Our Keynote Speakers

The third annual American Studies Day has now been given a theme ("PLACE") and is anchored by two keynote speakers, both prestigious scholars from Northwestern University.

Carl Smith, professor of English, History, and American Studies has written numerous books related to our theme including The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman as well as The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City. The latter was chosen by the Chicago Public Library as the Fall 2009 selection in its "One Book, One Chicago" program.

He is also the creator of two major online exhibitions, The Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory and The Dramas of Haymarket. He helped found the Northwestern Program in American Studies and has served multiple times as director or associate director. In 1994 he was named Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence at Northwestern.

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Henry Binford, an urban historian who specializes in 19th century sub-communities such as suburbs and slums has a special interest in the efforts to redevelop cities in the 20th century. His most recent book is The First Suburbs: Residential Communities on the Boston Periphery, 1815-1860. He was the Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence for three years.

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Graciously reprising and expanding upon her original appearance during last year's American Studies Day, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Maria Finitzo will be speaking with our students once again. Her filmography can be viewed here.

From Kartemquin Films:

For more than 25 years, Maria Finitzo has been an award-winning filmmaker producing and directing documentary films for network television, public broadcasting, cable TV and the Internet. Her films have tackled a variety of subjects from the controversial science of stem cell research and the hard questions surrounding the command and control of nuclear weapons to the psychology of adolescent girls.

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Finally, and very fortunately, we have been able to draw Molly Metzger, a Graduate Research Fellow at Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research (and a New Trier alum). Her current research focuses on affordable housing, demonstrating the ways in which recent policies have destabilized urban communities and reinforced geographic patterns of inequality.

She is also a member of the Lathrop Leadership Team, a group of public housing residents and allies who are fighting to preserve the last large-scale public housing development on Chicago's north side.