History

Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in American Studies, University of Sussex
Doctor of Philosophy in History, American University, Washington

Teaching and research concentrations: North America: U.S. 20th-Century Cultural History; Urban History; Sound Studies

Dr. Art Blake specializes in U.S. 20th-century urban and cultural history and sound studies. His first book, How New York Became American, 1890-1924 (2006) examined the place of New York City in the American national imagination in the first two decades of the 20th century and the role of the tourist industry in remaking the city’s image. Dr. Blake currently is working on a second book project, Audible City, focused on the cultural politics of sound in New York and Los Angeles after 1945. Recent publications related to this project include “An Audible Sense of Order: Race, Fear, and CB Radio on Los Angeles Freeways in the 1970s,” in Sound in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, eds. D. Suisman and S. Strasser (2009). His research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the Smithsonian Institution, Harvard University, the Library of Congress, and most recently by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). He holds a SSHRC Standard Research Grant for his Audible City project. Dr. Blake teaches courses in U.S. history and in interdisciplinary humanities (for the Arts and Contemporary Studies program), and is a member of the Graduate Faculty. He also supervises graduate students in the joint Ryerson University-York University Communication and Culture MA and PhD program.