University of Colorado at Boulder Professor Erika Doss will give the Graduate School's 98th Distinguished Research Lecture on Nov. 8 titled "Memorial Mania: Monuments and Memory in Today's America."
The talk is free and open to the public and will be held at 5:30 p.m. in room 250 of Ramaley Biology, located just northeast of Norlin Library. The Graduate School's Council on Research and Creative Work is sponsoring the talk.
A professor in the art and art history department, Doss is well known for her studies of cultural icons and images. In addition to an upcoming book on American memorials and monuments and the culture of commemoration, Doss authored "Elvis Culture: Fans, Faith and Image," which won the Exceptional Book Award from the Bookman Book Review Syndicate in 1999.
Doss also edited the book, "Looking at Life Magazine," published in 2001 by Smithsonian Institution Press and which stemmed from a three-day conference on the magazine she organized at CU-Boulder in 1995. The book's 13 contributors examined how the magazine -- which held a central spot in America's cultural life for more than three decades -- portrayed attitudes toward gender, class, race and ethnicity.
She also has authored "Twentieth-Century American Art" (2002), "Spirit Poles and Flying Pigs: Public Art and Cultural Democracy in American Communities" (1995) and "Benton, Pollock and the Politics of Modernism: From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism" (1991).
Doss frequently publishes scholarly articles in art and American Studies journals and currently serves on the Editorial Board of American Art for the Smithsonian Art Museum. She also serves as editor of the Culture America Series for the University Press of Kansas.
Doss joined the CU-Boulder faculty in 1986 and has been a full professor in the art and art history department since 1996. She directed CU-Boulder's American Studies Program from 1991 to 2002. She was awarded her second Fulbright fellowship in 2004 and is the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark for the 2005-06 academic year.
Prior to coming to CU-Boulder Doss was an assistant professor at Cleveland State University. She earned her bachelor's degree from Ripon College and received her master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Minnesota.
Previous CU-Boulder faculty selected to give the distinguished research lecture include Professor Harvey Segur of applied mathematics (2005), Distinguished Professor Margaret Eisenhart of education (2004), Professor Allan Franklin of physics (2003), and Professors John DeFries of psychology and the Institute for Behavioral Genetics and William Wood of molecular, cellular and developmental biology (2002).
The Nov. 8 lecture will be followed by a reception. Parking for the event is available at the Euclid Avenue Autopark located east of the University Memorial Center or along University Avenue east of Broadway.
For more information on the event or about the Graduate School, contact Candice Miller, director of research for the Graduate School, at (303) 735-0982 or candice.miller@colorado.edu.