Editorial
The cover of this issue, featuring Old Blue Eyes, seems singly appropriate, now that the I Did It My Way moment has arrived. It is not without nostalgia that I edit my final issue of American Studies in Britain. This issue includes two pieces on the internationalization of American Studies, first a report by BAAS President Philip Davies on the recent Bellagio meeting at which the International American Studies Association was created, and second a meditation/provocation by my colleague John Coyle on multiculturalism and transnationalism in American Studies. This issue also offers an expanded postgraduate section, thanks to the excellent work of the BAAS postgraduate representative, Marie-Celeste Bernier, as well as the usual book reviews, news from American Studies Centers, and so forth.
For the past three years, the editorship of American Studies in Britain has allowed me to keep a finger on the pulse of our discipline, and has enabled me to get to know many of you, some in person, others in cyberspace. Definitely, the job has had its moments; I remember with particular vividness the occasion when the contents of an entire issue were devoured by a computer virus, only to be recovered by a local IT whiz, to whom I shall be eternally grateful. More recently, as the present issue was being prepared, the University server was undergoing problems, with emails vanishing right and left, which has given me cause for endless paranoia about missing items. If this is the case with any of you, my apologies to those concerned. These difficulties notwithstanding, it’s been a great three years, in which I have discovered the generosity and warmth of the American Studies subject community. Particular thanks are due to the members of the BAAS Executive, for their helpful suggestions and contributions; to the BAAS postgrads, for their valuable input; to two successive Deans of the Arts Faculty at Glasgow University, Professors John Caughie and Mark Ward, for their support of ASIB; to my fellow Glaswegian Americanists Simon Newman, Marina Moskowitz, Andrew Hook, Nick Selby and John Coyle for their collegiality and friendship. Most of all, however, thanks are due to my wonderful Editorial Assistants Marie Tate and Sean Groundwater for their generosity of spirit, graphic flair and IT know-how. American Studies in Britain in its present form could never have come into being without their help. Many, many thanks!
And now, the end is near… I am delighted to hand over American Studies in Britain to the our new Editor, Dick Ellis. All articles, announcements, review copies, and so forth for the Spring issue, should be sent to him either by email (r.j.ellis@ntu.ac.uk) or regular mail: Dr. Dick Ellis, Department of English and Media Studies, Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Lane, Nottingham NG11 8NS. I know that Dick will do an outstanding job, and I could not be leaving ASIB in more competent hands.
In conclusion, my thanks once again to all of you, and my warmest wishes to you and your families for the upcoming holiday season.
Susan Castillo
Forum: Hyphenating American Studies
The vice-dean of a major British university once correctly identified me as not an Americanist but a comparatist. He picked his terms, if not his moment, well. (The occasion was a job interview.)
I was reminded of this by Richard Ellis’s projects for a ‘not-BAAS’[1] an intervention which echoes Janice Radway’s 1998 Presidential Address to the American Studies Association[2] in opening up a speculative discussion of the names of bodies of Americanists in order to resist the ‘imperial’ gestures inherent in the presentation of a coherent national identity. Both Ellis and Radway notice, correctly, that concepts of ‘The American’ are always relationally defined and urge Americanists towards a practice of the field which is linguistically polyglot and methodologically comparatist in orientation; this in keeping with the recognition that the culture of the United States is in fact multicultural and irreducibly fissured in its identities. For all that this gives occasion for celebrating difference and a further opening out of the canon, however the rhetorical teleology of Radway’s address must still offer a sense of the ‘American’ as banner and umbrella.
Politically one sees efforts to contain this multiculturalism in the handling and representation of the Elian Gonzalez affair, where the actions of a group of Cuban Americans were, for the moment, in violent opposition to official American policy. One side issue of this was the identification of ‘hyphenated Americans’ as a type of enemy within, in so far as their atavistic allegiances run counter to their sense of civic loyalty. Beyond this, of course, lies the troubling recognition that all Americans are hyphenated, even the WASPs. There are, we are reminded, no Americans per se, only Italian-Americans, African-Americans, Irish-Americans and so on (while of course, such being the way of things, WASPs get more than their fair share of hyphens, and Native Americans would appear to have lost theirs.) The most talismanic sportsman of his generation Tiger Woods, the cat in the WASPs’ nest, has more hyphens in his self-description than would be par for the course. At the same time Pat Buchanan’s campaign manifesto on “The Education of America’s Children” undertakes to “Reject ‘multicultural’ curricula that denigrate our history and teach our children to identify themselves as hyphenated Americans and members of ethnic subclasses rather than citizens of one nation under God.”[3] ( And we can be sure that if English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for Pat.)
The above is, of course, just the sort of snide, supercilious remark one might expect from an effete Brit, denizen of a dark and Godless place. I would like to argue, however, that a place should be kept on the curriculum to entertain prejudice, misunderstanding, suspicion, insult and scorn. Gerald Graff argues convincingly in his Beyond the Culture Wars,[4] that out of the exhausting battles around the canon, multiculturalism and cultural studies fruitful debate and, most importantly, a renewed sense of the relevance of literature can emerge. Graff cites both his own series of conversions and the helpfulness in classtime of this sense of relevant debate.
Both Radway’s presidential address and Clinton’s presidential actions enact, on different planes, cultural tensions which used to be matters of foreign policy but which have now been internalised. This phenomenon of the internalisation of difference has, I believe, some ramifications for British and European students and teachers engaged in the study of the United States.
Baldly put, the problem is this: while American Studies, and indeed America itself, are now to be understood as cohering more in a chain of differences than in an attempt towards unity, the problem within a British pedagogical context is that the study of American literature in particular arrives already nested within another system of differences; of various Englishes and approaches to English which are themselves engaged (as we all tend to write wishfully) in productive and non-hierarchical dialogue. American studies programmes are more often than not located within departments of English which are themselves fissile, tending both to devolve into more localised cultural formations and to encourage broader definitions/consider a wider and less elitist range of cultural productions generally. With America, then, becoming more hyphenated and English becoming, in some institutions at least, regarded as just one branch of Cultural Studies, and indeed one with its own history of embarrassing omissions and occlusions, one is faced not only with the emancipatory pleasures associated with the act of opening out, but also with the concomitant dangers of decentring, leading to what one might call shoppers’ panic or the panic of the hypertextual. With the best will in the world, it is difficult to keep up with the shifting grounds of positionality which are involved here. American Studies are, as we all know, themselves marginal within the discipline of English as taught and practised within British universities, and the history of American literature and culture has had to take its place, often undiscussed and untheorised, within a revision of the English canon more attendant (and again quite properly and understandably so) on the ramifications for ‘Britishness’ and ‘Englishness’ of our own postcolonial condition. The constitution of courses studying the United States and its productions is accordingly taken too much for granted among those not directly working in the field, so that there is a sense of reluctance to rake over old ground, to engage in supposedly outmoded debates. Over Anglo-American issues a polite and diplomatic silence is maintained, for all that some of the most crucial issues of our time involve the lazy equation of global consumer capitalism with ‘Americanisation’, for all that ‘English’ must inevitably end up on the Pepsi side in the linguistic cola wars, for all that Hugh Kenner is able to say, in A Sinking Island, that ‘The mother-country of ‘English’ [has] become the headquarters forarticulate Philistia’[5] , and for all that the proposed defections of Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie to the United States can still elicit howls of disapprobation among British journalists.
In his introduction to American Fiction Since 1940[6] Tony Hilfer is surely right to identify one of the major cultural patterns in America in the last 60 years as being ‘the play between the margins and the unstable centre’, but a question often left unaddressed is how the further hyphenation of British American studies fits into this pattern of negotiation with the Other. Within the American academy, this is not a matter of primary attention, and for good reason; as I have spelled out, there are sufficient internal differences within the field to render any turning of the eye eastward superfluous, but beyond this there are three overriding reasons why discussions of whither American Studies should tend to ignore a European dimension. The first is the legacy of a long-fought war of cultural independence which sought to liberate American literature from definitions of its being parasitic on or tributary to the hegemonic ‘English Literature’ – to resuscitate such a dialogue, it may be felt, would be to pay lip service to an outmoded set of prejudices. The second is a consequence of another culture war, that which saw the marshalling of a whole generation of American intellectuals into a defence of Western values against the Soviet threat. The discovery of the blatancy of these efforts, from the Encounter scandals of the 1960s to Frances Stonor Saunders’ chronicle of the cultural Cold Wars[7] , to an often facile shorthand which equates the new criticism, say, or abstract Expressionism, reductively and exclusively with American Imperialism, leads to a residual embarrassment at addressing the matter of Anglo-American cultural relations. On the one side, British and Europeans are reluctant to be fooled again, on the other, a debacle in the field of foreign policy often leads to a renewed and isolationist attention to domestic issues. What is to be feared and avoided on both accounts is another multi-hyphenated phenomenon, that of knee-jerk anti-Americanism. Third, a hard-fought resistance to ‘Eurocentrism’ leads to a deferral of discussion of the European aspect, even if such discussion were to be proposed from the margins. The ‘Euro-‘ is thrown out with the ‘-centric’ in the demonisation of DWEMs.
One reason for this avoidance is a (quite proper) shame at entertaining prejudice, even by way of analysis. Prejudice, being ignorance on horseback, is something which the intellectual should rightly regard as infra dig. Yet a fully aware and differential account of literary and cultural relations between Britain and the US should not ignore the history of prejudices, and one’s experience of teaching American Literature to British undergraduates shows many such prejudices to remain beneath the surface, unquestioned and therefore intact. The following is of course a standard moan for teachers of literature, but one is especially struck by a reluctance to contextualise American texts, either out of ignorance or out of timidity. This might be remedied by a reading of Russell Reising’s The Unusable Past[8] which warns against narratives of the individualist and the Adamic and might put paid to dreary readings of Willy Loman and Gatsby as lone strugglers for the American Dream.
Another, more complex phenomenon is the unearned identification with victimhood which blights and simplifies readings of texts from the margins. It is all too easy to read Toni Morrison, or Maya Angelou, or Rita Dove in terms of a critique of white American values which has as much to do with European fear than with an informed local knowledge of African-American history. For all that one is delighted to foster an interest in alternative versions of American literature, one occasionally suspects a hypostasis of resentment against official, white Americanism, against racism or uniculturalism. To say that there exists today a glamour of the marginal is not to accede to reactionary polemic about ‘political correctness’ but to acknowledge that a powerful current of resentment of Empire drives audiences to become constituencies of interest. It seeks in the history and spectacle of American history’s occlusions an answer to its own doubts about being forgotten. To put the story another way, the internalised doubts of the most powerful nation on earth provide a model of resistance to Empire. In such readings the buck stops with America and with Dumb Americans. Again one sees here the hypostasis of residual fears of the cultural Other, and the spectacle of identification without engagement, which sees racism, say, or rampant capitalism as generally American phenomena with no relevant local or European counterparts.
All this explains why it is important to encourage a comparatist dimension, according to which, as George McKay rightly proposes, the workings of American cultural power on a global scale are open to exploration and analysis, and in which the dialogue between the United States and Europe remains a live issue. (This is of course supplementary to American studies, or whatever we choose to call it, still being engaged in as a discrete national discipline.)
