Faculty Board

The American Culture Centers Faculty Board comprises faculty members, mainly at the University of Chicago, who share research interests in topics related to American Culture. They meet regularly to discuss and refine ideas on relevant issues.

Bill Brown

Karla Scherer Distinguished Service Professor in American Culture

Learn more about Bill Brown.

Elisabeth Clemens

William Rainey Harper Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology and the College

Research Interests: Political sociology, organizational analysis, historical sociology

Learn more about Elisabeth Clemens

Allyson Nadia Field

Associate Professor, Department of Cinema and Media Studies and the College

Research Interests: African American cinema; silent cinema; non-extant film; film historiography; nontheatrical film; American independent cinema; Hollywood; film exhibition; archival and curatorial work; race and representation; feminist and antiracist film and activism.

Learn more about Allyson Nadia Field

Shannon Lee Dawdy

Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences in the College

Research Interests: Transdisciplinary anthropology; archaeology of the contemporary; historical anthropology; cities; colonialism and capitalism; informal economies; sex; death; disaster; temporality; utopia; filmmaking; the Americas.

Learn more about Shannon Lee Dawdy

Alison L. LaCroix

Robert Newton Reid Professor of Law, Associate Member of the Department of History

Research Interests: US legal history specializing in constitutional law, federalism, and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century legal thought.

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Richard A. Rosengarten

Associate Professor of Religion and Literature; Director of Doctoral Studies; also in the College

Research Interests: He focuses on how modern prose forms (the novel, but also satire, autobiography, and the essay) enact, absorb, engage, and transform that impact, and on how the work of “criticism” – in its literary, biblical, and philosophical expressions – comes to have exponential import for thought and culture.

Learn more about Richard A. Rosengarten

James T. Sparrow

Associate Professor in History and the College

Research Interests: Modern US political history; political economy; war and society; human rights; America in the world; history of social science

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Geoffrey R. Stone

Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law

Research Interests: Public Service and Public Interest Law, Public Interest Faculty Mentor Program

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Augusta Read Thomas

University Professor of Composition in the Arts & Humanities Division and the College

Research Interests: Contemporary Composition

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Kenneth Warren

Department Chair; Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor

Research Interests: Black Studies, American Literature, Critical Theory and Objects of Study, 20th Century American Literature

Learn more about Kenneth Warren