Address
Office: University Hall 411
Cal State University, Fullerton
American Studies
800 N. State College Blvd.
UH-313
Fullerton, CA. 92831
Sara Fingal, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of American Studies
Bio / Description
North American Borderlands; Environmental History; California Culture; Science and American Culture
Degrees
PhD, Brown University
MA, Brown University
BA, Scripps College
Research Areas
Courses Regularly Taught
AMST350: Theories and Methods
AMST395: California Cultures
AMST401T: Proseminar in American Studies
AMST404: Americans and Nature
AMST449: The West in Symbol and Myth
Book:
A Right to the Beach: Battles for California’s Coast and Making Postwar Environmentalism (book manuscript under advanced contract with the University of Washington Weyerhauser Environmental Books Series)
Articles, Peer Reviewed:
“Latinx Environmentalism.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. Oxford University Press. Article published January 2019: 1-20.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.421.
“Your House es Mi Casa: American Homebuyers in the Baja California Borderlands, 1964-1989,” Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 49, Issue 1, Spring 2018: 17–41.
Essays and Chapters:
“Paraíso ‘for Sale”: Visions of Baja California in the Modern California Empire,” California History, Vol. 91, Number 2, Summer 2014: 74-75.
“Designing Conservation at the Sea Ranch,” Environmental History, Vol. 18, Issue 1, January 2013: 185-190.
Book Reviews:
Review of Coastal Sage: Peter Douglas and the Fight to Save California’s Shore. By Thomas J. Osborne. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017, 227 pp., $34.95 paper).Reviewed by Sara Fingal. Southern California Quarterly Vol. 100, No. 3, Fall 2018: 375- 377.
Reports or studies:
“Water Heritage Project Multigenerational Conversations Analysis Report,” Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, September 21, 2016. Co-authored with Christian Kelly Scott, MS, Joseph A. Hamm, PhD, MLS, Bruno Takahashi, PhD, and Adam Zwickle, PhD
Recent Presentations/Lectures:
2021 “A Modern Leisure Empire: American Homebuilding in Mexico,” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Virtual Conference, April 15-18
2019 “History Everywhere: Material Objects in the Classroom,” Pacific Branch of the American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, NV, August 1-3
2018 "Community Leadership Through Coastal Environmental Education," Environmental Justice, Race, and Public Lands: A Symposium, University of Oregon, May 9-11
2018 "Removing the “Best American Beach”: Environmental Privilege on the Los Angeles Waterfront," American Society for Environmental History Conference, March 14-18
2018 "Alternative Histories of Southern California," Humanities and Social Sciences Lecture Series, CSUF, February 13
2017 "'Save the Beach for Me': Environmental Education and the Fight for Coastal Access, 1949-1987," American
Studies Association Annual Meeting, November 9-12
2017 "Water Pedagogy Across Disciplines: Can we analyze tap water as a historical object?," International Water
History Association Conference, June 14-17
2017 "Women, Water Resource Management, and the Environmental Movement in Southern California," Berkshire
Conference of Women Historians Conference, June 1-4
2017 Chair and Commentator on Panel: "Between the Wall and the Bridge: Comparing North American Border Environments,"
Association for Borderland Studies, April 12 - April 15
2017 "Latinos and Environmentalism, " Pushing the Boundaries of Environmental History, American Environmental
History Association Conference, March 29 - April 2
Office Hours
Tuesday/Thursday:
9:10am-10:10am AND 4:00-4:30pm
Available on Zoom or In-Person (GH-411)
Please send an e-mail to sfingal@fullerton.edu if you would like a Zoom link.
Current Course Schedule
AMST395: California Cultures
AMST401T: American Studies Proseminar