As Malcolm Bradbury has pointed out in his Dangerous Pilgrimages[9] , the parallel study of American and European Literature shows how America has always presented itself as a speculative fiction to Europeans, and this continues to the present day ruminations of Baudrillard, Derrida and Eco of America as, respectively, simulacrum, deconstruction and hyperreality. Bradbury also shows that the traffic is two-way, with America having consistently fashioned its own self-identity on fictions of Europe. The study of American Literature can only gain by exploiting an awareness of cross-cultural positioning such as is found in Andrew Hook’s exploration, in From Goosecreek to Ganderscleugh[10] , of the Braveheart myth and its sinister reworkings of a fantasy of Scotland within certain constituencies of the United States. Hook’s successful hyphenation of Scottish-American studies offers a model for those of us who are willing to read Brigadoon as a document of Social Realism, and who are trained to see in perceptions of Otherness an important cultural truth. Brigadoon may be a kitsch working out of an American nostalgia for the pre-urban, the pre-industrial, but one might equally have some hard words to say of, say, Wenders’ Paris, Texas or, even and maybe especially, Baudrillard’s America.
Americanists ought not to be afraid to address incompatibilities of viewpoint, cultural discontinuities, unquestioned prejudices about cultural attitude or intent. Of course there is another reluctance, another diplomacy to be engaged in when writing about and working around a culture at once one’s own and foreign, and this is to do with the embarrassment one feels at being regarded as an official representative of something of which one feels representatively unrepresentative. When I have taught in Eastern and Central Europe on behalf of, at the behest of, all right, using the money of, the British Council, I have been uncomfortably reminded that, as a Glaswegian-Irish Scot, I could not provide the representative truths of what it means to be British that were demanded of me. My own marginality would manifest itself, not, I hope, in ignorance of contesting definitions of Britishness, nor ( I hope even more) in the oppositional espousal of my own special set of differences, but rather in a refusal, learnt from bad example, to Whitmanise. A refusal, in other words, to indulge in this kind of stuff:
The Great Pizza
(I swear that I am not making this up, although I will spare for the moment the name and the occasion)
‘Pizza is a borrowing from Italy and is fabulously successful in America. Its base is a crust something like pita bread, thin and crunchy or thick and chewy, as you prefer, topped with tomato sauce, generously sprinkled with a variety of cheeses and all manner of vegetables, spice (especially oregano), sausages and bits of fish and meat. All this is popped into an oven and baked until it mixes and the cheese has melted, then sliced and eaten with the fingers. Traditionally it is accompanied by a glass or two of beer. I first encountered it in St Louis in the company of my wife and Chianti.’
(Would that this were all, but the author continues:)
‘I trust no one would dispute the notion that Americans have plenty of crust. The profusion of different cultures that have conributed to our toppings havelent all manner of richnesses to our poetry. True, just as in the extremer cases of pizza – say where the cook has left bones in the fish or stems on the peppers – you may face the occasional need to spit or strain to swallow. Part of Whitman’s legacy is his inclusiveness. Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, Poe and others adapted the traditional crust of English prosody to their uses; Whitman insisted that we have not only the opportunity to top it as we wish but, indeed, own such a responsibility. Whitman truly opened the door and windows to America’s pizza house of poetry. Include the body, he said. Let in at least some of the words used by common people, the body democratic: glory in their familiar strangeness. They are the stuff of poetry.’
They are also the stuff of adcult, the representative cultural form of the American Century, the stuffed cheesy crust of a discourse which desercves better than to be stigmatised as typically American, which should rather be seen as the spectacle of European horrors of mercantilism reflected back on itself. I remain interested in the way in which American writers negotiate this kin of cultural mirroring, especially when the mirrors are distorting ones. Of course the European Theme as explored by Henry James is an old on, but James’s sense, particularly in The Ambassadors, of necessary diplomacies and representations, of interdependent influences and of the available roles of the ambassador, the tourist, the émigré, the spy and the huckster remain more than ever pertinent. Of more contemporary writers, Don DeLillo seems to have the best idea of America’s real and perceived, real because thus perceived, function in the world. He, like James, has no time for the faux-innocence of culinary metaphor:“America is the world’s living myth. There’s no sense of wrong when you kill an American or blame America for some local disaster. This is our function, to be character types, to embody recurring themes that people can use to comfort themselves, justify themselves and so on. We’are here to accommmodate. Whatever people need, we provide. A myth is a useful thing. People expect us to absorb the impact of their grievances. Interesting, when I talk to a Mideastern businessman who expresses affection and respect for the U.S., I automatically assume he’s either a fool or a liar. The sense of grievance affects all of us, one way or another.[11]
And two hundred pages later in the same novel.
‘If America is the world’s living myth, then the CIA is America’s myth’[12]
For DeLillo as for James, it seems, there are two ways of being in this world. Either one is a tourist or one is an ambassador Hence the stupendous knowingness of DeLillo’s male protagonists, wordly-wise, disciplined in a state of constant readiness, on the qui vive; alert as if to danger. Hence also the characteristic dialogues, impossibly poised and articulate; not the tough guy masking his inner wound but tougher than that, inscrutably observant like a poker player, an agent, a player of the system of differences.
While my invocation of terms like difference, discourse and Derrida might have some distinguished scholars leaning on their shift keys in despair, an attention to the prejudices, and more importantly the conditions productive of such prejudice within our own context, seem to me to be necessary both in terms of politics and (AND!) of Realpolitik.
John Coyle
University of Glasgow
[1] In ‘ American Studies at the Millennium-Some Thoughts’, American Studies in Britain, Autumn/Winter 1999, p. 7.
[2] ‘What’s in a Name’ , American Quarterly, March 1999, pp. 1-32.
[3] This can be found at http://www.gopatgo.org
[4] Gerald Graff, Beyond the Culture wars :How Teaching the Conflicts can Revitalize American Education, New York, N.Y. ; London : Norton, 1992.
[5] Hugh Kenner, A Sinking Island: The Modern English Writers, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, p.6.
[6] Tony Hilfer, American Fiction Since 1940, London: Longman, 1992, p.5.
[7] Francis Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, London: Granta Books, 1999.
[8] Russell J. Reising, The Unusable Past: Theory and the Study of American Literature, London: Methuen 1986
[9] Malcolm Bradbury, Dangerous Pilgrimages : Trans-Atlantic Mythologies and the Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, 1995
[10] Andrew Hook, ‘The South, Scotland and William Faulkner’ in From Goosecreek to Ganderscleugh: Studies in Scottish-American Literary and Cultural History, East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1999, pp.193-212.
[11] Don DeLillo, The Names, London: Picador, 1987, p.114.
[12] Ibid., p.317.
BAAS AGM, Keele 2001
The Annual General Meeting of the British Association for American Studies will be held on Sunday 8th April 2001 at Keele University.
Agenda:
- Elections: Chair, 3 committee members, any other offices that fall vacant before the AGM
- Treasurer’s Report
- Chair’s Report
- Amendments to the Constitution
- Annual Conferences 2002-2004
- Report of the Publications Sub-Committee
- Report of the Developoment Sub-Committee
- Report of the Libraries and Resources Sub-Committee
- Report of the Representative to EAAS
- Any other business
Members are reminded that the Treasurer may come to the AGM to propose a change in subscription rates for calendar year 2002.
At the 2001 AGM elections will be held for three positions on the Committee (three year term), for the Chair of the Association (three year term), and for any other offices that fall vacant before the AGM. Current incumbents of these positions may stand for re-election if not disbarred by the Constitution’s limits on length of continuous service in Committee posts.
The procedure for nomination is as follows. Nominations should reach the Secretary, Jenel Virden, by 12:00 noon on Sunday 8th April. Nominations should be in written form, signed by a proposer, seconder, and the candidate, who should state willingness to serve if elected. The institutional affiliations of the candidate, proposer and seconder should be included. All candidates for office will be asked to provide a brief statement outlining their educational backgrounds, areas of teaching and/or research interests and vision of the role of BAAS in the upcoming years. These need to be to the Secretary at the time of nomination so they can be posted and available for the membership to read before the AGM.
An amendment to the consitution will also be proposed at this AGM. Section 7(a) of the constitution to be amended to read:
In addition to the 3 elected officers, the committee shall select a member of the executive as Vice-Chair, who shall aid the Chair in the performance of his/her duties.
Dr Jenel Virden
Head of Department
American Studies
University of Hull
Hull HU6 7RX
UNITED KINGDOM
01482-465303 (fax or phone)
J.Virden@amstuds.hull.ac.uk
The Conference Scene
EAAS in Bordeaux March 22-25, 2002 – “The United States of / in Europe: Nationhood, Citizenship, Culture”
EAAS in Bordeaux in 2002: Call for Proposals for Parallel Lectures and Workshop Sessions
The theme of the 2002 EAAS conference, to be held in Bordeaux, March 22-25, is “The United States of / in Europe: Nationhood, Citizenship, Culture”. The theme of the conference offers opportunities for a multi- and inter-disciplinary investigation of the American experience from a European perspective, at a time when a new Europe is being constructed.
Workshops, scholarly presentations and debates are expected to be largely informed by comparative analysis and assessment of American and European social, political and cultural life of the past and of the present. Ideas, concepts, notions and processes to be considered may range widely and can include: development of nationhood and citizenship; individualism and communities; plurality and pluralism; federalism and federalization; the means, ways, and products of democratization; spirituality and religions; building a civil society; continental exchange of thought and ideologies; mobility and regional transformations; issues of justice and security; consumerism and commodification of life; impact of the media and of advertising; the role of education, research and technology; cultural literacy; the place and status of the acts and of literature, concepts of historiography, etc.
The general discussion and the shoptalks at the conference should help understand and define the specificities of European American Studies and contribute to the recognition of their relevance as an educational program and a field of research in academic communities and institutions throughout our continent.
At the same time, chances for international exchange should be actively looked for a fertile space for professional cooperation both within and beyond Europe should be created.
Please send your proposal for a parallel / dialogue lecture to the EAAS President, Josef Jarab, by January 31, 2001, with a copy to the UK EAAS delegate, Mick Gidley, School of English, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT.
Emails: jarab@ffnw.upol.cz / g.m.gidley@leeds.ac.uk
Faxes:+420-68-563-3111 / 0113-233-4774
Proposals for workshop sessions (and their organizers) should be submitted to the EAAS Secretary, Walter Hoelbling, by January 31, 2001, with copies to the UK EAAS delegate, Mick Gidley (details above).
Email: walter.hoelbling@kfunigraz.ac.at
Fax: +43-316-380-9768
The Association of Research in Popular Fictions and the Science Fiction Foundation, University of Reading, 7-9 April 2001 – ‘Television and the Fantastic’
Television and the Fantastic: to be held at the University of Reading, England, 7-9 April 2001. The Association of Research in Popular Fictions and the Science Fiction Foundation are calling for papers on all aspects of television and the fantastic. Papers are welcomed on specific programmes, on themes or on the technological issues faced by fantastical television, in addition to considerations of globalization and culturally specific television fantasy. Abstracts should be sent to Dr. Farah Mendlesohn, Middlesex University, White Hart Lane, London N17 8HR, UK or e mailed to Farah3@mdx.ac.uk by 1 December 2000.
The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, 23 May, 2001 – ‘Lord Lothianís Moment: The Anglo-American Establishment and the Saving of Britain, 1939-1941’
This colloquium will be held at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, on Wednesday, 23 May, 2001. It is designed to take advantage of the presence in Edinburgh of Dr Priscilla Roberts. Dr Roberts is Director of the Centre of American Studies at the University of Hong Kong, and was in 1997 the winner of the Arthur Miller/BAAS Prize for the best article in American studies, “The Anglo-American Theme.” In May-June 2001, Dr Roberts will hold a Universitas 21 Fellowship in the Department of History in Edinburgh. Her project will be “Lord Lothian and the Atlantic World” and her broader research Programme has to do with the links between the British and American foreign-policy establishments, and with the connections between Atlanticism and The European Idea.
