Associate Professor of English Catherine Gunther Kodat has begun a one-semester grant as a Fulbright lecturer in the department of American Studies at Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem in Budapest, Hungary (ELTE). Kodat is teaching a 20th century American literature survey to undergraduates and a graduate student seminar on recent issues in American Studies (the graduate course is officially titled "Rethinking American Exceptionalism"). http://www.elte.hu/
Kodat also had an essay published recently in the UK. "Disney's Song of the South and the Birth of the White Negro" appears in the collection American Cold War Culture, edited by Douglas Field and published by Edinburgh University Press. The essay explores the contributions the quite objectionable Disney film made to later (and ostensibly more liberal) Beat Generation works like Mezz Mezzrow's "Really the Blues" and Norman Mailer's "The White Negro." American Cold War Culture is currently available only in the UK (see UK book websites blackwells.com and amazon.com.uk), but it will appear in the U.S. in a few months.
Posted March 7, 2005
