“You Think I’m Joking”: The Weaponized Comedy of President Obama’s Stand-up Addresses at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
“Obama Out.” As President Obama finished his last stand-up comedy address at the 2016 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, dropping the microphone to an ensuing mix of laughter and applause from the audience, a curtain fell on Obama’s considerable reshaping of this tradition.[2] The annual presidential comedy address at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has become an increasingly popular aspect of American culture.
Continue ReadingReview: Marilynne Robinson Symposium
While, as Ames states in Gilead, “Memory can make a thing seem more than it was”, this is certainly not the case for this thought-provoking and timely symposium. In providing a forum for discussion of new perspectives and research on Robinson’s work, the event was a resounding success.
Continue ReadingNight: Another Frontier in American Wilderness Studies?
In his groundbreaking book, At Day’s Close (2005), A. Roger Ekirch deftly reveals one of the significant differences between the pre- and post-industrial world: the overwhelming darkness of night in the absence of electric lighting. ‘Night brutally robbed men and women of their vision, the most treasured of human senses. None of sight’s sister senses, not even hearing or touch, permitted individuals such mastery over their environs’ (8). In a world of perpetual light, we post-industrialists have lost the sense of terror within the pre-industrialist’s night.
Continue Reading‘Is It Because I’m Black?’: The Music Industry, Image, and Politics in the Careers of Syl and Syleena Johnson
Throughout June 2016, U.S. Studies Online will be publishing a series of posts to mark African American Music Appreciation Month. In the fifth and final post, Glen Whitcroft compares the similarities between Syl Johnson and Syleena Johnson’s music and careers. Looking back over my false dreams that I once knew, Wondering why my dreams never came true, Somebody tell me, what can I do? Something is holding me back, Is it because I’m black? [1] In the aftermath of an intense decade of civil rights struggles, Syl Johnson, a blues singer and musician, released the anthemic and reflective “Is It Because I’m Black?” in 1969. Four decades later, his daughter, R&B singer-songwriter Syleena Johnson, recorded the song for her 2008 album Chapter 4: Labor Pains. The career trajectories of Syl and Syleena, although decades apart, followed a similar path of music industry politics, broken promises, and soured relationships. […]
Continue ReadingConfiguring The Dream Factory: Prince Fans and Destabilisation of the Album in the Digital Age
The speed with which ‘Prince’s ‘Vault’ of unreleased recordings was drilled into after his untimely death felt shocking to many. The existence of ‘The Vault’, a locked room within Prince’s Paisley Park recording complex, has been well known for decades and is believed to contain thousands of unreleased Prince recordings, as well as unseen music videos. However, the promise of authorising material that fans have been making their own for a considerable amount of time has refuelled discussion.
Continue ReadingBook Review: Literature and the Law of Nations, 1580-1680 by Christopher N. Warren
It is a most intriguing business for an American Studies scholar to review a book that hardly mentions America at all.
Continue ReadingPrince, Seventh-Day Adventism and the Apocalyptic Threat of the 1980s
In the light of his recent death, it is important to note how Prince’s music contributed to public discourse about religious norms and eschatological hopes. Prince’s most successful period as a recording artist came during the 1980s, and his lyrics throughout this decade reflect a contemporary escalation in discussions of the apocalyptic.
Continue ReadingReview: ‘Mothering Slaves: Motherhood, Childlessness, and the Care of Children from Slavery to Emancipation’
‘Mothering Slaves: Motherhood, Childlessness, and the Care of Children from Slavery to Emancipation’, University of Reading, 19-21 April 2016. Following events at the University of Newcastle and the Universidade de São Paulo, this third meeting of the Mothering Slaves Research Network sought to bring together experienced and new researchers, from a wide range of disciplines and several continents with a shared focus on the intersections of trans-Atlantic slavery and motherhood. The Atlantic framework encouraged scholars to think more comparatively about the concept and practice of motherhood within enslavement. The three-day conference adopted a fresh outlook to topics such as abortion, childcare, childhood, childlessness, infanticide, rape, and reproduction, to name but a few. Over the three-day period, scholars came together to share research into the lives of women, mothers, and children from across the Americas. While the great majority of papers looked to North America, predominantly the antebellum South, there was an […]
Continue ReadingReview: European Association for American Studies Conference 2016
To an historian – like myself – a panel entitled ‘Digitextualities – Spatialities, Fluidities, Hybridities’ seems perplexing at first, but the fact such papers could sit alongside those on nineteenth century slave history or modern American literature demonstrates EAAS’s inclusiveness. The exceptional coordination of such a large and international conference was a credit to the organisers.
Continue Reading“Money, That’s What I Want”: Who Benefitted from the Crossover of African American Musicians in the 1960s?
Throughout the twentieth century, the American music industry was plagued by issues of race, segregation and inequality; much like America itself. As the century progressed, music became a significant indicator of race relations and a willingness within much of the United States to racially integrate. This is exemplified through the growing ability for African American musicians to crossover to mainstream audiences. Scholar, Phillip Harper defines the term ‘crossover’ as an act’s achievement of commercial success due to its appeal across racial boundaries
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