It is hoped that, in conjunction with the colloquium, the National Archives of Scotland in harness with SASA will host an induction session at which postgraduates and other scholars will learn about the Lothian archive, the Lothian website and about other NAS Americanist holdings.
To register your interest and obtain further details when they are ready, please send a note of your name, Email address and further particulars to:
E-Mail: Jeffreys-Jones.Rhodri@ed.ac.uk
Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones
Professor of American History
Department of History
University of Edinburgh
William Robertson Building
50 George Square
Edinburgh EH8 9JY
SCOTLAND, U.K.
Office +44 131 650 3773 (sec.: 3780)
Fax: +44 131 650 3784
The Internationalization of American Studies
Werner Sollors (Harvard University http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~amciv)
Insiders and Outsiders in the domain of knowledge, unite. You have nothing to lose but your claims.
You have a world of understanding to win.—Robert K. Merton, “Insiders and Outsiders: A Chapter in the Sociology of Knowledge” (1972)
The formal scholarly organization of American Studies is about half a century old. Its beginnings are thus at about the same distance in time from us as is the subject of a good historical novel. So far, there have been two distinct chapters in American Studies—the Cold War and the age of Multiculturalism. A third chapter has been in the making for some time now; for what both chapters one and two had in common was a predominantly national organization of the field, with the American Studies Association of the USA (ASA) at the center. Only in Europe was an international association created, but this European Association for American Studies (EAAS) was limited to European member associations and individuals. There are many scholars—both outside of and within the United States—who have made the case for internationalizing the field.
In the past decade, a part of this discussion has been the call for founding an international association for the field of American Studies that would complement the work of the ASA International Committee and of many national associations, follow the example of the Organization of American Historians (OAH), and create a new post-Cold War atmosphere of international cooperation on a global scale. How could such an intellectual agenda and professional organization be imagined? How would it lead to new approaches to its subject? How could it be helped by the many existing efforts at international exchanges? How in turn could it help them? Might even the subject of American Studies—the United States of America—change in hemispheric perspectives on “the Americas” and in transnational approaches to issues of modernity?
It was in order to address these issues and to draw institutional consequences from them that Djela l Kadir (Penn State University) convened a working conference at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Conference and Study Center in Bellagio (Italy), at which twenty-two participants from twelve countries (and also members of eleven national and multinational American Studies associations) founded the new International American Studies Association, the IASA. The intense, three-day meeting, uninterrupted by any excursions into the temptingly beautiful Lake Como environment, opened with the question posed by IASA Founding President and Charter Member on the Governing Board of the International Foundation for Global Studies Djelal Kadir, “Why has there not been an international association for American Studies?” He criticized the “wedding of ontology and exception” permeating the field and pleaded for the creation of a new association that would become an “agora of ideas.” The contribution of the International American Studies Association may reside in its capacity to divert American Studies from the perils of redundancy. Because, the difference between American American Studies and International American Studies amounts to a difference between the circling wagons of tautology, on the one hand, and the truly emancipatory plurality of openness.
Jie Tao (Peking University http://www.pku.edu.cn/academic/asc/index.html) described the development of the field in China and expressed the hope that a new international association would help exchanges in all directions. ASA President-Elect Michael Frisch (SUNY Buffalo) was skeptical of the implicit assumption of a simple progress narrative—American Studies moving from national to transnational over time. He offered instead a model of this and other dimensions as axes of scholarship interacting over time, their changing configuration defining the evolution of American Studies. From this vantage, he was hopeful that a new international association could support and propel this evolution, and he placed particular emphasis on the necessary role of a fully deployed interdisciplinarity in this process.
Gonul Pultar (Bilkent University), the Associate President of the American Studies Association of Turkey (http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~jast/ASAT.html) gave an account of American Studies in Turkey vis-a-vis US foreign and cultural policy during the Cold War and since, and hoped that an international association would be able to define values that would help prevent its co-optation. Cristina Giorcelli (University of Rome), a former President of the Italian Association for North American Studies and Vice President of the EAAS, wished for a focus on the Americas as the object of American Studies and also called attention to the desirability of a close relationship with the ASA International Committee’s planned conference in New Zealand in January 2001.
Winfried Fluck (Free University Berlin) gave a detailed list of points that could help define and make useful a new association based on individual membership, among them, the primary focus on the area that is now the United States, full interdisciplinarity (including the social sciences), and resistance to a single defining intellectual agenda; conceived this way, an IASA could create more of a balance between US-based and non-US-based scholarship and stimulate a growing dialogue on “versions of America.” It could (and should) be more assertive in carrying the idea of American Studies into the public sphere, where discourses about the U.S. are currently dominated almost exclusively by journalists and certain professional elites. Philip Davies (De Montfort University), President of the British Association for American Studies (http://http://cc.webspaceworld.me/new-baas-site), noted the potential for an IASA.
Lois Parkinson Zamora (University of Houston) gave an account of the difficulties with such terms as “America” or “the United States” and emphasized the need for “transculturation discourse” (Ortiz) and the increased contacts of scholars; the IASA would achieve institutional usefulness by national, hemispheric, and global perspectives. Theo D’haen (Leiden University) sketched the great advantages of approaches to what he called the “relationality” in the Americas that would cross national borders and such language boundaries as French, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese, transform the structural weakness of outside perspectives into strength, and contribute to what Glissant called “mondialization.”
Maureen Montgomery (University of Canterbury, New Zealand) gave an account of her planning for the January 2001 International American Studies Conference in New Zealand, a conference that goes back to an initiative of the ASA International Committee; she saw as a model for decentered communication the image of a wheel in which communication would not start from the hub but from, and continuing among, the spokes, thus permitting more lateral communication and exchanges in all directions. Montgomery also hoped that a new IASA would set itself the task to do what existing associations do not or cannot do. Hiroko Sato (Tokyo Woman’s Christina University), the President of the Japanese Association for American Studies, gave a historical account of American Studies in Japan where it is popular among foreign-language students, and noted that fact that one book a day is published on the US.
Josef Jarab (University of Olomouc), President of the Czech and Slovak American Studies Association and President-Elect of the EAAS, outlined how the US always served as an alternative world (for better or worse) in the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe; he suggested a hyphenated vision for international approaches to the plurality of values coexisting within the US, and hoped for an IASA that would serve as a forum for an exchange of ideas as well as of experiences with American Studies, thus not necessarily redefining, but analyzing and monitoring the field. Sonia Torres (Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niteroi), President of the Brazilian Association for American Studies http://www.uff.br/ceg/abea.htm , described tendencies in American Studies in Brazil, where language studies cooperate with social sciences; she also called for interdisciplinary and international appreciation.
The debates were intense, both in the general forum, and during the breaks for meals, and many different versions of internationalizing American Studies were proposed by the twenty-two scholar assembled in Bellagio. Yet there were also many shared themes that emerged. Among them were the wish for: bringing about more exchanges of scholars, students, and ideas; strengthening, not competing with, all ongoing efforts to bring about internationalization; realizing a full interdisciplinarity, with a focus not only on culture and literature, but on historical, political, social, and natural science perspectives; supporting the study of America regionally and hemispherically, nationally, and transnationally; stimulating comparative approaches on all levels; crossing language barriers and stimulating translation processes; and increasing a sense of a political and ethical responsibility in an international organization.
There was such unanimity concerning the need for an international association at this point that the scholars unanimously adopted the following public declaration.
Bellagio, June 1, 2000
The International American Studies Association (IASA) was founded today by twenty-two scholars from around the world, committed to the study of America – regionally, hemispherically, nationally, and transnationally.
Rooted in various fields of study, the IASA will provide a space for interdisciplinary dialogues about American culture and society. To this purpose, it will promote international exchanges of teachers, scholars, and students and generate debates, publications, and conferences.
Convened by Professor Djelal Kadir (Penn State University, USA) at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Conference and Study Center, in Bellagio, Italy, were participants from twelve countries and members of eleven national and multinational American Studies Associations. Those present were: Greg C. Cuthbertson (South Africa), Philip Davies (United Kingdom), Theo D’haen (Netherlands), Emory Elliott (USA), Winfried Fluck (Germany), Michael Frisch (USA), Cristina Giorcelli (Italy), Ramon Gutierrez (USA), Heinz Ickstadt (Germany), Josef Jarab (Czech Republic), Mary Kelley (USA), Rob Kroes (Netherlands), Maureen Montgomery (New Zealand), Carla Mulford (USA), Gonal Pultar (Turkey), Hiroko Sato (Japan), Neusa da Silva Matte (Brazil), Werner Sollors (Germany), Tao Jie (China), Sonia Torres (Brazil), and Lois Parkinson Zamora (USA).
They are members of the following associations: American Studies Association (USA), American Studies Association of Turkey, Associação Brasileira de Estudos Americanos, Associazione Italiana di Studi Nord-Americani, Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association, British Association for American Studies, Czech and Slovak Association for American Studies, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien, European Association for American Studies, Japanese Association for American Studies, and the Netherlands American Studies Association.
The work of IASA will support, complement, and internationalize ongoing efforts by regional, national, and multinational associations of American Studies. The IASA welcomes individual, institutional, and associational memberships to its ranks from all professional Americanists in the social and natural sciences, the humanities and the arts, from intellectuals, artists, journalists, public officials, and all those active in matters concerning the study of America.
The IASA plans to hold its first international conference in the year 2003.
More information about the International American Studies Association, the 2003 conference, planned publications, and membership applications are available from Professor Djelal Kadir, Founding President, IASA, Penn State University, University Park PA 16802-6204, USA. Email: IASA@psu.edu
American Studies Recruitment
Earlier this year I circulated a paper on American Studies recruitment based on the 1996-1999 figures available on the UCAS website. These statistics relate to UCAS courses coded Q4 – very predominantly, though not wholly, single subject American Studies programmes.
As I stated at the time, while the time series data gave a reliable indication of the changes that might be affecting American Studies recruitment, I was not at all convinced that the gross figures gave a proper indication of the current health of the subject at undergraduate level.
UCAS cannot release data on individual courses and subjects at individual universities, except to those particular universities, but it can release aggregate data, where individual data cannot be specifically identified. Using the Eccles Centre listing of American Studies undergraduate programmes I compiled two lists – one of programmes that seemed to me to be single honours American Studies, and one of programmes that were American Studies joint honours with one other subject, or American Studies as part of a degree combining three subjects, or were American Studies under a different guise (for example an American History and Politics degree, or an English and American literature degree, offered out of an American Studies programme). These hand lists may not have been comprehensive, but they gave pretty good coverage. A researcher at UCAS has been most helpful in compiling the statistics for these aggregrate lists as fully as he could manage.
The results were as follows:
List 1 – a specific list of institutions and courses – American Studies single subject degree courses, 1999
| Applicants: | |
| Men | 529 |
| Women | 779 |
| Total | 1,308 |
| Accepted: | |
| Men | 207 |
| Women | 363 |
| Total | 570 |
List 2 – a specific list of institutions and courses – American Studies combined subject degree courses, 1999, including balanced elements of another subject, or a minor element of American Studies
| Applicants: | |
| Men | 1,250 |
| Women | 2,125 |
| Total | 3,375 |
| Accepted: | |
| Men | 287 |
| Women | 556 |
| Total | 843 |
This appears to confirm that American Studies is being offered in many varied forms, and that the different forms have appeal to substantial numbers of students.
