Jen Atkins
Professor
School of Dance
Jen Atkins (she/hers) teaches from an American Studies perspective, fusing dance history with American history and culture, artistic contexts, and popular culture. Jen’s classes examine persistent historical and aesthetic debates through the lens of human motion to critically analyze identity, systems of power, and how the past converses with the present. Students’ experiences, ideas, and expertise enhance this collaborative endeavor, which asks questions such as: “How do we move through the world and what does that mean?” “What do our everyday movements say about us, our values, and our capacity for change?” And importantly, “How can dance teach us about the kind of world we want to create, and the kind of world we are already making?” Outside of the classroom, Jen works closely with PoP Moves: An International Research Group for Popular Dance and Performance and also with the Popular Culture Association (as a Board member and as co-chair of the Dance & Culture Area). Jen’s first book, Carnival Balls in New Orleans: The Secret Side of Mardi Gras, 1870-1920 (LSU Press, 2017) earned the Jules and Frances Landry Award for most outstanding achievement in the field of southern studies. Her fourth book, the collection, Dance in US Popular Culture (Routledge, 2023), earned the John G. Cawelti Award, which is given annually by the Popular Culture Association to recognize important scholarly texts that advance the study of popular and American culture. Jen’s research focuses on dance in US popular culture, as well as pedagogical innovations. Jen spent a year fusing these two elements through her experience in Norway as a Fulbright Roving Scholar in American Studies (2022-23). While in Norway, she travelled the country sharing workshops that she developed collaboratively with remarkable FSU student colleagues.
Contact and Files
Education
BA in Dance and English, Huntingdon College (AL)
MA in American Dance Studies, FSU
PhD in History, FSU
Teaching Areas
Dance History, GFS.
Research Areas
American Dance, Dance in Popular Culture, Dance History Pedagogy
Areas of Responsibility
Undergraduate & Graduate Teaching
American Dance Studies Advisor
Select Scholarly Works & Awards
Dance in US Popular Culture (Routledge, 2023)
Fulbright Roving Scholar in American Studies (Norway), 2022-23
Perspectives on American Dance: The Twentieth Century (University Press of FL, 2018), Co-Edited with Sally Sommer and Tricia Young
Perspectives on American Dance: The New Millennium (University Press of FL, 2018), Co-Edited with Sally Sommer and Tricia Young
Additional Publications & Awards
John G. Cawelti Award, Popular Culture Association, 2024
Short-Term Visiting Fellow, Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research (Texas A&M University), 2024
“The New Normal: Activist Handmaids and Cosplay Choreographies in Trump’s America,” in the European Journal of American Culture 41 (June 2022): 187-208.
Collaborative Conversation with Millicent Johnnie, “Finding New Orleans in Zululand,” in Southern Cultures 25:4 Here/Away (Winter 2019) https://www.southerncultures.org/article/finding-new-orleans-in-zululand/
“From the Bamboula to the Baby Dolls: Improvisation, Agency, and African-American Dancing in New Orleans,” in Walking Raddy: The Baby Dolls of New Orleans, edited by Kim Vaz-Deville (University Press of Mississippi, 2018).
Jules and Frances Landry Award, LSU Press, 2018
Review of New Orleans Carnival Krewes: The History Spirit and Secrets of Mardi Gras. By Rosary O’Neill. (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2014) in Louisiana History, Spring 2016, 231-233.
“‘Using the Bow and the Smile’: New Orleans Mardi Gras Balls, Grand Marches, and Krewe Court Femininity, 1870-1920,” Louisiana History 54:1 (2013): 5-46.
“Class Acts and Daredevils: Black Masculinity in Jazz Funeral Dancing,” Journal of American Culture 35:2 (2012): 166-180.
“Issues of Integration in European and Spanish Dance Curricula and in American Dance Curricula,” The International Journal of Learning 16:8 (2009): 405-420. Co-authored with Tricia Young, N. M. Mestre, C. G. Morte, & P. Torres.
“La Meri,” in Susan Ware (Ed.), Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, Completing the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), 363-364. Co-authored with D. Milovanovic.
University Undergraduate Teaching Award, 2012-2013