Scott A. Lukas

Lake Tahoe Community College

Stuff: ▪ Summer 2008 Classes ▪ Class Archives ▪ ANT/SOC Department  ▪ GenderAds Project  ▪ Free Videos  ▪ Faculty Resources  ▪ News Stories

▪ New Podcast on My Book ▪ Information on My New Book Theme Park

Information on this Page: ▪ Teaching ▪ Professional Participation ▪ Research  ▪ Community Projects  ▪ Personal Interests

Contact: Scott A. Lukas, Department Ant/Soc, Lake Tahoe College, One College Drive, South Lake Tahoe, CA, 96150, 530-541-4660 (ext. 316), scottlukas@yahoo.com

Welcome to the homepage of Dr. Scott A. Lukas (Chair, Anthropology & Sociology, Lake Tahoe Community College). I have taught at LTCC for over ten years and previously at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, IN, and at the Jewish Community Center in Houston, Texas. I received my Ph.D. in Anthropology from Rice University in 1998, an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Iowa (1993), and a B.A. in Anthropology (Certificate in African Studies) from Indiana University (1991), and I specialize on the issue of cultural remaking in its various forms—popular culture and theming, film remakes. This page features a number of my projects as well as information related to the Anthropology & Sociology at Lake Tahoe Community College. I was recently the recipient of a Nevada Arts Commission honorable mention for a forthcoming work on the Las Vegas Strip.

▪ Professional Participation: (scholarly) I have been fortunate to have participated in numerous professional seminars. Three of these have been NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) seminars, including one on American Cities at the Library of Congress (sponsored by the CCHA). This thirteen-month program included residence at the Library of Congress and participation in scholarly seminars focused on American public spaces, architecture, and the city. A second NEH seminar, "Terror and Culture: Revisiting Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism," focused on totalitarianism as a cultural-historical phenomenon and Arendt’s philosophical and political-theoretical description of it. A third, "Human Rights in Conflict: Interdisciplinary Perspectives," emphasized the complexities of defining human rights in numerous academic disciplines. My specific project focused on the possibility of human rights in a capitalist, consumer society. In 2007, I was selected for the Global Peace and Security in Community Colleges and the Communities They Serve seminar, sponsored by the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. Along with other community college faculty and administrators, I took place in an institute that focused on peacemaking techniques and methods of conflict resolution. (governance) I have served on over thirty local and statewide committees dealing with a range of issues. I was LTCC's Accreditation document editor and worked as grievance officer for the local faculty union. I served three terms as local academic senate president and a term each as vice president and secretary. I twice presented testimony on ACCJC Accreditation Standards at hearings in San Francisco, CA. I was a Representative At-Large for the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (2001-2002), chaired the statewide Disciplines List Revision process, and led over ten statewide workshops. In 2006 I was forwarded to the Governor Schwarzenegger's Office for nomination to the California Community College’s Board of Governors. (curricular) I have been involved in many seminars that focus on curricular issues, including Anthropology transfer and online education. I was the Lead Coordinator for the California Statewide IMPAC Project in Anthropology (2003-2005) and chaired the 2003, 2004 and 2005 revisions and modifications of statewide curriculum, and I helped develop new courses in Introduction to the Study of Language and Anthropological Linguistics; Biological/Physical Anthropology Laboratory; Magic, Witchcraft and Religion; Native Peoples of North America. The IMPAC project solidifies effective transfer of California Community College students to four-year institutions of higher learning. I was also the Community College Representative for the California State University Lower Division Transfer Initiative in 2005. (educational seminars) At LTCC, I led a number of pedagogical seminars, including, Student Retention; Faculty Publishing; Facilitating SLOs in the Humanities and Social Sciences; Developing Online Education; Developing Course Writing Assignments; Advanced FrontPage Seminar; Critical Thinking and the Classroom; Building a Course Website; Generation X and the Classroom; Multiculturalism and the Classroom; Writing Across the Curriculum; Schools that Learn; and Electronic Pedagogy: Experiences from a Course on Cyberculture. As part of my interest in online teaching, I was selected for the @ONE Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2005-2006) and looked at the development of reflexive methodology in the social sciences within the frame of online classes. I also published a professional monograph based on the research, available here. (conferences) I have presented papers at many national conferences, including the National Women’s Studies Association Conference; the California American Studies Association Annual Conference; the NISOD International Conference on Teaching and Leadership Excellence; the Assault: Radicalism in Aesthetics and Politics Conference; the First Annual Performance Studies Conference; the Region VI Society of Composers, Inc.; the European Studies Conference; and the American Anthropological Association meetings. As well, I organized three panels for the 1995, 1996, and 2007 meetings of the American Anthropological Association—"Anthropology and the Continuing Salience of Experimental Ethnography," "Rhetorical Interventions in Anthropology and the Human Sciences," and "The Themed Space: Reflections on Culture and Materiality." (grants) I was awarded a United Nations Small Grant to support the People Speak series at Lake Tahoe Community College and Staff Development Funding for professional technology presentations (Lake Tahoe Community College). I was granted a sabbatical leave at Lake Tahoe Community College in 2005. Most recently, I applied for a $125,000 grant to support pedagogical techniques on the Second Life metaverse.