These statistics also suggest that applications remain more healthy than seems to be the case in the earlier, more limited, figures. The application to accepted ratio for List 1 is 2.29:1, and for List 2 is 4:1. It may be that there is more risk of double counting on a hand list of this kind, and only your institution and your programme can have accurate long term figures for your own application and conversion figures.
The figures do confirm the feminisation of the American Studies undergraduate population. Among accepteds the female to male ratio in List 1 is 1.75:1, and in List 2 it is 1.94:1.
Not all of the American Studies programmes that I identified could be included in this aggregation. Some university and college programmes combining subjects operate under generic coding that does not identify the subject elements, and therefore American Studies statistics cannot be squeezed out of the totals. For example I suspect that De Montfort University’s Combined Honours Humanities and Social Sciences programme (a combination of three subjects, of which American Studies may be one), falls into this category – yet this is a programme that attracts about one-third of DMU’s American Studies students. Therefore official figures still leave us underestimating the number of students undertaking American Studies at UK universities.
The above lists gives a total of 1,413 entrants in 1999. They are hand drawn lists, and while I was careful, they are almost certainly not totally comprehensive. They do not include combined programmes where the codes do not allow the identification of students specifically undertaking American Studies. Simply multiplied by 3, this low estimate gives us a total undergraduate student population of 4,239. But some programmes are four-year, which increases the total further, and further upward adjustment is needed to correct for the acknowledged missing data. Still working conservatively, one is soon in a range that might give us an undergraduate population to be estimated around 6,000. At the risk of repetition of a well-established point, there are also many more students on programmes that are not called ‘American Studies’ who take American options wither within their own programmes, or offered by American Studies staff.
The data have indicated that there is no room for complacency, but there is plenty of health in American Studies, and that students are interested in American topics. It is clear that universities and colleges are responding to this. For 2000 entry UCAS records that 595 American Studies course options were available, for 2001 this has increased to 624!
Philip John Davies
Chair, British Association for American Studies
Professor of American Studies, De Montfort University Leicester, UK
News from American Studies Centres
American Studies Resources Centre: Annual Report 1999-2000
This academic year has seen yet another period of extensive developments in the operations of the American Studies Centre, involving both an increased uptake in the Centre’s services, visits from US academics and others, conferences, website and student development.
ASRC Conferences/Lectures
The annual schools/FE conference took place in October, again at the Conference Centre of Merseyside Maritime Museum. The topic this year was Herbert Hoover, Franklin D.Roosevelt and the New Deal. Another capacity audience heard lectures from John Kentleton (Liverpool University) on ‘The Ordeal of Herbert Hoover’, Niall Palmer (Brunel University) on ‘Maestro in the White House: FDR as President’ and Tony Badger (Cambridge University) on ‘How did the New Deal change America?’ The purpose of the conference, as with all the ASRC school/FE events, was to support areas identified by teachers as being of relevance to their students study. The day proved to be a great success and achieved its aim of not only supporting student needs but also in encouraging students to hopefully follow an American Studies pathway in higher education. An information stand by the American Studies Section of JMU was accompanied by leaflets from other universities offering similar programmes. As the traditional arts/humanities subjects (in HE) have been affected by the changing loan/fee situation and a significant decline in mature students selecting strictly non vocational routes, it seems that general publicity and encouragement to follow an American Studies route is becoming an increasingly important issue to address. Our thanks go to not only all our speakers, but also to Dilys Horwich and her staff at the Museum. For the academic year 2000-2001, the schools conference will consider the upcoming Presidential election. The conference will take place on October 18th and will hopefully include presentations by representatives from both Republicans and Democrats Abroad.
In November the ASRC, in conjunction with the University of Westminster and the Smithsonian Institution, presented a one-day conference at the US Embassy in London. Entitled ‘Deconstructing Hollywood: Developments in Mass Culture since 1945 ‘the conference examined a broad range of issues. Lonnie Bunch (Smithsonian) examined the manner in which Hollywood has historically represented African Americans. This was followed by a lecture by Kasia Boddy (University of Dundee) on the representation of gender in Hollywood films on boxing themes. The final lecture by Ian Wall (Film Education) considered the manner in which Hollywood has marketed its films and the changes brought about by the new technology. The final session involved a live TV link up with the writers and lecturers Lenny Quart and Al Auster in New York. A full report by Claire Horrocks (Edge Hill University) is carried in both this years issue of American Studies Today and in the ‘Conference’ section of the ASRC web site. Our thanks for making this conference such a resounding success go to all the participants as well as Sue Wedlake, Claire Parvin and T.J.Dowling at the US Embassy and Chris Brookeman and Alan Morrison at the University of Westminster.
The ASRC also played host to visits from Professor Lenny Quart (CUNY), Professor James Horton (George Washington University) and Professor Lois Horton (George Mason University.) Guest lectures were presented on how Hollywood has represented the inner city (Lenny Quart) and how African American History and slavery has been presented in the public arena. (James Horton.) Further details of these visits can be found later in this report.
In June 2000 the ASRC also supported an important schools conference, organised by the School of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham, for teachers of literature and history. The topic was Puritanism and The Crucible. The ASRC’s contribution to the day examined the availability of resources for students and teachers in this area. An extensive internet resources web page was set up by the ASRC to highlight the wealth of material available to assist the study of Miller, the play itself, McCarthyism, America in the Fifties, as well as the Salem Witch Trials. This page will remain on the ASRC web site for future reference.
This academic years’ Thanksgiving Lecture at JMU was presented by Dr.Peter Thompson of Oxford University. Entitled ‘Rum, Punch and Revolution’ (and based on his book of the same title) Peter looked, appropriately, at the patterns of ‘tavern going’ in the Revolutionary period. This was followed by a traditional Thanksgiving meal for audience of JMU students, staff and guests.
As well as the earlier noted forthcoming conference on the Presidential Election, the ASRC is also in discussions regarding a further two events. Although these are not finalised, it is hoped that conferences on American Film in the 1950s and 60s, and on Latino America will take place. Details of these will be placed on the ASRC web site as soon as they are finalised.
US Visitors
As noted in the section of this report dealing with the conference and lecture programme, the ASRC was visited this year by Lenny Quart and James and Lois Horton. After their guest lectures, both sets of visitors took in other aspects of Liverpool life and the US-Liverpool connection. James and Lois visited the Slavery Gallery at the Maritime Museum where they were guided by Mike Boyle of the ASRC’s Advisory Panel and Dilys Horwich of the Education Sectionn of the Museum. They also met with the curator of the Gallery, Tony Tibbles and had discussions on potential joint research programmes involving the ASRC and the Museum.
The ASRC was also host to two visits from the US Embassy… although one was a ‘virtual’ visit involving Poilitics students from JMU discussing the upcoming Presidential election on an Internet discussion room with Ambassador Philip Lader. (The Ambassador had at the end of last academic year also received an Honorary Fellowship from the School of Media, Critical and Creative Arts at JMU.) This had been preceded by a visit from the Cultural Attache at the Embassy, T.J. Dowling. As well as taking in the sites of Liverpool and attending a welcome celebration at the Town Hall (accompanied by University Vice Chancellor Professor Peter Toyne) for the new conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz, T.J. also spent time in the ASRC discussing the progress and development of its programmes and services.
ASRC Website
Now renamed ARNET, the ASRC website has gone from strength to strength. The number of hits the site has received has increased dramatically, with over 25,000 hits in March 2000 alone. By the beginning of July 2000 the total number of hits since the site was re-launched in February 1998 had reached over 370,000. This success has been achieved through extensive additions to the online materials. On an average day the site receives hits from around 40 different countries. The development of online services in ongoing and next academic year the ASRC will be sponsoring selected teachers to add teaching materials in a new ‘Teaching American Studies’ section. Full details will be announced on the website. Our thanks to David Forster for all his hard work on ARNET.
Student Placements
This year also saw the start of a work experience module from JMU American Studies students in the ASRC. During their placement the students not only supported the work of th ASRC in dealing with requests from teachers, lecturers and students, but also contributed to the organisation of the conference programme. The students also received extensive training on research techniques, particularly via the Internet, and were also introduced to web design and authoring by David Forster. A major improvement and increase in computer facilities within the ASRC also helped assist this development. From the ASRC point of view their help and support was invaluable. From the students perspective, not only did they develop their own research, interpersonal and communication skills, but they also produced study packs that would assist their own studies in other modules, as well as providing valuable information for helping deal with requests on specific American Studies topics in the ASRC. It is hoped that next academic year students from the Journalism Section will also be able to gain work experience in the ASRC, working on the ARNET website and preparing the 2001 edition of our magazine, American Studies Today.
Requests and student visits to ASRC
Although written and e-mailed requests for information to the ASRC continue to grow, the number of requests for audio-visual materials has declined significantly this year. Whilst there is no clear answer to why this should be, it is felt that the growth of student/teacher use of the Internet may be a contributing factor. Although the Centre continues to update its collection of video material, major problems with satellite reception hardware has meant a significant reduction in the availability of new material. Whilst it is anticipated that this will be overcome in the near future, it is clear that a new trend is in progress that will see a shift towards web based learning as opposed to the traditional materials.
Visits to the ASRC by JMU and LCC students have continued to grow, often requiring the ASRC to remain open for longer periods. Whilst this has placed even greater demands on staff time, it is anticipated that this issue will be successfully addressed for next academic year. Visits by students/teachers from outside the University and College have also remained at a high level.
Relocation of the ASRC
Over the summer break, the ASRC will be moving to a new and bigger location within the Robarts Centre. The phone/fax numbers and postal address will remain unchanged.
In conclusion, our thanks go again to all those who have contributed to making this another successful year. In particular, David Forster for his development work on ARNET, The British Association of American Studies (BAAS) for their continued support of the ASRC schools conference programme, the members of the ASRC Management Group, as well as all others mentioned earlier in this report.
Ian Ralston, Director American Studies Resources Centre
Email: I.Ralston@livjm/ac/uk
Website: www.americansc.org.uk
University of Central Lancashire: “Americanisation and the Teaching of American Studies” Project
American Studies at Preston has just been awarded £150,000 to manage a HEFCE Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning project on “Americanisation and the Teaching of American Studies”. The project will be run in conjunction with departments at King Alfred’s Winchester and Derby and focuses on the dissemination throughout the American studies community of innovative teaching on the theme of Americanisation. It will build on curriculum strengths in the teaching of Americanisation, the Transatlantic and Cultural Theory at Preston which were identified in the successful 1998 TQA visit. Visits to other American Studies providers giving workshops will be a prime output of the project as will a Web site and occasional newsletter. The workshops will be run by experts in the field of Americanisation who will develop their best teaching practice in the field and disseminate it throughout the American Studies community. There will be a session dedicated to the project at the 2001 British Association for American Studies conference at Keele in April to explain the project and outline the kinds of approaches the project will be foregrounding. In early 2002 there will be a conference on Americanisation and the teaching of American Studies here at Preston which will, amongst other objectives, seek to assess the value of such approaches to the development of the subject. The newsletter/website will provide resources to help the teaching of Americanisation, exchanging good practice and information. The project started in September and runs for two years. Any colleagues in the American Studies community who would like to be kept in touch or to contribute to the project as it develops should in the first instance contact the project manager
Dr. Alan Rice
Project Manager, Americanisation Project
Dept. of Cultural Studies
University of Central Lancashire
Preston
PR1 2HE
arice@uclan.ac.uk
01772 893020
News from Members
James Beeby was recently appointed Assistant Professor of History at West Virginia Wesleyan College, West Virginia, where he will teach U.S., Southern and African American History.
