— Theory & History of Masculinity — Sugar Space @ 132 South 800 West, SLC
Musician: OMG
Main Talk: Theory & History of Masculinity
Come engage with Oasis in person. We look forward to building community together.
Speaker: Matthew Basso, PhD
Speaker Bio: I am an Associate Professor of History and Gender Studies at the University of Utah (UU). My research interests include public history and histories of the U.S. West, masculinity, labor, racial formations, war and society, and Pacific settler colonialism.
I’m the author or editor of four books, including Meet Joe Copper: Masculinity and Race on Montana’s World War II Home Front (University of Chicago Press, 2013), winner of the Philip Taft Labor History and the AHA’s Pacific Coast Branch book awards, and Across the Great Divide: Cultures of Manhood in the American West (Routledge, 2001). My current book project uses Aotearoa/New Zealand as a case study to critically consider settler masculinity through the lens of land, labor, family, and militarism.
I am passionate about community engagement. As director of the UU’s American West Center from 2006-2012, I led the Utah Indian Curriculum Project (UICP), which includes the K-12 textbook We Shall Remain: A Native History of Utah and America and the Utah American Indian Digital Archive (https://utahindians.com). UICP won the WHA’s Autry Public History Prize and several other awards. I have also been involved in numerous oral history projects and government and tribal research partnerships. More recently, I have served as Utah State Scholar for the Smithsonian’s The Way We Work exhibit and as Lead Historian for the National Park Service’s World War II Home Front Theme Study. I train students using all these projects. Perhaps my most significant work over the last seven years has been founding and helping support the UU’s Pacific Island Studies Initiative.
I’m an avid biker, skier, dog walker, and cocktail mixer.
Find Salt Lake Oasis
Sugar Space Art Warehouse
132 South 800 West
Salt Lake City, UT 84104