Dr. Brown is an Associate Professor of History at Marymount Manhattan College. Her research interests include 20th century cultural and diplomatic history, transnationalism and national identity, cultural consumption, ethnicity and the body, and the arts. She teaches a wide variety of courses at MMC--classes in U.S. history, historical research methods, foreign policy, consumerism, women's history, the Civil Rights movement, and NYC urban history. She received her doctorate in History from Harvard University and her A.B. from Smith College. Over the years she has been a Jacob K. Javits Fellow, a Joint Fellow at the Smithsonian National Museums of American Art and American History, and a Fulbright Scholar at the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow. Her work has also been supported by the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholar's Kennan Institute, the Rockefeller Archives Center, and Jacob's Pillow.
This article reframes the conversation on the National Endowment for the Arts’ loss of funding du... more This article reframes the conversation on the National Endowment for the Arts’ loss of funding during the 1990s. It argues morality and fiscal responsibility have been overemphasised and instead suggests one must consider the agency’s relationship to the Cold War and cultural diplomacy. Born of the Cold War, it charts the NEA’s development of international programming, its partnerships with the State Department and United States Information Agency, and the financial impact of the Cold War’s end. It extends this analysis to the agency’s resuscitation after 9/11, as the War on Terror gave new life to old approaches.
This article investigates the relative absence of African American ballet dancers and the field’s... more This article investigates the relative absence of African American ballet dancers and the field’s slow integration. It counters scarcity theories—not enough interest, money, or opportunities—demonstrating a demand for ballet in postwar black communities. Further, it argues that postwar funding, private sources from the Ford Foundation and national programs under the National Endowment for the Arts, unintentionally strengthened boundaries between white and black dancers through racialized funding, as evidenced in support patterns for the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Instead of normalizing mixed-race companies or questioning racial limits, funding bolstered old stereotypes regarding “looks” and choreographers’ preferences as aesthetic law.
This article reframes the conversation on the National Endowment for the Arts’ loss of funding du... more This article reframes the conversation on the National Endowment for the Arts’ loss of funding during the 1990s. It argues morality and fiscal responsibility have been overemphasised and instead suggests one must consider the agency’s relationship to the Cold War and cultural diplomacy. Born of the Cold War, it charts the NEA’s development of international programming, its partnerships with the State Department and United States Information Agency, and the financial impact of the Cold War’s end. It extends this analysis to the agency’s resuscitation after 9/11, as the War on Terror gave new life to old approaches.
This article investigates the relative absence of African American ballet dancers and the field’s... more This article investigates the relative absence of African American ballet dancers and the field’s slow integration. It counters scarcity theories—not enough interest, money, or opportunities—demonstrating a demand for ballet in postwar black communities. Further, it argues that postwar funding, private sources from the Ford Foundation and national programs under the National Endowment for the Arts, unintentionally strengthened boundaries between white and black dancers through racialized funding, as evidenced in support patterns for the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Instead of normalizing mixed-race companies or questioning racial limits, funding bolstered old stereotypes regarding “looks” and choreographers’ preferences as aesthetic law.
Uploads