Announcements
BAAS Paperbacks
BAAS Paperbacks is a series produced by the Assoiciation in co-operation with Edinburgh University Press. The series editors are George McKay and Philip Davies. The volumes in the series are about 60,000 words, and are aimed to sell into the established undergraduate market. As such the style and level are appropriate for an undergraduate readership. All those published so far (see below for a list of titles published and forthcoming) have been co-published in the United States.
The commissioning editor at EUP, Nicola Carr, has surveyed the modules being taught in American Studies programmes nationally. The following rough hand list resulted.
1st Year:
introduction to American History (Revolution to Civil War to Present)
Introduction to American Government & Politics
Introduction to American Studies
Upper Level Modules:
American South history/cultural representation
American West history/cultural representation
African American history/culture
Native American history/culture
Civil Rights Movement
Civil War
20th century American Politics
Foreign policy
Presidency, executive, policy-making periods in American history
19th century American literature
20th century American literature
American women writers
Introduction to American popular culture
American film
American culture and society
These topics may act as an initial indication of areas towards which publications could be aimed. If you are interested in making a proposal based on these topics, or on another idea that you feel would have a value for the American Studies community and a viable publishing market, please contact either of the series editors, or EUPs commissioning editor at the addresses below. Guidelines for the presentation of proposals can be obtained from Nicola Carr at EUP.
All proposals will of course go through the normal full EUP refereeing process (details of which are given in the proposal guidelines).
BAAS Paperbacks Published or Forthcoming:
The American Landscape
The United States and European Reconstruction
Gender, Ethnicity and Sexuality in Contemporary American Film
Political Scandals in the USA
American Exceptionalism
The New Deal
Religion in America to 1865
The Cultures of the New American West
Jazz in American Culture
Animation in American Society
Religion in America from 1865 to the present
Slavery and Servitude in Colonial North America
Professor Philip Davies
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
De Montford University
Leicester LE1 9BH
Tel: 0116 257 7398
Fax: 0116 257 7199
Email: pjd@dmu.ac.uk
Professor George McKay
Department of Cultural Studies
University of Central Lancashire
Preston PR1 2HE
Tel: 01772 893038
Fax: 01772 892924
Mobile: 0771 356 4706
Email: g.mckay@uclan.ac.uk
Nicola Carr
Senior Commissioning Editor
Edinburgh University Press
22 George Square
Edinburgh EH8 9LF
Tel: 0131 650 6206
Fax: 0131 662 0053
Email: nicola.carr@eup.ed.ac.uk
Website: www.eup.ed.ac.uk
British Records Relating to America in Microform (BRRAM)
Readers of the Newsletter may be interested to have an update on our recent activities and some reminder of the large number of important titles that are currently available. These cover many aspects of American, Caribbean and British colonial and imperial history. The material ranges in time from the colonial period to the twentieth century. Topics covered include immigration and settlement, slavery and antislavery, political and military affairs, trade, industry, plantations, agriculture and ranching, Most are accompanied by an introductory/index booklet.
The following new titles have been published in the last two years:
Tudway of Wells Antiguan Estate papers (1689-1920) Ref 97569. Format: 30 reels of 35mm microfilm and printed guide. Editor: Kenneth Morgan, Brunel University. These papers, on deposit in the Somerset Record Office, relate to the Parham plantation, a sugar estate in Antigua owned by the Tudway Family. They include comprehensive financial accounts, correspondence and material on the operating procedures of the plantation.
William Davenport & Co., 1745-1797, Liverpool merchants. Ref 97562. Format: 3 reels of 35mm microfilm and printed guide. Editor: David Richardson, Hull University. William Davenport was a Liverpool merchant and British slave trader. From the late 1740s until the early 1790s, he invested regularly in the African slave trade and was a partner in slaving ventures with other leading merchant Liverpool families.
Henry Caner Letterbook
Ref. No: 97577. Format: 1 reel of 35mm microfilm.
Editor: R. C. Simmons, University of Birmingham. The Rev. Henry Caner (1700-1792) was a leading Church of England clergyman in Connecticut and Massachusetts, rector of Kings Chapel Boston from 1747 until 1776, when he was forced into exile. The letterbook, from Bristol University Library, contains about 700 letters. Among his correspondents were the Bishops Edmund Gibson, Thomas Sherlock and William Warburton, Archbishop Thomas Secker, and many other members of the Anglo-American Anglican network. This is one of the few surviving letterbooks of an American Church of England clergyman and the letters provide fascinating insights into his official and personal life in America and as a loyalist refugee.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Collection.
Ref No: 97571. Format: 2 reels of 35mm microfilm. Editor: Brian Harding, University of Birmingham. These papers, from the Alexander Ireland Collection in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, help document the English response to Emersons works for the half century following his first visit to England in 1833, providing a unique record of the interest aroused by his lectures and writings.
Sharples family material and Ellen Sharples Diary
Format: estimated 5 reels of 35mm microfilm.Editor: Diane Waggoner, Yale University. Letters, diaries and travel account of the Sharples, Anglo-American artists, of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. English-born James Sharples (c. 1751-1811) built his career on drawing pastel portraits and became known for his portraits of George and Martha Washington and other eminent Americans. Ellen Sharples (1769-1849) copied her husbands portraits on commission and taught herself to paint miniatures. The couple trained Jamess son by his second wife, Felix (c. 1786-after 1824), and their own two children, James Jr.(c. 1788-1839) and Rolinda (c. 1793-1838), all of whom became successful portrait painters. Ellen Sharpless diary and letter book spans the years 1803 to 1836 and 1840 to 1845; the collection also includes a large number of personal and legal papers. All these provide an intimate account of the life of a cultured woman and her daughter, in both England and America, with information on her artistic pursuits, her daughters education, her appetite for the literature of the day, other personal matters and the familys financial affairs.
The American Papers of Charles Vaughan.
Format: estimated 20 reels of 35mm microfilm.
Editor: R. C. Simmons, University of Birmingham. Material from the Charles Vaughan papers at All Souls, Oxford, covering Vaughans period as British Minister to the USA during the years 1825-1830 and all the other material relating to America in his political, official and personal correspondence, journals and commonplace books.
Liverpool Customs Bills of Entry 1820-1939
Format: estimated 70 reels of 35mm microfilm.
Editor: Kenneth Morgan, Brunel University. This collection from the Liverpool Record Office and the Liverpool Maritime Museum provides shipping registers and maritime trading lists for ships docking in the port of Liverpool, giving a comprehensive overview of goods inwards and outwards, together with information on ships names, crews, etc. A rich source for maritime and economic history.
Besides these new publications, I would like to highlight some of the “ best-sellers” from our existing list.
American Material in the Archives of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Introduction by Isobel Pridmore, former Archivist to the U.S.P.G. Series A: Letter Books, Vols. 126, 17021737. 8 Reels Series B: Letter Books, Vols.1-25,17011786. 14 Reels Series C: 18th Century Copy Letters, Vols. 1-15. 5 Reels Index to Series A, B and C. 1 Reel.
American Prisoners of War, (18121815) From the Public Record Office, London. Introduction by Ira Dye, University of Virginia. These records, relating to Americans taken prisoner by British forces during the War of 1812-15, were generated in the course of the administrative process of receiving, clothing, housing and feeding prisoners of war, then keeping track of them as they passed through the prison ship and depot system until they were finally discharged, exchanged or released (or in some cases, until they died while prisoners). 11 reels. With Introductory/Index booklet
British Pamphlets Relating to The American Revolution… 1764-1783. All available British and Irish pamphlets, broadsides and controversial books printed in Great Britain between 1 January 1764 and 31 December 1783 that are relevant to the various aspects of the American Revolution, whether devoted in their entirety to the subject or simply containing a paragraph or more, are contained in this microfilm. Also included are those American and European pamphlets that were reprinted in Britain between 1764 and 1783, as well as British parliamentary speeches published for outside readers and public reports and papers. The importance of these pamphlets has long been appreciated and the richness of their contents suspected but heretofore they have not all been readily accessible and some have been virtually unknown. This microfilm edition brings them together for the first time; there are 1161 in all. 49 Reels – please apply for special prices. With Introductory/Index booklet and set of 1161 Library Catalogue Cards.
Estlin Papers (1840-1844). From Dr. Williamss Library, London. Introduction by Dr. Clare Taylor, University College of Wales. These papers illustrate the close connection between British and American antislavery reformers in the middle of the 19th century. 6 Reels
Hobhouse Letters (1722-1755). From Bristol Central Library and Bristol Record Office. Introduction by Professor W. E. Minchinton, University of Exeter. Letters and other papers of Isaac Hobhouse & Co., Bristol Merchants. 1 Reel
Rhodes House Anti-slavery Papers (1836-1842) From Rhodes House Library, Oxford. Introduction by Professor Howard Temperley, University of East Anglia. Includes the Minute Books of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. 2 Reels
Charles Townshend Papers in The Buccleuch And Queensberry Muniments, (1765-1767) From Dalkeith House, Midlothian. Introduction by Professor T. C. Smout, University of Edinburgh. Giving an insight into Townshends policy, which helps to explain the colonial reaction to imperial government. 3 Reels.
The American Papers of The 2nd Earl of Dartmouth. From the Staffordshire Record Office. Introduction by Prof. Colin Bonwick, Keele University. These papers are a central source for British policy in the era of the American Revolution and for 18th-century British government and politics. 16 Reels.
Full details of these and all other titles in the BRRAM series are available from:
Microform Imaging Ltd.
Main Street, East Ardsley
Wakefield WF3 2AT, United Kingdom
Email: info@microform.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 1924 825700
Fax: +44 (0) 1924 871005
Website: www.microform.co.uk
Suggestions for new titles are always welcome and should be sent to: R. C. Simmons r.c.simmons@bham.ac.uk General Editor
Book Reviews
Forecaast, Hamburg 1999
Justine Tallys brief and insightful study of Toni Morrisons Paradise (1998) is provocative and multi-dimensional. It usefully situates the novel in relation to Morrisons oeuvre especially to Jazz (1992) and Beloved (1987) the two earlier novels in her trilogy about post-emancipation African American culture and society and to Morrisons own critical writing which suffuses her discussion. This makes the book as much a summary of where Morrison has taken us to at centurys end as a specific critique of her latest novel. There is a welcome use of Morrison scholarship from Europe, too often ignored by Morrisonians in America, although there are some surprising Stateside ommissions. Philip Pages wonderful Dangerous Freedom (1997) is not cited and Jill Matuss Toni Morrison (1998) with its interesting work on trauma which could have illuminated aspects of the discussion here is ignored (too late to use?). Meanwhile, Linden Peachs rather derivative discussions – in Toni Morrison (1995) – are afforded too much space.
As would be expected considering the novels recent provenance, there is much use of newspaper and magazine reviews that Tally skilfully utilises to show the often narrow nature of their concern with Morrison and their inability to deal with the complexity of a difficult novel. Tally astutely foregrounds “History” in its numerous guises as key to a discussion of Paradise giving the reader useful contextualisation and yet showing the limitations of a traditional literary historical approach to such a demanding postmodern novel. Most interestingly she discusses how important arguments about essentialism are to understanding this novel, making what is often an arcane discussion, clearcut and stimulating. Morrison is often accused of being difficult, Tallys clearly written and sensitively argued monograph supplies some dynamic answers to these postmodern puzzles.
Alan Rice, University of Central Lancashire
Kudos
Jay Kleinberg, Philip Davies and Judie Newman have been elected Academician of the Academy of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences (AcSS).
