PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE
AN ARCHIVE OF U.S. STUDIES ONLINE’S
SPECIAL FEATURED BLOG SERIES
Throughout the year U.S. Studies Online features a number of special blog series initiatives that are centred around one theme or topic of interest to scholars in American Studies. These are sometimes curated by the U.S. Studies Online editorial team or collaborative efforts with individual academics or American Studies Associations and organisations. Here is a list of our past, present and upcoming blog series.
For details on how to approach U.S. Studies Online with a blog series proposal, click here or email usso@baas.ac.uk.
Eccles Centre’s Summer Scholars series.
Last year the British Library Americas Blog and U.S. Studies Online are publishing a series of posts as part of the Eccles Centre’s Summer Scholars 2015 series. The articles are based on talks given by a range of writers and scholars conducting research at the British Library thanks to generous research fellowships and grants awarded by the Eccles Centre.
First Nations series in honour of Native American Heritage Month, November 2015.
To celebrate Native American Heritage Month, U.S. Studies Online is publishing a series of posts under the broad umbrella of “First Nations” history, literature and culture.
Teaching America series, September 2015. A collaborative blog series between U.S. Studies Online and the Historians of the Twentieth Century United States (HOTCUS).
This series examines and explores the variety of ways to teach the history of the United States. It offers an opportunity to discuss current pedagogical trends, methodological approaches, and challenges faced when teaching and also providing an insight into the diversity of teaching current being conducted at universities.
Muslims/Islam in America, American Muslims/Islam series, July 2015.
To celebrate the end of Ramadan, U.S. Studies Online is publishing a series of posts under the broad umbrella of “Muslims/Islam in America, American Muslims/Islam” around the date of Eid al-Fitr (18 July in the UK).
“Black Music Month” and Caribbean American Heritage Month series, June 2015. Our Black Music Month series was a collaborative series between U.S. Studies Online and Greg Whitcroft (Northumbria).
Throughout June 2015 we published a series of posts discussing African American Music and Caribbean American culture in honour of these two annual observances.
Civil War series, April 2015.
In honour of the sesquicentennial anniversary of the end of the Civil War (9 April 1865), throughout April 2015 we featured posts on the American Civil War in modern country music, the United States Christian Commission during the war, and assessed the American Civil War Sesquicentennial and its treatment of the dead it honours. The series concludes with a post that takes a different look at 1865 through Henry David Thoreau’s Cape Cod and Antebellum America.
“Women in America” series in honour of Women’s History Month, March 2015. A collaborative blog series between U.S. Studies Online, the UK-based network Society for the History of Women in the Americas (SHAW) and the US-based network the Society for the Study of American Women Writers (SSAWW).
Our “Women in America” blog series for Women’s History Month 2015 is a diverse and exciting blog series that ran for five weeks in total and included 18 posts.
Society for the Study of American Women Writers’s (SSAWW) blog series focused on American women writers and explores the field of women’s writing through several lenses that range from recovery to religion and from war to transnationalism. By no means comprehensive in scope, this series of nine posts by SSAWW members offers snapshots into the field and its on-going conversations.
The Society for the History of Women in the Americas’s (SHAW) blog series showcases the diversity of research and differing experiences of scholars who are based in the UK but work on women in the US. The six posts also highlight the challenges facing academics (both those researching transnationally and more generally) as well as the valuable insights that continues to emerge from this cross-disciplinary field.
American Studies in Europe: An Interview Series with academics across Europe, December 2014-January 2015. A collaborative series between U.S. Studies Online and Dr. Richard Martin (KCL).
Throughout December 2014 and January 2015 U.S. Studies Online has published a series of interviews with postgraduate and early-career researchers working in the broad field of American Studies across Europe. Dr Richard Martin spoke to scholars based in western Spain to central Turkey, via Copenhagen, Warsaw and Timisoara about their wide-ranging research interests and the state of American Studies in their countries.
Black History series in honour of Black History Month 2014 in the UK, October 2014.
Throughout October 2014 U.S. Studies Online published a series of posts by U.K. and U.S.-based academics of all levels in honour of the UK’s Black History Month. We featured posts on Ferguson, Frederick Douglass, the origins of battle rap, Civil War African American soldiers, and much more.
The final post in the series featured our very first Programme Review of events in which Hannah Jeffery (Nottingham) evaluated the Black History Month public engagement events at the University of Nottingham.
This is a get-to-know-you series with the executive committee of BAAS (correct to date of interview) with invaluable advice on academia and careers for PGRs and ECRs.
It features interviews with Dr. Sue Currell (Sussex), Professor Sylvia Ellis (Northumbria), Professor Bridget Bennet (Leeds), Professor Martin Halliwell (Leicester), Dr. Rachael McLennan (UEA), Dr. Sinéad Moynihan (Exeter), Dr. Joe Street (Northumbria), Dr. Zalfa Fengali (Canterbury Christ Church), Dr. Nick Witham (Canterbury Christ Church), Dr. Jenny Terry (Durham), Dr. Katie McGettigan (Nottingham) and Rachael Alexander (Strathclyde).
Click here to read our 60 Second Roundup: BAAS Executive Advice for ECRs.
Soft Power mini-series. A collaborative series with Dr. Robert Pee (formerly Birmingham).
Our first blog series looked at the historical origins and development of “Soft Power” in U.S. relations with the world. Soft power which is what foremost scholar Joseph Nye identifies as the exertion of “attractive power” on foreign publics through culture, ideology and political value systems. Namely, the use of non-forcible action on foreign governments and world public opinion.