UT AMS ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT—Dr. Zoya Brumberg-Kraus!

Name: Zoya

Pronouns: She/her

Title: Dr. Zoya Brumberg-Kraus

Optional—contact information: zoyabrumberg@utexas.edu

Q: What were you research interests, both academic and for fun, while in American Studies at UT!?

A: I changed my focus a lot during my time at UT, but a sense of wanderlust and interest in material culture have always been the thread of continuity. Initially, I wanted to write about ghost towns and the built environments of preserved natural areas, but I wrote one or two papers on the topic and that was pretty much all I had to say about it. I went back into some projects I started but never finished to get inspiration for my dissertation. When I was in my MA program, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I was working on a creative writing piece—vignettes inspired by my impressions of my first visit to California. I rented a car to go between the Bay Area and Los Angeles. I was also couch surfing, staying with friends and friends of friends, so my lists of must-sees in California came from all over the place: punks, artists, sex workers, architects, actors, students, surf bums, and archivists. I was most surprised by how much I loved Los Angeles. It was really full of surprises to me—it was so old and colorful and diverse and way more Jewish than Woody Allen had me believing. My dissertation ended up being about vernacular architecture in California with a specific focus on Chinatown-style architecture. I also did a lot of traveling through West Texas and New Mexico, writing about eco architecture and land art as a sort of side interest.

I used my research as a way to travel and explore with intention. That also meant that I got to do some really cool things like get a private tour of the Hearst Castle, stay at the Madonna Inn with a press rate, stay in an Earthship, and interview some very cool people like the sisters who transformed a dome-shaped time machine in the desert into a very unique sound bath experience. I also camped for the first time in my life, hated it, and then came around to it once I figured out how to make the experience more comfortable. (In case you’re wondering, this involves a large canvas tent, a floor futon, a camp stove, a camping French press, and being very picky about campsites). I also started dancing maybe a year after I moved to Austin; it’s not related to my research interests really, but it has been a major aspect of my life here.

Q: How did you make your way to American Studies as a discipline?

A: It was mostly accidental, to be honest. My MA thesis was a transnational exploration about the history of collecting—the only American Studies aspect of it was a chapter about the City Museum in St. Louis and Louis Sullivan’s midwestern architecture, and a postscript about the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles. I wanted to continue pursuing that avenue of interdisciplinary material culture research. One of my advisors, Shawn Michelle Smith, came from an American Studies background and suggested I apply to the program at University of Texas at Austin. I thought the discipline and caliber of program were a bit of a stretch for me, but it ended up being the only program that accepted and funded me—it seemed bashert. I took up the opportunity.

Q: What was the nature of your work? What method(s) did you utilize the most? How does your current work align with American Studies?

A: I come from a Fine Arts background, so I tend to find myself most engaged with visual culture, material culture, textures, the built environment…things that absorb all your senses at once, that require some creativity to “read.” I follow my inspiration, visiting places that seem aesthetically evocative for me. Like with art, the materials tell me what methods to use to shape them. I intuit that things are connected and tend to draw from various critical theory methodologies to show it. This is not really a good way to be a historian. Janet Davis, who advised my dissertation, lovingly encouraged me to find historical evidence to back my interpretations. I can feel the connection between the TCL Chinese Theatre and Los Angeles’ Chinatown Center. What transforms that into impactful scholarship is finding that the same muralist who did the interior murals of the Chinese Theatre also painted numerous murals and signage around New Chinatown, or that the Chinese American lawyer You Chung Hong, who had a heavy hand in designing the Center, described the Chinese Theatre as “the most beautiful theater in the world” in a letter to his wife some years earlier. I guess that combination of things is what makes my project “American Studies” and not more general cultural criticism.

All that said, the way I work does not quite fit with what American Studies looks like today. I am not convinced that the area studies I engage with (American Studies, Asian American Studies, Jewish Studies) really know what to do with interdisciplinarity. I get some very polarized reactions to my research and am struggling to find academic journals that are ready for my ideas and style. I am more optimistic about book editors.

Q: Are you currently working on any projects, and if so tell us about them!

A: I am shopping an editor for my book project, From Gold Mountain to Tinseltown: Constructions of Ethnic Identity in California’s Architectural Vernacular. I have a Jewish/Eastern Hemisphere foodways and recipe blog, Kimchi and Kishke, which admittedly I do not update enough…but I hope to turn that into a cookbook. I’m always designing and testing recipes, but it takes a few tests to get it right enough to put on the blog with a photograph.

Q: How did American Studies at UT make your work possible?

A: My dissertation committee was very helpful throughout the entire process. I got good advising and emphatic support from Janet Davis, Julia Mickenberg, and Jeff Meikle throughout my time in the program. I also got a grant from Foodways Texas to support some research travel my second year in the program. American Studies also nominated me for a university continuing fellowship for the 2020-2021, which I received. This is all to say that with my dissertation committee and graduate advisor Cary Cordova’s advising, confidence, and support were all super helpful. My advice to future graduate students is that finding a good fit with your advisor and dissertation committee is probably the best thing you can do for your career.

Q: What was your favorite thing about AMS at UT?

A: Janet’s office! I will admit I have cried in that office at least once and being surrounded by stuffed animals really makes all the difference.

I feel like I’m supposed to say the people, creativity, community…but that’s not really true. American Studies is not uniquely deficient in those areas, but the experience of graduate school (and surely as faculty in the future) is largely what you make of it. You have to create all those things for yourself.

Bonus Q: What is a fun fact about you that you would like your colleagues, peers, and students to know about you?

A: I’m jacked.

(as in strong)