In Print
Robert Burchell, United States of America, World Bibliographical Series, Volume 16 (Oxford and Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO Ltd, 2000). Pp.xiv + 424. ISBN 1 85109 164 5.
David Stafford and Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones (both University of Edinburgh) have edited ABC: American-British-Canadian Intelligence Relations, 1939-2000 (Frank Cass, 2000. Cloth: ISBN 07146 51036, UK pounds, 45. Paper: ISBN 07146 8142 3, UK pounds 18.50).
Rebecca Starrs Articulating America: the Fashioning of a National Political Culture in the Early Republic , a collection of essays honouring the distinguished BAAS member J.R. Pole (Madison: House Publishers, Inc., 2000) will be published later this year.
Spencer C. Tucker, Jinwung Kim, Michael R. Nichols, Paul G. Pierpaoli, Jr., Priscilla Roberts, and Norman R. Zehr, eds. Encyclopedia of the Korean War: A Political, Social, and Military History. 3 vols. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio Press, 2000. xlii + 1123 pages. ISBN 1-57607-029-8.
Susan Castillo and Ivy Schweitzer, eds. The Literatures of Colonial America: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). ISBN 0-6312-1124-1.
Short-term Travel Reports
Zoe A. Greer, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
I would like to open by thanking BAAS for its support of my doctoral research on the use of prison as a platform for racial protest in the civil rights and black power eras. The purpose of my trip to the States was to research the first section of my thesis on the arrest and imprisonment of civil rights workers in Mississippi. My work focused upon the way in which the Movement adopted jail-no-bail as both a value and a tactic and the way in which, for many, imprisonment became a deeply empowering experience. The trip lasted a total of ten weeks (albeit with an unscheduled return to the UK half way through) and covered libraries and archives in Mississippi, Washington DC and Charlottesville, Virginia.
Essentially, my work in Mississippi concentrated upon researching the civil rights movement on a local level, whilst my visits to Virginia and the Library of Congress in Washington DC enabled me to use the records of the national civil rights organisations. During my time at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, I was able to take advantage of the massive microfilm collection, including the papers of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Congress of Racial Equality, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and various national newspapers. These collections documented the day-to-day physical and mental torture that protesters often suffered at the hands of their jailers very well.
Whilst my work on the national organisations was vital to my thesis, it was my research in Mississippi that provided the most fascinating and original material. In particular, the collections at Tougaloo College, Jackson, Mississippi, provided a wealth of information and I had the unusual pleasure of having the special collections room entirely to myself, free to explore the archives. I was delighted to discover a collection of letters written on toilet paper by an imprisoned protester in a Mississippi jail. Although my research was occasionally frustrated by the fact that documents had either been lost or misplaced, the warm welcome and assistance that I received from the staff made the College the most enjoyable place I visited. Whilst in Jackson, I was able to interview Rev. Ed King, a leading figure in the Jackson Movement, who was imprisoned on numerous occasions in Mississippi. This interview led to an invite to visit a local African American church one Sunday where those who had been part of the Jackson Movement came together to educate the local children about the civil rights era. These contacts with the local community were absolutely invaluable to my research: the resulting interviews and discussions provided me with insights into the way in which prison affected individuals that could not have been gleamed in any written record.
Overall, my work in the States produced a large amount of fascinating material. I am now moving on to research the second part of my thesis, which analyses the relationship between the black power movement and the black prison population.
Ruth Percy, Department of History, University College London
Research trip to the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., 20 August- 27 August 2000
Firstly I would like to thank you for the generous support you have given me. The additional money you gave me enabled me to undertake a research trip to the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. which, as with the trip to the Schlesinger Library, was very successful.
The library holds papers of the Womens Trade Union League (WTUL) additional to those in the Schlesinger Library, American Federation of Labor papers and those of Cornelia Bryce Pinchot. I was able to get through the WTUL papers, which consisted of letters, speeches, convention proceedings, and publications. This, coupled with the work I did at the Schlesinger Library, means that I have now have very little left of the WTUL papers to study, those of Agnes Nestor held at the Chicago Historical Society being the most important remaining collection. The WTUL papers are foundational to my research of labour feminism, for the organization at times proved to be a bridge between the labour and the feminist movements
As the Library of Congress closed at 5pm every day I took advantage of the fact that the National Archives at College Park, Maryland, were open until 9pm on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. There I began work on the extensive records of the Womens Bureau of the Department of Labor, established first as a temporary measure in 1918 as the Women in Industry Service, and then becoming permanent and gaining its new name in 1920. These papers unfortunately have not on the whole been catalogued and on a future trip I will have to just pull boxes and work through them accordingly. Due to the time constraints of this trip I pulled the sections that have been catalogued and managed to get through six of the boxes from the collection of the Director, Mary Anderson. This work lies parallel to that I have already done at the Public Record Office in London. These governmental papers form an important part of my research. The relationship of trade unions and working women to the governmental process, especially regarding labour legislation in the case of America, is important in the study of the construction of labour feminism. The debate over legislation pitted sections of the feminist movement against those representing labour, and the papers of Mary Anderson reveal that she tried to find a balance between the two, thus constructing a kind of labour feminism.
And finally, thank you once again for your support without which these trips would not have been possible.
Postgraduate News
This section includes information on all areas specifically related to postgraduate members of BAAS. It is hoped that it will provide a forum for improving communication links both between postgraduates and other members of BAAS, as well as supplying information on the numerous awards, prizes and publication opportunities available within the association. As these pages are in their formative stages, please send any comments or queries (including suggestions for improvement) to the Postgraduate Representative at the following contact address:
Celeste-Marie Bernier
School of American and Canadian Studies
University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham
NG7 2RD
E-Mail: aaxcb1@nottingham.ac.uk
Special thanks goes to Graham Thompson for providing much of this material, which can also be found on the website at the following address: http://cc.webspaceworld.me/new-baas-site
BAAS Postgraduate Essay Prize
The prize is awarded annually for the best essay-length piece of work on an American Studies topic, written by a student currently registered for a postgraduate degree, at a university or equivalent institution in Britain. The essay may have been completed prior to registration as a postgraduate student. The value of the prize shall be determined on each occasion, but will normally be of the order of 100 pounds sterling.
Candidates should submit 4 copies of the essay in typescript to Dr. Paul Giles, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, CB3 ODG. Closing date for entries is 1 February 2001.
The essay should be between 3000 and 5000 words in length, and should be accompanied by a letter from an institutional representative, tutor, or supervisor, as attestation that the candidate is registered for a postgraduate degree course, or has been accepted for a course.
The essay should form a self-contained piece of writing, suitable for publication as an article in a professional journal. Care should accordingly be taken with matters of presentation and documentation.
Prize-winning essays will be offered publication in U.S. Studies Online, the BAAS Postgraduate Journal, and may also be considered for publication in the Journal of American Studies. Please note that publication in the Journal of American Studies cannot be guaranteed.
The Association reserves the right not to make an award in the event of no essay being judged of suitable calibre, or to make more than one award, where more than one outstanding piece of work is received. The Judges will be drawn from the BAAS Executive Committee.
There was no prize awarded in 2000. The winner of the 1999 prize was Graham Thompson, The Nottingham Trent University, for an essay entitled “Dead Letters … Dead Men”: The Rhetoric of the Office in Melvilles Bartleby, the Scrivener.
U.S. Studies Online: The BAAS Postgraduate Journal
Preparations are underway for the launch of a postgraduate e-journal that will be incorporated within the BAAS website. The purpose of this online journal is to enable postgraduate students at British universities to have their work published in a refereed environment at a time when the opportunity for postgraduates to publish in American Studies paper journals in Britain is becoming increasingly limited.
Entitled U.S. Studies Online, this will be a fully refereed e-journal and an editorial board of international standing is in the process of being established. This is crucial as it not only provides a quality threshold that ensures the value of the journal, but also allows postgraduates to demonstrate the value of their own work to potential employers and funding bodies.
Initially the journal will be published bi-annually in the Autumn and Spring – commencing Autumn 2000 – and, because of the lack of restriction on length that is facilitated by hypertext publication, will consist of five or six essay-length (5000-6000 word) articles. Each issue will try to cover a broad range of topics drawing upon the multi-disciplinarity of American Studies to incorporate History, Politics, Cultural Studies, Literature and Film. If the number of submissions for publication and the standard of these submissions is sufficiently high, then in the future the journal might be published tri-annually. Each issue of the journal will be archived on the BAAS website.
It is envisaged that editorial work on the journal will be carried out by either one nominated postgraduate student or by a small group of nominated postgraduates. Editorial tenure will last for four issues, or two years if the journal comes to be published tri-annually. The editor/s will work in close association with the BAAS webster to ensure that the journal is carefully prepared for publication and that traditional online publishing rubrics are followed. An E-Notes for Contributors will be made available on the BAAS website for postgraduates wishing to submit articles. For the initial two issues of the journal and to oversee its launch Graham Thompson will be the Editor.
Articles for publication in the first issue are now welcome. Please send submissions to either the BAAS Webster R.J. Ellis or Graham Thompson. Dick Ellis is based at the Department of English and Media Studies, The Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Lane, Nottingham, NG11 8NS. Graham Thompson can be found at the Department of English, Clephan Building, De Montfort University, Leicester, LE1 9BH.
E-Notes for Contributors
Postgraduate Status: Articles submitted to U.S. Studies Online are considered to be eligible if they were written at the time that the author was registered for a postgraduate degree (MPhil, PhD, MA) at a United Kingdom institution of higher education.
Submitting: Articles should be the original work of the author and not currently under consideration for publication by any other publication. Articles should be a maximum of 5000 words long (excluding notes) and should be submitted initially in hard copy, printed on one side only and double spaced. If the article is accepted for publication the author will be asked to submit an electronic version in both Microsoft Word (PC or Mac) and Text Only format.
Format: Automatic footnoting should be avoided. The Editor(s) will return files that do not follow this instruction and ask that the electronic version be amended accordingly. In general footnotes should be used sparingly.
Illustrations: Illustrations are welcomed. If an article containing illustrations is accepted for publication the author will be asked to provide each illustration as a separate file together with the text file. Pictures should be in any of the following formats: jpeg, gif, bmp.
References: References in footnotes should adhere to the following format:
Books: Author Name, Book Title (in italics), Place of Publication, Publisher, Year (these last three should be bracketed), Page Reference. For example: Jonathan Dollimore, Sexual Dissidence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 141.
Journal Articles: Author Name, Article Title (in single quotation marks), Journal Title (in italics), Volume and Issue Number, Date (bracketed), Page Reference. For example: Peter Stoneley, Rewriting the Gold Rush: Twain, Harte and Homosociality, Journal of American Studies, 30:2 (1996), 189-209.
Authors should not submit a supplementary bibliography. All bibliographic material should be contained in the footnotes.
BAAS Short Term Travel Grants
This programme contributes considerably to fostering talent among the American Studies community in the UK. It depends for its funds entirely on public contributions, and can only have a long term impact if BAAS members and other interested persons continue to be generous with donations. The Treasurer of BAAS welcomes contributions small and large, and invites anyone wishing to support BAAS in maintaining its work in this area to contact him. The awards are made annually, with a deadline of November 30th 2000.
BAAS is happy to announce assistance for short-term visits to the USA during the academic year 2000-2001 to scholars in the UK who need to travel to conduct research, or who have been invited to read papers at conferences on American Studies topics. It is intended that the grants be awarded for the study of subjects where the principle aim is the study of American history, politics, society, literature, art, culture, etc. and not subjects with other aims, the data for which happen to be located in the United States.
The John D. Lees Award will be given to the best proposal accepted by the judges in the field of American political studies.
