The Centre for Popular Culture cordially invites you to a talk by Dr. Mark Metzler Sawin titled Trucked Up: How an Odd Consumer Trend Helps Explain U.S. Culture. Pickup trucks are large vehicles designed for farm work. Today, when less than 1% of Americans work in the farming industry, the three best-selling vehicles in the United States are all full-size pickup trucks. Why? This presentation will do a deep-dive into American social, consumer, and popular culture to try to explain this uniquely American obsession.
Having grown up in rural Kansas amidst the “cowboy country” of the American Midwest, Mark Metzler Sawin earned his BA in Literature and Political Science from Goshen College (Indiana) and his Masters and PhD in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Since 2001 he has worked at Eastern Mennonite University (Virginia) where he currently serves as Professor of American History and director of Honors. He also serves as area chair of American Studies for the Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association. Having served as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Zagreb in 2008-09, Dr. Sawin has returned multiple times and is currently back in Zagreb teaching Black American literature and culture. He has published extensively on American antebellum (1840-50s) popular culture and literature and is the executive editor of Emu Editions, a small publishing company that issues scholarly editions of sensational dime-novels from this period. He is also currently involved in multiple projects on Black history in Virginia during the Jim Crow era (1870–1950s), and is wrapping up the project from which this presentation comes—a culture explanation of America’s obsession with the Pickup Truck.
The talk will take place at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, room 66, on 12 April 2024 at 12,30.
