On Tuesday, the playful pups of professors and students took over the runway — or rather, the American studies townhouse on G Street.
GW’s American studies department hosted “The Real Dogs of GW American Studies” Tuesday night, celebrating professors’ dogs and offering undergraduates insights into next spring’s course offerings. The evening culminated with the “Best In Show” and “Most Unusual” contests, where nine dogs pranced around the room, some wearing sushi costumes and one donning a pink jacket.
Seven proud dog owners — all professors and one doctorate student — waltzed their canine companions around the room, introducing them to the crowd and sharing their pets’ names, majors, minors, favorite courses at GW and senior thesis titles. Some canines’ favorite courses included “Film & Paw-litics” based off of the course Politics and Film and “The Art of the Public Pee: Marking as a Form of Political Discourse.”
About 20 students, including non-American studies majors, joined the department’s tight-knit faculty to cheer on the canine contestants. As the nine dogs — including golden doodles, cavapoos, golden retrievers and wieners — roamed the room, attendees mingled with students and professors, discussing shared interests and questions about the department and spring semester class offerings.
Department Chair and Associate Professor of American Studies Jamie Cohen-Cole said the event was inspired by a desire to showcase the ‘interdisciplinary’ nature of the major, which spans many academic topics — and to share both dogs and pizza with the GW community.
“Two things: One is that we work hard on building community in this department, and who doesn’t like dogs?” Cohen-Cole said. “Well, I have cats, but yes, I like dogs too.”
He said he hopes students understand the department’s academic range, which can diversify the approaches students take when looking at a single issue. He said his students have gone onto careers in law, medical school and media production, in part because they developed “critical approaches” to American culture and politics.
“We encourage our students to be open to new experiences and to expect that the future is not necessarily the same as today and in that sense,” Cohen-Cole said. “And the reason we do that is because we’re aiming to cultivate a kind of critical capabilities and sensibilities in our students, and we think that this works both as an educational project and also as it kind of prepares your students for the world that they will be entering when they leave.”
The event, emceed by Assistant Professor of American Studies and English James McMaster — dubbed the “McMaster of Ceremonies”— said the idea for the event came during a recent faculty meeting, when chair Jamie Cohen-Cole asked what would be the best way for the faculty to tell students about their major, and other professors suggested that including dogs in the event would draw students in.
“I confess I was a bit surprised when my colleagues suggested we answer this question by producing an on-campus dog show, loosely titled after Bravo TV’s iconic Real Housewives franchise,” McMaster said. “But as a dog person and a Housewives connoisseur, I was immediately and obviously on board.”
McMaster said dogs encompass what the American studies major stands for and are a way to look at what things humans share with pets as they live alongside humans in their homes and follow them around in their day-to-day lives. He cited numerous iconic dogs in pop culture, like Lassie, Toto, Blue’s Clues and Scooby Doo, all telling different stories as parts of American culture.
“When we talk about man’s best friend, we’re really talking about the intimate relationships of love, power, affection and dependence that shape interspecies kinship across this country,” McMaster said during the event. “Dogs sit right at the crossroads of care and culture, and that’s where American studies lives too, at the intersection of the everyday and the extraordinary, the personal and the political.”
He said he wanted students to have fun, get free pizza, pet dogs and feel like they are a part of both a social and “seriously intellectual community” as the major examines American culture, politics and social life all in one realm.
“We think critically about history, the present and the future, and I think those are skills and literacies that we could all use a little bit more of these days,” he said.
Professor of American Studies and Political Science Elisabeth Anker, owner of contestants Zoe and Percy Anker-Scherer — two malteses who wore dog sushi costumes — said she hopes her department can become a home away from home for students, including those who may be missing their dogs during midterm season. Anker said because the American studies major is considered a “discovery major” as it is not something students are exposed to until they come to college, the department wanted the opportunity to share what it is as both a field and community.
“People are struggling to find their academic homes, their social homes, and we wanted to remind people that your department can be that, and certainly American studies as a small and cohesive department can be that.” Anker said.
She said the major forces students to think critically and can answer many “hard” questions like what democracy is or how justice is defined. Anker said the faculty’s diversity of interests has created a community in answering these bigger questions from different academic backgrounds.
Isabella Rincon, a sophomore studying political science and creative writing, said she attended the event because she is considering declaring a minor in American studies. She said she is currently taking an American studies course with Associate Professor of American Studies Dara Orenstein titled “Dinner with Marx,” where a different group of students prepare dinner each week and discuss “Capital, Volume I” by Karl Marx. She said she developed even more of an interest in joining the department after the event, considering a minor in American studies, due to its welcoming atmosphere.
“I think it’s one of the only departments that really handles each of their students with care,” Rincon said. “Political science is so oversaturated, and I never really felt as taken care of as I do in the American studies department.”
Rincon said she finds comfort in the American studies townhouse and the tight-knit community the professors within it provide. She said the major is one that tackles a lot of different subject areas for students interested in a vast majority of interests.
“There’s so many different types of routes you can go with an American studies major that I think it’s good for people who kind of want to explore it all,” she said. “It has politics, history, modern culture and art,” she said.
Katherine Patrick, an anthropology major, said she feels the department has a “great energy and connection” as it showed their commitment to fostering a welcoming community by bringing people together.
“The vibe is so good, which I think this is important because American studies, I mean, we’re tackling really serious subjects, and that’s hard, so it’s important to know that you’re surrounded by people that you can be supported by,” Patrick said.
