Mentorship is how American Studies—an interdisciplinary field with few clear career maps—sustains itself and its practitioners. These mentorship sessions and events put graduate students, early-career scholars, and other academics in direct conversation with people who’ve walked their paths.
For more information on sessions and events, click here to view the online program!
Mentorship as Improvisation: On Teaching and Mentoring During Uncertain Times
Thursday, 10:15 – 11:45 am, Salon 5; Sponsored by the Race, Indigeneity, and Scholar Support Committee
A roundtable about mentorship programs for first-generation, low-income students, students of color, and early career faculty, featuring scholars who have benefited from, participated in, and contributed to mentorship programs at various stages in their professional careers.
Navigating Tenure and Promotion as BIPOC Scholars
Thursday, 1:45 – 3:15 pm, Clark 7; Sponsored by the Race, Indigeneity, and Scholar Support Committee
A workshop for junior faculty, who will leave the panel with a set of curated resources and mentoring contacts as well as a set of peer connections for support in navigating the tenure and promotion process. Bring your tenure and promotion documents to share and get feedback.
Works in Progress: Job and Grant Application Materials Workshop
Friday, 8:30 – 10:00 am, Wabash 1; Sponsored by the Graduate Education Committee
A hands-on workshop for graduate students and early-career scholars putting together applications for academic jobs, non-academic jobs, grants, fellowships, and anything else that requires a cover letter and a great deal of nerve. The session features both group time and one-on-one time, with reviewers providing feedback and guidance on materials like resumes, CVs, and grant applications.
Mentee Deadline: Sign up now to hold your spot; materials are due by Wednesday, October 14.
Reviewers Wanted: If you’ve sat on a search committee or read grant files, you already have what this session needs. Reviewers are listed in the program for their participation. Please sign up by September 30.
Graduate Student Drop-In: What Do You Need from ASA?
Friday, 10:15 – 11:45 am, Exhibit Hall Booth 14; Sponsored by the Graduate Education Committee
Stop by to meet members of the Graduate Education Committee, connect with other graduate student members, and tell us what would make ASA more useful to you.
Drop-in Sessions for Departments, Programs, and Centers
Friday, 12:00 – 1:30 pm and Saturday, 1:45 – 3:15 pm, Wabash 2; Sponsored by the Committee on Departments, Programs, and Centers
A discussion on the American Studies issues you bring to the table, including working with administrators, increasing student enrollment, addressing attacks on American Studies and the humanities, and advocating for American Studies at institutions without departments, programs, or concentrations.
On Interinstitutional Community: Black Feminist Methods, Mentorship, and Writing
Friday, 12:00 – 1:30 pm, LaSalle 1
This roundtable brings together two interinstitutional writing and support collectives to meditate on how scholars build alternative forms of mentorship and peer support for interdisciplinary Black feminist diasporic knowledge production, with ways of working together representing new forms of relating that exceed and expand upon those in standard institutional channels.
Individual Mentoring for Academic Paths
Friday, 1:45 – 3:15 pm, Wabash 2
Forty minutes, one mentor, one mentee, and no agenda beyond what the mentee brings. Topics covered may include career direction, the application process, advancement, tenure and promotion, and what to do when the plan you made in year two has stopped resembling your life.
Mentee Sign-Up: Graduate Students, recent PhDs, and scholars seeking advancement (i.e. assistant to associate, associate to full professor) should sign-up by Thursday, October 8. We’ll then follow up before the conference for any materials you’d like read in advance.
Mentor Sign-Up: We’re looking for tenure-track and tenured scholars to meet with two mentees across a single 90-minute block. You’ll be listed in the program for your participation, which is a straightforward way onto the program if you aren’t on it already, and an additional line if you are. Ninety minutes is not nothing during a conference, but it is a small fraction of what most of us were given on the way up. Please sign up by Thursday, October 8.
Surviving change – Notes on Resistance and Compromise
Friday, 3:30 – 5:00 pm, Burnham 1; Sponsored by the Digital Humanities Caucus
Senior scholars reflect on how they navigate shifting demands of the academy, from institutional compliance with troubling politics to widespread and often uncritical adoption of AI technologies in teaching and research. Workshop includes small-group or one-on-one mentoring conversations pairing senior scholars with junior scholars and other attendees.
Environmental Justice Mentoring Session
Saturday, 8:30 – 10:00 am, Salon 4; Sponsored by the Environmental Justice Caucus
A workshop to connect graduate students with faculty and peers working in their fields, with topics including academic and nonacademic publishing, the academic job market and alt-ac career paths, postdoc and fellowship applications, and scholar-activist praxis.
Get Organized: Building Academic Worker Power On and Across Campuses
Saturday, 12:00 – 1:30 pm, Dearborn 2; Presidential and Ethnography Caucus-Sponsored
A workshop to equip participants with skills for organizing their own campuses, whether they are actively organizing or looking to start. All academic workers are welcome; no prior experience is required.
Careers & Projects in the Public Humanities
Saturday, 1:45-3:15 pm, LaSalle 2
A workshop focusing on the centrality of infrastructure-building to careers in the public humanities, and the ways in which it enables interdisciplinary, public-facing arts and humanities work to remain accountable to their publics.
Graduate Student Mentoring Dinners
Saturday, 6:30 pm, Off-Site
Dinner, conversation, and mentoring in the homes of longtime ASA members and friends in Chicago. Ticket required: theasa.net/cu
Acorn Ancestors: Mentorship as Intergenerational Making-Do
Sunday, 10:15 – 11:45 am, Wilson
This session merges live lecture/performance with video and archival research with personal stories to explore possibilities and pitfalls of mentorship, of educational legacies, and of what we might freedom-dream together for future ancestors.