The resources available are relatively modest. It is envisaged that grants will be supplemented by, or will supplement, funds from other sources. The maximum of each grant will be £400.
Among qualified applicants, preference will be given to those who have had no previous opportunities for research-related visits to the USA and to young scholars, including postgraduate students. BAAS would particularly welcome applications from postgraduate students needing to visit the United States for research purposes.
Applications are invited from UK citizens, from persons normally resident in the UK, and from scholars currently working at, or registered as postgraduate students at UK universities and institutions of higher education.
Although it is recognized that awards under this scheme may need to be supplemented it is not intended that they should be used to supplement or extend long-term awards.
Application forms can be obtained from:
Dr Paul Giles
Fitzwilliam College
Cambridge CB3 0DG
pdg23@cam.ac.uk
Alternatively, view and print a copy from the baas website: http://http://cc.webspaceworld.me/new-baas-site
Please enclose a stamped addressed envelope if you wish to be notified in the case of your application being unsuccessful.
Winners of the 1999/2000 BAAS Short-Term Travel Awards
Marcus Cunliffe Award: Celeste-Marie Bernier (Nottingham) for research into the slave ship Creole revolt (1841).
John Lees Award: Rosie Wild (Sheffield) for research into the NAACPís role in the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56.
BAAS Short Term Awards:
Zoe Ann Greer (Newcastle) for work on the African American Prison Experience, 1945-1975.
Ruth Percy(University College London) for research into the Womens Labor Movement in 1920s Britain and America.
Barbara Stevens for giving a paper at a conference“Going to the Territory: Filling space with Myth”.
European Association for American Studies – EAAS Travel Grants 2001-2002 for Study in the U.S.
The EAAS is pleased to announce the institution of EAAS travel grants for postgraduate students in the Humanities and Social Sciences who are registered for a higher research degree at any European University. Two kinds of grants are available, the Transatlantic Grant and the Intra-European Grant. It is expected that between four and ten scholarships will be available each year. The scholarships will be aimed predominantly at young scholars in Eastern and Central Europe. The maximum single award granted will be $6000.
The Transatlantic Grant will permit the holder to conduct research which illuminates some aspect of the relationship between the United States and Europe, or between the United States and a country or countries within Europe in a designated university in the United States.
The term of the grant will be between three weeks (minimum) and eight weeks (maximum). Successful applicants will receive a grant intended to cover return travel, living expenses, and a limited amount of travel within the United States where appropriate. Health insurance will also be provided. Only students registered for a Ph.D. are eligible to apply for the Transatlantic Grants.
The Intra-European Grant will allow the recipient to conduct research for a period of up to four weeks in an American Studies Centre or University library in Europe. Graduate students who are registered either for a Ph.D. or a Masters degree by research are eligible to apply for the Intra-European Grants.
The Intra-European Grants are also available for institutional research projects involving up to three scholars (M. A. or Ph.D.) based on the co-operation between two American Studies institutes in Eastern and Western Europe. In this case, applications may be made collectively; each (sub)-project, however, will also be evaluated individually.
Although the EAAS grant program is especially meant to encourage American Studies research in Eastern Europe, applications from Western European scholars will be welcome if they are part of an institutional project as outlined above.
Applications must be made on the official form and should include written confirmation from the host institution that the researcher will have access to the necessary resource materials, and a letter from the students academic supervisor. Applicants will be required to supply a detailed estimate of the cost of their visit, including the cost of travel, subsistence, and incidentals. They should also state the minimum amount of money needed to make the trip possible. Applicants are encouraged to seek supporting or matching funding wherever possible.
Grantee recipients will be responsible for making their own arrangements for travel and accommodation. Travel must be completed within twelve months of the grantee being notified of the award. Grantees will be required to make a report to the grant committee, normally within thirty days of returning from their research visit.
The strict closing date for applications is March 3, 2001.
Successful applicants will be informed in April 2000. Application forms are available from the EAAS Board representatives of constituent associations (see relevant addresses in this issue of American Studies in Europe). Forms may also be downloaded from the EAAS home page on the World Wide Web, at http://www.let.uu.nl/eaas/grant.htm.
Winners of the 1999/2000 EAAS Travel Grants
Rachel Bell (Reading)
Eva Fernandez de Pinedo (Warwick)
Conferences
Of particular interest to postgraduates are the following forthcoming conferences:
Taking Stock: The American Century and Beyond, An Interdisciplinary American Studies Conference to be held at Manchester Metropolitan University, Saturday 18 November 2000. For further information contact Theresa Saxon and Margaret Smith, Conference Co-ordinators, Manchester Metropolitan University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of English, Geoffrey Manton Building, Rosamond Street West, off Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6LL or by E-Mail: jandt0@breathE-Mail.net or mms6956@aol.com
A conference is also being organised by the Midlands BAAS Committee to be held at De Montfort University in Leicester, March 2001 so remember to check the website for advertisements of a Call for Papers nearer the time. This conference welcomes contributions from both staff and postgraduates: in particular, the organisers express a commitment to securing substantial postgraduate representation.
Postgraduate Members
Below is a working list of current BAAS postgraduate members, accompanied by a brief line of their research interests and institutional affiliation where known. This list is extremely incomplete and I would be very grateful if those of you who are not mentioned or for whom I have no information regarding dissertation topic and E-Mail address, could get in touch with me at my E-Mail address given below as soon as possible with this information. Please contact me at: aaxcb1@nottingham.ac.uk
Susan Allan, Glasgow University
E-Mail: 9404748a@student.gla.ac.uk
Neil Allsop, Sheffield University
E-Mail: HIP95NCA@sheffield.ac.uk
Susana Isabel A. N. Costa Araujo, Sussex University
Dissertation area: Contemporary American literature and film; Popular fiction; American womens culture; Postcolonialism and American multi-ethnic literature.
E-Mail: ecp95@sussex.ac.uk
Jamal Assadi, E-Mail: Jamela@netvision.net.il
Frances Barry, E-Mail: fabarry@portsmouth007.freeserve.co.uk
Stephanie Bateson, Sheffield University; E-Mail: Hip99slb@sheffield.ac.uk
Birgit Behrendt, E-Mail: Behrendt@stud-mailer.uni-marburg.de
Celeste-Marie Bernier, American Studies Dept., Nottingham University; Dissertation area: 19th century slave narratives and different literary and historical versions of a slave ship revolt. E-Mail: aaxcb1@nottingham.ac.uk
Gary Blohm, Exeter University Dissertation area: The works of Charles Bukowski and Raymond Carver. Interest in how their work represents the individual in the mid-to late-twentieth century, particularly in the context of marginality and centrality, and how this affects their respective narrative form. E-Mail: G. Blohm@exeter.ac.uk
Martyn Bone, American Studies Dept., Nottingham University Dissertation area: Work on the Postsouthern “Sense of Place”. Writers considered include Walker Percy, Richard, Ford, Anne Rivers Siddons, Tom Wolfe, Toni Cade Bambara (for the last three, particular attention is paid to literary geographies of Atlanta). E-Mail: aagersnap@mobilixnet.dk
Jane Bryson, Liverpool University. Dissertation area: The utopian and domestic in Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Zora Neale Hurston and Marge Piercy. E-Mail: JBRYSON@liv.ac.uk
Janice Burrow, Newcastle University. Dissertation area: Representations of the Supernatural in Contemporary Literature of Slavery. E-Mail: Janice.Burrow@ncl.ac.uk
James Campbell, Nottingham University Dissertation area: The history of the antebellum South. In particular issues of crime and punishment; urban slavery and the interaction of class and racial relations. E-Mail: jmcamp1@hotmail.com
Nicola Caldwell, University of Lancaster. E-Mail: n.caldwell@lancaster.ac.uk
Peter Cottrell
Sue Currell, Sussex University. Dissertation area: The problem of Leisure in the Great Depression. E-Mail: sue.currell@virgin.net
Gail Danvers, Sussex University. Dissertation area: Contact, Conflict and Cultural Disintegration on the New York Colonial Frontier: The Iroquois and Sir William Johnson, 1744-1774.
David Evans, Hull University. Dissertation area: The Contemporary American Novel and the Liminal Aesthetic. E-Mail: D.J.EVANS@amstuds.hull.ac.uk
Bridget Falconer-Salkeld, Institute of United States Studies, University of London Dissertation area: The role of the MacDowell colony in the development of American Music.
Diane Fare, Department of Cultural Studies, University of Central Lancashire. Dissertation area: Kathy Acker, feminist theory, abjection, anarchism. E-mail: dmfare@uclan.ac.uk
Rachel Farebrother, Leeds University. Dissertation area: Harlem Renaissance. E-Mail: engrlf@ARTS-01.NOVELL.LEEDS.AC.UK
Eva Fernandez de Pinedo, English Department, Warwick University. Dissertation area: Popular culture and Chicano/a literature. E-Mail: enrdc@csv.warwick.ac.uk
Paraic Finnerty, School of English, University of Kent
Johnny Finnigan, Glasgow University. Dissertation area: Edith Wharton and Henry James and their writings of New York City. E-Mail: Johnny.Finnigan@btinternet.com
Ruth Frendo, Essex University. Dissertation area: Religion and Representation of the Body in Flannery OConnor, Caroline Gordon and Katherine Anne Porter. E-Mail: refren@essex.ac.uk
Lincoln Geraghty
Jo Gill, Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education. Dissertation area: Confessional poetry and the work of Anne Sexton. Additional interests in Edith Wharton, Sylvia Plath, Biography, Autobiography and Letters, and contemporary confessional prose. E-Mail: Jo@gillstevens.madasafish.com
Ozlem Gorey, Leicester University. Dissertation area: Twentieth Century Womens poetry. E-Mail: ozlemgorey@superonline.com
Zoe Greer, Newcastle University. Dissertation area: The African American Prison Experience 1945-1975. E-Mail: z.a.greer@ncl.ac.uk
Helen Grice, University of Aberystwyth. E-Mail: hhg95@aber.ac.uk
Angela Groth, English Dept., University of Kent at Canterbury. Dissertation area: Interests in 19th century American authors, especially Hawthorne, in relation to biography as a genre. E-Mail: ag15@ukc.ac.uk
Simon Hall, University of Cambridge. E-Mail: sdh25@cam.ac.uk
Peter Hammond, Nottingham University. Dissertation area: Race, Class and Culture. E-Mail: aaxph@nottingham.ac.uk
Tim Hanson, University of Maryland, College Park. Dissertation area: Scottish Emigrants in North Carolina in the 18th century. It focuses on the portability of culture in the North Atlantic world, especially concentrating on political and community culture and the construction of Scottish identity in the colonial world. E-Mail: Timothy_R_HANSON@umail.umd.edu (th69)
Richard Haw, English Department, University of Leeds. E-Mail: ENGRH@LEEDS.AC.UK
Jonathan Hills, Sunderland University. E-Mail: oa6jhi@zen.sunderland.ac.uk
Cathy Ann Hoult. E-Mail: CAH21@LEICESTER.ac.uk
Ann Hurford, Nottingham Trent University. Dissertation area: Research into Anne Tyler with particular reference to the relationship between her fiction and how eccentricity and liminality interact in her works. E-Mail: Ann.Hurford@nottingham.ac.uk
Anthony Hutchinson, Nottingham University. Dissertation area: Telling the Story of American Liberalism: Novel Understanding of a Political Tradition. E-Mail: aaxah@nottingham.ac.uk
Richard Ings, Nottingham University. Dissertation area: Harlem Photography.
