Research

Review of ‘Myths in Culture’ Postgraduate Symposium 2014

“In his seminal Mythologies (1957), Barthes identifies myths as a type of speech, one that takes on universally acknowledged meanings which are rarely questioned. And although Barthes’ name was dropped only occasionally during “Myths in Culture”, a one-day postgraduate symposium at the University of Leicester, the spirit of his words were ever present.”

Obama’s West Point Vision: Or, How to Retreat from Military Intervention and Democracy Promotion

“Ultimately, Obama’s stance represents an accommodation to the current reality that at present, America is unwilling and unable to pay the potential economic, military and political costs of a more expansive strategic and ideological posture.”

Review of the “Alt-American” conference 2014

“Bell should be commended for convening a tremendous conference to do just that, challenging a distinguished group of critics, temporally and geographically dislocated from their subject at a conference in twenty-first-century England, to read the many implausible realities of nineteenth-century America.”

60 Seconds With Jade Tullett

How did you come to your current area of research?

“My Undergraduate dissertation. It was about Emo as the last subculture, which led very nicely onto deeper understandings of punk, cultural contact, and the relationships between fine art and popular music.”

Review of 25th Annual Conference of American Literature Association 2014

“What stood out from the conference was the breadth of American literary studies, both in terms of approaches, historical periods, and geography. There seems to have been no waning in Trans-American Studies (transatlantic, transpacific, transcontinental and more), with the borders of American Literature stretching ever further.”

60 Seconds With Collin Lieberg

What is the most exciting thing you have planned in the next six months?

“Submitting my PhD!”

Father of the Year: Bill Clinton’s Paternal Redemption

“Chelsea was the first child to reside in the White House since Amy Lynn Carter in 1979, allowing for the conscious construction of Clinton as Dad, as well as President. At the Democratic National Convention in 1992, Chelsea was pictured holding her father’s hand, and she stood beside him as he took the Presidential Oath at his inauguration in 1993. More casual photographs of father and daughter surfaced on numerous occasions during the campaign, with Clinton cast in the role of ‘ordinary dad’, white-water rafting and playing mini-golf with his family.”

Why High School Teachers should teach History through and beyond Narrative

“A postmodernist historian would hold that history, and historiography, cannot be simply quantified and determined as one particular narrative with one particular meaning. The problem with this is that non-narrative history typically represents the larger group – the cohort or mass actor. By contrast, a narrative approach to history-telling is more likely to focus on the individual, a character or narrator who reveals their personal experiences and perhaps their emotional responses to historical events and dilemmas. Students of history can commonly relate more easily to the individual, with whom they may be able to identify common experiences or emotions.”

Book Review: Hidden in the Mix – The African American Presence in Country Music by Diane Pecknold

“Hidden in the Mix is an enjoyable, enlightening and captivating read that finally gives recognition to the African American presence within one of the most successful music genres in the world.”

Selling Houses to Buy a Dream: White Diaspora and the Suburbs in Richard Ford’s Bascombe Trilogy

“The issues raised in Independence Day and The Lay of the Land – rising house prices, shoddy construction, profiting on the back of others’ aspirations (for what else does a realtor do than make money from people in search of their dream home?) – are still remarkably relevant today. The Markhams fall victim to their own outsized ambitions but also to the upswing of a property bubble that eventually crashed with devastating consequences for millions across America.”