Research

60 Second Roundup: BAAS Executive Advice for ECRs

Over the last few weeks we have published a series of 60 Second interviews with the BAAS Executive Committee. They gave such brilliant answers that we decided to collect their advice for ECRs in one place.

60 Seconds With Sue Currell

What advice would you give to early career academics?

“Try to put family, friends, having a life, first.”

Review of Culture and the Canada-U.S. Border 2014 Conference

Convening on a sun-drenched weekend amid the wonderful surroundings of University Park Campus, the third Culture and the Canada-U.S. Border conference met to discuss the broad theme of ‘Cultural Crossings’, interrogating production, consumption, and reception across the 49th parallel; that real-and-imagined international boundary that lies between the United States and Canada.

60 Seconds With Rachael Mclennan

What advice would you give to early career academics?

“Don’t work too hard…”

60 Seconds With Sylvia Ellis

The U.S. Studies Online 60 Seconds interview feature offers a short and informal introduction to a postgraduate, academic or non-academic specialist working in the American and Canadian Studies field or a related American and Canadian Studies association.  Last month you spent 60 seconds with the U. S. Studies Online Editorial team. This month we have invited the Executive Committee of the British Association for American Studies, our parent organisation, to tell us a little bit more about themselves, their interests, the way they made it into academia and, crucially, their top advice for new academics.   [starbox] Where are you right now? At home with my children. If you could time-travel to observe one moment in the history of America, where would you go? An uplifting moment rather than the grassy knoll!  June 1967, Monterey Pop Festival. Who would you invite to your fantasy dinner party? Tricky one!  Richard Burton, Keith Moon, Susan Sarandon, Ayrton Senna, […]

The Manhattan Male in “Grit Lit” and Film from the 1970s to the 1990s

“Modern masculinity has shifted in order to fit into amodern city frame. This leaves behind the man in the gray flannel suit and the image of the conformist suburbanite. The new urban man of the late twentieth century has his identity constructed by Manhattan’s rapid commodity fetishism. Like the city itself, his body becomes visible, measurable and displayed.”

60 Seconds With Jenny Terry

What advice would you give to early career academics?

“Stamina and, when things go wrong, the ability to ‘reset’ your frame of mind will stand you in good stead in academia. Don’t be afraid to speak up and out!”

60 Seconds With Nick Witham

Who would you invite to your fantasy dinner party?

“I’ve always been sceptical of the idea that people from diverse time periods would have much to discuss at fantasy dinner parties. So my guest list has an “intellectuals of the mid-twentieth century” theme: Richard Hofstadter, Hannah Arendt, Lionel Trilling, Amiri Baraka, and Susan Sontag. I wouldn’t get a word in edgeways.”

60 Seconds With Katie McGettigan

How did you come to your current area of research?

“… I took a class in Bibliography and Book History during my Master’s, which got me started on the materiality of books. It suddenly seemed to illogical to me that I’d spend so much time thinking about texts, and so little time thinking about books as things. I’ve made up for that since.”

USSO Interviews BAAS Postgraduate Representative Rachael Alexander

In April 2014 Rachael Alexander was elected as the Postgraduate Representative for the British Association for American Studies. One month later Michelle Green spoke to her about her manifesto, what she thinks are the biggest challenges facing postgraduate students at the moment, and how we can all help.