Proposal: Faculty Mentors & Coursework

Primary Faculty Mentor

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Jamin Rowan

Dr. Rowan received his PhD from the Department of English at Boston College in 2008. After teaching at Wake Forest University from 2008-10, he joined the faculty at BYU in 2010. He specializes in U.S. literature since 1865, with a particular focus on urban literature and culture. He teaches courses in both the Department of English and the American Studies Program. His scholarship has been supported by a grant from the Rockefeller Archive Center, and has appeared in a variety of disciplinary diverse venues. His book manuscript, Urban Sympathy: The Death and Life of an American Intellectual Tradition, is under contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press for publication in “The Arts and Intellectual Life in Modern America” series. Urban Sympathy examines the ways in which late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century urban intellectuals redevelop the narrative and affective patterns that lay at the heart of an antebellum culture of sympathy in order to capture the emotions and obligations that arise in the city’s public contact zones.

Dr. Rowan also taught AmSt395, a course focused on American Studies Methodologies and Procedures.  Mastering the type of writing and thinking facilitated by this methodology is one of the cores aspects of the courses I am taking while in the field, and of my research.

Course Contracts

Eng 480R: Urban Studies in Paris

            This course will help me better understand a facet of American Studies that I have not thus far been able to cover, that of Urban Studies.  But, it will be altered to fit my studies in Paris, going about studying Urban space in Paris, including readings on how to study the city, urban theories, and the development of urbanity.  This course will be fairly rigorous, as it will require I read a couple of books and several articles, as well as write a medium-length paper at the conclusion of the class.  This course will also facilitate participation within the city as it will require me to go to places within the city—particularly places that are connected to my field research—and study them carefully.

Eng 490R: Writing Paris

            This course will help me hone my academic writing in a creative way.  One of its primary goals is to facilitate my learning to write intelligent pieces about the city or artifacts within the city using the four methodology elements for American Studies: textual interpretation, archive building, institutional contextualization and social theory.  The goal is to write 5-6 pieces that would enter or fit into an American Studies conversation, while still being pieces anyone—not just academics—could read.  This course I hope to be of particular long-term value because I plan to apply to graduate school for an American Studies program and hope that being aware of how to write accessible American Studies literature will be a great benefit to my studies.  This course too will facilitate cultural immersion and interaction, as I find ‘artifacts’ throughout the city to write about.