beneath the homogeneous surface of shorts, polo shirts, and green lawns.   

Looking back from "The Sopranos" and "Madmen" to "Bewitched," from “The Great Gatsby” to “The Education of Henry Adams,” Jacobson’s talk reveals the ways in which the suburbs have provided an imaginative stage to expose hidden identities and conflicts. And, as Jacobson puts it, “to interrogate the unanticipated disappointments of our most cherished landscapes of hope.” 

Jacobson holds a doctorate in American Studies from The University of Iowa and is the author of a 2007 memoir, “Hunger Artist: A Suburban Childhood,” and a 1992 academic study, “Authority and Alliance in the Letters of Henry Adams.” Her writing has appeared in such publications as The Forward, The Nation, New England Review, Massachusetts Review, BOMB, and Michigan Quarterly Review.