▪ Research: (books) My research focuses on cultural remaking, popular culture and identity, architecture and lived spaces, and gender. I recently published The Themed Space: Locating Nation, Culture, and Self (Lexington Books, 2007). My second book will be out shortly; it is Theme Park, park of Reaktion Books' (London, 2008) series called Objekt. I am editing (with John Marmysz) the volume on film remakes, Fear, Cultural Anxiety and Transformation: Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films Remade (forthcoming, Lexington Books, 2008); the volume Recent Developments in Criminological Theory (co-edited with Stuart Henry) is forthcoming with Ashgate (2008). As well, I am one the editors of the future volume Strategies in Teaching Anthropology. (chapters in books) In both collections that I have edited and in others, I have written a number of academic chapters. These include: "Behind the Barrel: Reading the Cultural History of the Gun in Video Games", forthcoming in Joystick Soldiers: The Military/War Video Games Reader, Nina Huntemann and Matt Payne, eds. 2008; "Online Anthropology: Classroom Approaches and Resources for Teaching", in Strategies in Teaching Anthropology, 5th Edition, Patricia Rice and David McCurdy, ed. Prentice-Hall, 2008; "Teaching as a Form of Anthropology, Anthropology as a Form of Teaching", in The Joys of Teaching Anthropology, Patricia Rice, Conrad Kottak, and David McCurdy, ed. Prentice-Hall, 2007; "Horror Video Game Remakes as a Question of Medium: Remaking Doom, Silent Hill, and Resident Evil", forthcoming in Fear, Cultural Anxiety and Transformation: Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films Remade, Scott A. Lukas and John Marmysz, ed. Lexington Books, 2008; "Introduction: Fear, Cultural Anxiety, Transformation and the Film Remake", forthcoming in Fear, Cultural Anxiety and Transformation: Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films Remade, Scott A. Lukas and John Marmysz, ed. Lexington Books, 2008; "The Actors behind the Curtain: Representation of Women Faculty in Community College Institutional Decision-making", in Gendered Perspectives on Community Colleges, ed. Jaime Lester, Jossey-Bass, 2008; "The Themed Space: Locating Culture, Nature, and Self", "How the Theme Park Gets Its Power: Lived Theming, Social Control, and the Themed Worker Self", "Theming as a Sensory Phenomenon: Discovering the Senses on the Las Vegas Strip", "A Politics of Reverence and Irreverence: Social Discourse on Theming Controversies", all in The Themed Space: Locating Culture, Nature, and Self, Scott A. Lukas, ed., Lexington Books, 2007; "The Hummer as Cultural and Political Myth: A Multi-Sited Ethnographic Analysis", in The Hummer: Myths and Consumer Culture, Elaine Cardenas and Ellen Gorman, ed., 2007, Lexington Books, 115-134; "Teaching Taxonomy in Physical/Biological Anthropology Classes", in Strategies in Teaching Anthropology, 4th Edition, Patricia Rice and David McCurdy, ed. Prentice-Hall, 2006; “Criminal Justice,” “Criminological Theories” and “Gender Relations” entries, Routledge International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities, Michael Flood et al., ed., Routledge, 2007; "The Role of Women’s and Gender Studies in Advancing Gender Equity", and "Improving Gender Equity in Postsecondary Education", both in Handbook for Achieving Gender Equity through Education, Sue Klein, ed., Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers, 2007; "Applications of Augusto Boal’s Methods in the Anthropology Classroom: Power, Reflexivity, Critical Thinking", in Strategies in Teaching Anthropology, 3rd Edition, Patricia Rice and David McCurdy, ed. Prentice-Hall, 2004; "Teaching Cultural Anthropology through Popular Culture", in Strategies in Teaching Anthropology, 2nd Edition, Patricia Rice and David McCurdy, ed. Prentice-Hall, 2002; "An American Theme Park: Working and Riding Out Fear in the Late Twentieth Century", in Late Editions 6, Paranoia within Reason: A Casebook on Conspiracy as Explanation, George E. Marcus, editor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999, 405-428. (journal articles) As well, I have written a number of articles in various journals, including: "The Cinematic Theme Park", submitted for Velvet Light Trap; "The Theming of Everyday Life: Mapping the Self, Life Politics, and Cultural Hegemony on the Las Vegas Strip", forthcoming CCHA Review, 2007; "Fragments of Memories of the World Thinking Me", International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, Volume 3(2) (available here); "The Theme Park and the Figure of Death", “Death Narratives,” Special Issue of InterCulture, Volume 2, May 2005 (available here); "Big-London-Consumer-Death-Love-Machine: A Geographic Photo-Essay in Two Parts", in Sigla Magazine (Ireland); "NEVERMOREPRINT", In “Print,” Special Issue of M/C Journal, 8(2), January 2005 (available here) ; "A Space of Possession: Evocative Anthropology", POMO Magazine 1(1): 79-92; "Beyond Alphabets: An Interview with Stephen A. Tyler", POMO Magazine 2(1): 11-30. Additionally, I served as editor for POMO Magazine (San Francisco, CA, 1995-1997). (reviews) I completed the following reviews: "For Love and Religion: Review of Two Works in Sensory Branding", Forthcoming, The Senses & Society; "Baudrillard: A Critical Reader, edited by Douglas Kellner", POMO Magazine 1(2): 73-78, 1995.