Rossita Ivanova, Dept of English and Comparative Literature, Warwick University. Dissertation area: Contemporary Native American Texts and Films 1970s-1990s. E-Mail: wspeeAcsv.warwick.ac.uk
Donna Jackson. E-Mail: dondrt@globalnet.co.uk
Elizabeth Anne Jacobs, University of Wales in Aberystwyth University. Dissertation area: Contemporary Chicana Literature. E-Mail: eaf92@aber.ac.uk
Cynthia Jesner, Glasgow University. Dissertation area: English language laws (making English the official language of some states), bilingualism, nativism and immigrants. E-Mail: cjesner@compuserve.com
Stephanie Jones
David Kennedy, University of Exeter. E-Mail: d.r.kennedy@exeter.ac.uk
Stephen Kenny, School of Media Critical and Creative Arts, Liverpool John Moores University. E-Mail: S.C.KENNY@LIVJM.AC.UK
Mark Ledwidge
Michelle Leung. E-Mail: menhir@interlog.com
Alison McDowall. E-Mail: MCCAMCDOW@livjm.ac.uk
Tiffany McKirdy, Glasgow University. Dissertation area: Cormac MacCarthy.
Sam Maddra. E-Mail: 9706651m@student.gla.ac.uk
Nicolas Maffei, Royal College of Art. Dissertation area: Norman Bel Geddes, Practical Visionary: American Industrial Design, Modernism and Consumption, 1915-1945. E-Mail: nicmaffei@hotmail.com
Ian Margeson
Laurence Marriott
Sarah Martin. E-Mail: enp01sjm@gold.ac.uk
Annette Matton. E-Mail: a.matton@exeter.ac.uk
Josephine Metcalf. E-Mail: eng8jc3m@leeds.ac.uk
Brian Miller. E-Mail: b.g.miller@bris.ac.uk
Darren Mulloy. E-Mail: D.Mulloy@uea.ac.uk
Stephanie Munro, Sheffield University. Dissertation area: African American womens writing, trauma, narrative, witnessing, white feminism, and psychoanalysis. E-Mail: stephanie.m@blueyonder.co.uk
Kathryn Napier, Glasgow University. Dissertation Area: American Colonial Literature. E-Mail: 9390151n@student.gla.ac.uk
Kathryn Nicol. E-Mail: eliknp@srvo.arts.ed.ac.uk
Joao-Paulo Nunes. E-Mail: Jpnunes@hotmail.com
Robert Orr, Newcastle University. E-Mail: R.M.J.ORR@ncl.ac.uk
Constantina Papoulias. E-Mail: c.papoulias@uel.ac.uk
Nicholas Patsides
Christopher Pierce, School of Architecture, Liverpool University. E-Mail: pierce@caad.ed.ac.uk
Alessanndro Pirolini, Institute of United States Studies. Dissertation area: American film history on the American screenwriter and director Preston Sturges; interest in the narrative and stylistic issues in American Film History. E-Mail: alx@alxalx.net
Luca Prono, Nottingham University. Dissertation area: Representations of Chicago in Ethnic Literature and Sociology. E-Mail: aaxlp@nottingham.ac.uk
Paul D. Quigley, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dissertation area: The antebellum South: intellectual and cultural history; in particular the problem of southern versus American national identities. E-Mail: pquigley@E-Mail.unc.edu
Danielle Ramsay, Nottingham University. Dissertation area: Henry Louis Gates, Signifying and Nineteenth century African American Writers. E-Mail: danielle@dramsay.demon.co.uk
Tatiani Rapatzikos, School of English and American Studies, University of East Anglia. E-Mail: T. Rapatzikos@uea.ac.uk
Mark Rawlinson, Nottingham University. Dissertation area: Early American Modernism, Charles Sheeler, Theodore Adornos Aesthetic Theory. E-Mail: aaxmsr@nottingham.ac.uk
Owen Robinson, Essex University (also Book Reviews Editor for Journal of American Studies). Dissertation area: A study of William Faulkners Yoknapatawpha County from the perspective of reader-writer relations both between Faulkner and the reader, and within the fiction itself. E-Mail: orobin@essex.ac.uk
Lisa Rull, American and Canadian Studies Dept., Nottingham University Dissertation area: Subversion, Conformity, Redemption and Re-evaluating the Historiography of a Mid-20th century movement through a study of Peggy Guggenheim. E-Mail: lisarull@yahoo.com
Markku Ruotsila, St. Johns College, Cambridge University
Dominic Sandbrook, Jesus College, Cambridge University. Dissertation area: Liberalism and Democratic politics from Truman to Reagan; the 1960s; the Vietnam War and its opponents; Eugene McCarthy. E-Mail: dcs23@cam.ac.uk
Theresa Saxon, Manchester Metropolitan University. E-Mail: jandt0@breathE-Mail.net
Birgit Schoenig, Fachbereich f¸r Neuere Fremdsprachen of the Philipps-Universit‰t Marburg. Dissertation area: Early American Romantic Writers: a comparative analysis of romantic topics with a focus on Washington Irving and his perception of a romantic 19th century Spain. E-Mail: schoenig@scm.de
Sachiko Shikoda, Nottingham University. Disertation area: Film adaptation as cross cultural translation on Truffauts adaptations from American Pulp Fiction. E-Mail: arxss1@nottingham.ac.uk
Daniel Short, School of English, Leeds University. E-Mail: engdas@leeds.ac.uk
Gemma Slade. E-Mail: gslade@mcmail.com
Margaret Smith. E-Mail: Dsmith6956@aol.com
John Soutter
Robert David Stanton, School of English, University of Leeds. E-Mail: engrds@english.novell.leeds.ac.uk
Barbara Stevens
Maureen Still, Glasgow University. E-Mail: 9608994m@student.gla.ac.uk
Joe Street, History Department, Sheffield University. Dissertation area: The relationships between the African American civil rights movement and popular culture 1945-1972, including such cultural forms as music, literature, art and religion. E-Mail: HIP99JS@sheffield.ac.uk
Jennifer Terry, English Department, Warwick University. Dissertation area: In second year of Ph.d on works by Toni Morrison. The focus is on the representation of forced displacement (in the context of overarching considerations such as The Middle Passage, slavery, racism, patriarchy etc.) and explores Morrisons use of dislocation as narrative strategy. She is currently on a placement with the Warwick/Wisconsin Graduate Exchange Fellowship to work with Nellie McKay. E-Mail: enscd@warwick.ac.uk
Anne-Marie Trudgill, Manchester Metropolitan University. Dissertation area: Works of the 19th century New England writer Elizabeth Stoddard. E-Mail: AnneTrudgill@compuserve.com
Aliki Varvogli, English and American Studies Dept, University of East Anglia. E-Mail: a.varvogli@uea.ac.uk
Robert P. Ward, Leeds University. E-Mail: engrpw@english.leeds.ac.uk
Andrew Warnes, Leeds University. E-Mail: engawa@leeds.ac.uk
Jonathan Watson. E-Mail: Jon@watson7496.freeserve.co.uk
Saranne Weller, Warwick University. Dissertation area: Uncle Toms Cabin, the anti-Tom tradition, race literature and southern authorship in the 19th century. E-Mail: ENSBQ@snow.csv.warwick.ac.uk
Guy Westwell, Dept. of Theatre, Film and Television, Glasgow University. E-Mail: 9406224W@arts.gla.ac.uk
Mark Whalan, Exeter University. Dissertation area: The short story cycle in American Modernist Literature, specifically with reference to Sherwood Anderson, Jean Toomer and William Faulkner. E-Mail: M.Whalan@exeter.ac.uk
Lynn Wharton
Karen Wilkinson, Manchester Metropolitan University Dissertation area: The interplay of gender religion and class in Nineteenth Century America, and how these issues are dealt with in the writing of Susan Warner (1819 -1885). E-Mail: Karen@wilkinsonk96.freeserve.co.uk
Nerys Williams, Sussex University. Dissertation area: Redefinition of the lyric in contemporary American poetics through strategies of linguistic “failure” and “error”. Works under discussion by Charles Bernstein, Michael Palmer, Jorie Graham, Lyn Hejinian and C. K. Williams. E-Mail: neryso.williams@virgin.net
John Wills, Bristol University. Dissertation area: An Environmental History of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, California. E-Mail: John. Wills@Bristol.ac.uk
Karen Wills, Bristol University. Dissertation area: American Environmental History, specifically Wildlife in US and Canadian National Parks. E-Mail: K.R.Wills@Bristol.ac.uk
Sherryl Wilson, University of West of England. Dissertation area: popular culture with a particular reference to TV. Explorations into the ways in which individuals express selfhood on the Oprah Winfrey Show, and within the cultural context of late capitalism. E-Mail: sherryl.wilson@uwe.ac.uk
Tracey Wismayer, Sheffield University. Dissertation area: Robert Kennedy and the Civil Rights Movement. E-Mail: HIP99TW@sheffield.ac.uk
Jayne Wood. E-Mail: jaynewood@hotmail.com
Sarah Wood, University College London. Dissertation area: Origins and Originality in the Works of Washington Irving. E-Mail: scott.button@wadham.oxford.ac.uk
Nigel Woodcock. E-Mail: nigel@eagle.u-net.com
Barbara Wyllie. E-Mail: bwylie@msn.com
Kevin Yuill, Nottingham University. Dissertation area: The Nixon Administration and the Origins of Affirmative Action. E-Mail: Kevin.yuill@virgin.net
New Members
Bella Adams is based in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear.
Susan Allan is a postgraduate at Glasgow University.
Nicola Caldwell is a postgraduate in the Department of History at Lancaster University.
Jess Edwards lectures in English Literature at the University of North London, with a special interest in the literature of travel and landscape.
Ozzlem Gorey is carrying out postgraduate research in the Department of English, Leicester.
Angela Groth is a postgraduate student in English at the University of Kent, Canterbury.
Dr. Kevin Halliwell is Curator or US and Commonwealth Collections at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Sandra Heap is Head of History at Bolton School, Girls Division.
Sarah Anne Heaton is based in Chester, with interests in Cultural Studies, Literature, and Media Studies.
Jayne Hoare is responsible for Collection Development (American History) with the Accessions Department, Cambridge University Library.
Jason Laverock is a teacher of American History in a West Midlands secondary school.
Michelle Leung is a student with the Department of History, University of Toronto.
Ronald Lewis is Eberly Professor of History at West Virginia University.
Nicholas Maffei is a postgraduate at the Royal College of Art.
Brian Gilbert Miller is a postgraduate in the Department of Historical Studies at Bristol.
Brian Neve is based at the Department of European Studies, University of Bath.
John E. Owens is Reader in United States Government and Politics at the University of Westminster. He is currently researching floor amending activity and theories of legislative participation and amendment sponsorship in the US Congress.
Constantina Papoulias is doing postgraduate work at the University of East London, Department of Cultural Studies.
Andrew Pepper lectures in American Studies at Middlesex University.
Steven Trevor Price lectures in the English Department of the University of Wales at Bangor.
Lee Sartain is a postgraduate working on the role of women in the NAACP, 1920-1954, at Edge Hill University College.
Sachiko Shikoda is a postgraduate at the Institute of Film Studies, American and Canadian Studies, Nottingham.
Robert David Stanton is a postgraduate student at Leeds University.
Julian Stringer lectures in Nottinghams School of American and Canadian Studies.
Mark Taylor is a PhD student at the University of Hull
Jonathan Watson is a postgraduate at the University of Sussex.
Marjorie Spruill Wheeler is Professor of History at the University of Southern Mississippi.
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