Transatlantic Literary Women, Series 2
Run by women, and in celebration of women, the series focuses on female writers on either side of the Atlantic; specifically, their lives and work in all genres from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Talks from Dr Eilidh A B Hall and Professor Faye Hammill were among the opening highlights of this year’s series.
Continue ReadingBook Review: James and Esther Cooper Jackson: Love and Courage in the Black Freedom Movement by Sarah Rzeszutek Haviland
In this dual biography, Sarah Haviland traces the political and intellectual career of activist couple James and Esther Cooper Jackson. Utilising a combination of personally-conducted oral history interviews and archival material, she argues that an analysis of the couple demonstrates that communist-affiliated activists of the 1930s Popular Front era were able to adapt their activism and influence the trajectory of the modern civil rights movement that emerged in the 1960s.
Continue Reading“Coward, take my coward’s hand”: Mudbound (2017) and the legacy of Hollywood’s anti-racist returning veteran films
On a dusty, unpaved main street veteran Jamie McAllan (Garrett Hedlund) leaves the local general store serving the outpost Mississippi Delta community near his brother’s farm. Suddenly, he drops to the ground. The noise of a car backfiring has returned him to his recent combat experience as a bomber pilot. As local men eye him suspiciously, help is offered in the form of the outstretched hand of Ronsel Jackson (Jason Mitchell). The offer draws reproach from the onlookers for its disruption of local customs and hierarchy. It is 1946 and, while Jamie is white, Ronsel is black.
Continue Reading2017 in Review: Editors’ Top Picks
2017 in review 2017 featured a number of interdisciplinary guest-edited series covering a range of issues and fields. We published Alfred Cardone (King’s College, London) series, ‘Media Coverage and the Presidential Election of 2016’, which featured articles that took readers on a media-led tour of Trump’s election. Articles included an analysis of the Trump campaign’s relationship with the Tea Party movement, and a reading of the 45th US President through John Higham. Building on last year’s digital appendix, the series also featured a ‘trans-media post-mortem’ by Darren Reid and Brett Sanders. In May, USSO featured the series ‘Beyond the Graphic: Considering Violence, Sexuality and Obscenity in Comics’ guest-edited by Dr Harriet Earle (Sheffield Hallam). The six articles included analyses of vampires, sexual trauma, and notions of the divided city – two of which feature in the Editors’ Top Picks below. 2017 also saw us collaborate with Adam Matthew Digital, who […]
Continue ReadingHistorians Against Slavery
An over-arching theme of the conference was a trans-disciplinary approach, clearly seen in the construction of the panels. From historians to lawyers to activists, it was clear that organisers of the conference wanted to encourage research collaboration in the effort to end modern slavery. Unlike an inter-disciplinary method, a trans-disciplinary approach goes across different areas of research, not just within, to fully utilise the expertise of each field.
Continue ReadingBook review: Japanese American Ethnicity: In search of Heritage and Homeland across Generations by Takeyuki Tsuda
While the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II is an established focus of historical study, little attention has been paid to Japanese Americans regarding their status as one of the longest-standing Asian minority groups in the US. Tsuda seeks to remedy this, and shows how historical events have influenced the perception of Japanese Americans over time. In this book he draws on first-hand accounts and his own interviews with Japanese Americans, which are helpfully synthesised to show differences both within and between each distinctive historical cohort.
Continue ReadingBook Review: The Boatman: Henry David Thoreau’s River Years by Robert M. Thorson
Most biographers have ignored Henry David Thoreau’s relationship to the river but Robert Thorson here aims to correct this narrow focus by arguing that the river – the active ever-changing water bustiling with activity both human and natural – is as much a part of Thoreau’s canon and its landscape as the still water of Walden Pond. In this book Thorson envisions Thoreau’s environment as a hybrid of land and water, and the man as a boatman as much as a woodsman.
Continue ReadingEdith Wharton Workshop
Among the first events of the new season of the Transatlantic Literary Women Series was an Edith Wharton workshop which was fittingly transatlantic and transnational in scope, welcoming participants from Scotland, England, Germany, China, Ireland and Canada.
Continue ReadingBook Review: Awakening: How Gays and Lesbians Brought Marriage Equality to America by Nathaniel Frank
In this book Nathanial Frank traces how marriage became a key debate of the culture wars in the late twentieth, and early twenty-first, centuries. He explores the conflicts within the gay rights movement, conservative resistance, and changing public attitudes towards marriage equality in the United States.
Continue ReadingBook Review: The Tea Party Divided : The Hidden Diversity of a Maturing Movement by Heath Brown
In the age of President Donald Trump and the rise of the alt-right, it almost seems passé to focus on the Tea Party- the phenomenon that took American politics by storm during and after the Great Recession. However, revisiting the Tea Party not only carries the possibility of discovering something new about the movement and its participants, but also could provide us with important insights on current events.
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