Center Administration
Michael Gately is Assistant Director of the Center for American Studies. He studied philosophy and politics at Princeton University and has taught history and English at the Collegiate School and Regis High School. He has worked as an editor and researcher, as writer-in-residence at a law firm, and he was a nonfiction fellow of The Writers' Institute at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. For five years he administered the Leon Levy Center for Biography there as Program Director, and he is now Executive Director of BIO, the international organization of biographers. He is also writing a book about Woodrow Wilson and cycling in the 1890s. Before joining the Center for American Studies, Michael worked as Assistant Director of the Narrative Medicine M.S. program at Columbia University.
Interests and Research
Hilary Hallett is a historian of modern American cultural and social history. Her areas of specialization include women and gender history; histories of popular and mass culture in transatlantic perspective; and histories of American culture industries, particularly theater, music, film, and Hollywood's history. She is interested in mass media’s relationship to social change, and to the big stories they tell about America and Americans over time. She has worked as an historical consultant for both documentaries and narrative features and television, including most recently a forthcoming mini-series about actress, Hedy Lamarr.
Go West, Young Women: The Rise of Early Hollywood (2013) https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520274099/go-west-young-women explores how early Hollywood became a symbol of the new professional opportunities and sexual freedoms seized by some young women in the early decades of the twentieth century.
Her second book, Inventing the It Girl: Life & Times of Elinor Glyn is due out with Liveright-Norton (June 2022). This unconventional biography explores the influence of the British socialite, founder of the modern 'sex novel' (and author of more than 30 books), and early Hollywood's resident philosopher of love on mass culture.
Education
Ph.D. — CUNY Graduate Center, 2005
B.F.A. — Tisch School of the Arts, NYUAwards
- Fellow, Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, New York Public Library, 2016-17
- Jensen-Miller Prize, for “Based on a True Story,” Western History Association, 2012
- Historical Society of Southern California/ Haynes Foundation Fellowship, 2007
- Fellow, Center for the Analysis of Culture, Rutgers University, 2004-2005
- E. P. Thompson Dissertation Fellowship, CUNY Graduate Center, 2002-2003
Affiliations
- Organization of American Historians
- Society of Cinema and Media Studies
- Women & the Silent Screen
Publications
Books
Go West, Young Women! The Rise of Early Hollywood (University of California Press, 2013).
Inventing the It Girl: Life & Times of Elinor Glyn (Liveright-Norton, June 2022).
Articles
“A Mother to the Modern Girl: Elinor Glyn and Three Weeks,” Journal of Women’s History (Aug. 2018).
“Based on a True Story: New Western Women and the Birth of Hollywood,” Pacific Historical Review (May 2012): 177 – 210.
“Women’s Migration, Early Hollywood, and the Making of Los Angeles,” in Actes de l’histoire de l’immigration, Image et representations du genre en migration, Numero special, vol. 7 (2007): 91 – 104.
Reporting to the Director and Assistant Director, Arelis Herrera provides administrative and clerical support to the Center for American Studies. Arelis acts as the point of contact for the academic department, communicating with individuals at all levels, including students, faculty, scholars, visitors, and the general public and refers non-routine inquiries to appropriate staff or faculty.
Arelis joined the Center for American Studies in January 2022, having previously held the role of accounts payable in the Business Office of the Law School in Columbia. Before coming to Columbia, she worked as an online ESL tutor for international students. Arelis received a bachelor’s degree in Art & Graphic Design from the City College of New York. Although she gets to use her creativity and skills everywhere she goes, Arelis has always worked closely with higher education sector and loves interacting with students.