Department of American Studies

Nick Yablon

Assistant Professor of American Studies
PhD University of Chicago (2002, History)
732 Jefferson Building
(319) 335-0321
nick-yablon@uiowa.edu

Research Interests

Nick Yablon's research and teaching focus on the changing sensory and spatio-temporal experiences of American city dwellers during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Combining research in urban and social history with readings of literary texts and visual images, his current book project ("American Ruins: An Archaeology of Urban Modernity, 1820-1920") examines how those changing experiences found expression in a new poetics of the ruin. Across multiple sites ranging from political cartoons and amateur photography to early science fiction, the steel and glass ruins of American cities were imagined as "modern ruins," distinct in appearance and meaning from the ancient ruins of the "Old World".

During 2007-08, Nick Yablon is on research leave through a Getty Foundation Fellowship.

Curriculum Vitae

Courses Taught

45:001 Understanding American Cultures (previously American Values)

45:090 Seminar in American Cultural Studies
-American Disasters, 1870-2005

45:150 Topics in American Culture
-American Cityscapes: Picturing the Urban

45:151 American Business Cultures

45:250 Graduate Seminar: Topics in American Studies
-Interdisciplinary Approaches to Money and Culture
-Cultures of American Architecture

45:293 Seminar in American Visual Culture
-Architecture and the Built Environment

45:299 American Studies Proseminar
-The Arts in American Studies