▪ Community Projects: (civic) In South Lake Tahoe, California, I have been involved in a number of community projects, many related to my interests in popular culture, consumerism, and popular politics. I chaired the seminars, Civics, Civil Liberties, and You (The Lake Tahoe Democratic Club); The Patriot Act (Lake Tahoe); Understanding Iraq; The People Speak I, II, III debate series sponsored by the United Nations; Protecting our Environment and Our Economy; and Reflections on 9/11/01. For the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, I collected oral testimony following the 911 tragedy for the  9/11 Documentary Project. (multicultural) At Valparaiso University (1998), I was the Program Co-Chair for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Observance and also provided a number of multicultural seminars using the Theatre of the Oppressed Techniques of Augusto Boal. I was the Keynote Speaker and Performance Workshop Facilitator for the Culver Military Academy Multicultural Awareness Retreat (Culver, IN) in 1997. I have also led many other multicultural seminars, including Don Imus, Racism and the Media; Gender, Advertising and Multiculturalism; Feminism, Advertising and Gender Equity; Gay and Lesbian Marriage in the United States; Understanding Gender and Advertising; Beyond Hate; Skin Deep; Cultural Criticism and Transformation; Sexual Assault Awareness Training; and Challenging Norms in Your Residence Hall. (interviews) I have provided numerous radio, newspaper, and television interviews on many topics. I provided a television interview for KOLO-TV, Reno Daybreak dealing with architecture and casino theming; conducted radio interviews for 590 KHTO focusing on The Patriot Act and U.S. British relations; discussed the Yorkie candy bar with the Wall Street Journal; and gave numerous interviews for the Tahoe Daily Tribune. Additionally, I was interviewed for the upcoming documentary on religion, Exiztence (Roger Nygard, director). (advisory) From 2003-2004 I served as an Advisory Board Member for the organization Dads and Daughters and was responsible for working on a media and advertising effort for the organization. In 2004 I served as an advisor for PBS Frontline World, and focused on assisting PBS in promoting the ethnographic documentary series Frontline World. Along with executives from the series, I advised PBS on implementing the series in the classroom.

▪ Personal Interests: I began my college education as a music major, founded a contemporary music ensemble, wrote a rock opera called Und So Weiter, and have a history of performance in garage bands and performance art projects. A song that I wrote appeared on the CD USENET: Mind/Body (Atomic Novelities). I was once a trainer at a major American theme park, Six Flags AstroWorld, a fact that has helped me develop my research on theme parks and themed spaces.

Scott A. Lukas, Department Ant/Soc, Lake Tahoe College, One College Drive, South Lake Tahoe, CA, 96150, 530-541-4660 (ext. 316), scottlukas@yahoo.com