Book Review: Religious Freedom: The Contested History of An American Ideal by Tisa Wenger
By recounting pivotal events of the Unites States imperialistic expansion through the lens of the religious-ideological struggle which informed them, in Religious Freedom: The Contested History of an American Ideal, Tisa Wenger explains how the ideal of religious freedom has been a part of the discourse of the United States’ dominant ethnic group, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, as well as a tool deployed by the ‘many people who wanted to locate themselves as equal partners in the American experiment – and to transform themselves into actors, rather than subjects of the imperial modern’ (34).
Continue ReadingReview: PG BAAS Conference – Connection and Collective Action: Past and Present (Online)
This year’s British Association of American Studies (BAAS) Postgraduate Symposium inspired speakers and attendees alike to trace instances of connection, collaboration and action across both today’s and yesterday’s America. Amidst the ongoing isolation for many in 2020, organisers Molly Becker (University of Cambridge) and Jennifer dos Reis dos Santos (Aberystwyth University) would have been hard-pressed to choose a more thoughtful and vital theme, or more insightful papers for the day’s proceedings. Indeed, in their welcoming remarks, the organisers commented that they intended for this year’s theme to be as “open to as many different realms of American Studies and diverse interpretations” as possible. The resulting cross-disciplinarity was apparent across the symposium’s three panels and keynote presentation, with topics ranging between school desegregation in 1930s small town America, the political significance of St. Patrick’s Day parades, and the intersectional possibilities of Twitter discourse. Additionally, the inclusion of a ‘Publishing Opportunities for […]
Continue ReadingBook Review: Neoliberalism and Contemporary American Literature, edited by Liam Kennedy and Stephen Shapiro.
Neoliberalism and Contemporary American Literature is a challenging collection of essays that should reverberate throughout the field. Readers will find a range of insights here into how recent American fiction, in editors Liam Kennedy and Stephen Shapiro’s words, ‘models and interrogates the neoliberal present’ (1).
Continue ReadingReview: Kent Americanist Symposium “The Spatial Americas” (Online)
The Kent Americanist Symposium returned on November 21st for the fourth of what is now an annual gathering of early career scholars. The day was admirably led by Jack Dice and Irene Lopez Sanchez, both of the University of Kent, and was sponsored by the British Association of American Studies (BAAS) and the Centre for American Studies at Kent. The timely and topical title of the day was “The Spatial Americas,” embracing the full diversity of thinking on the continental scale. As this event becomes embedded within the Americanist calendar, it is growing more substantial with each iteration. This year saw a full schedule of four panels and two very engaging keynote papers, insightfully engaging with the conference themes of liminalities and frontiers, written spaces, space, memory and exile, and racialised spaces. The preliminary lecture was delivered on Wednesday 18th November by Professor Hsuan L. Hsu (UC Davis), discussing “Racial […]
Continue ReadingReview: The IAAS Postgraduate Symposium “Parallel Lives in America” (Online)
‘Parallel Lives in America’ encouraged scholars to investigate the juxtaposition of various dynamics, particularly between those with power to those who are oppressed, that exist in America today. This year’s theme of the IAAS postgraduate symposium, co-organised by Sarah McCreedy and Maria Manning, was described in the opening remarks by IAAS chair, Catherine Gander, as “a painfully astute topic.” The conference follows a tumultuous year in American history, following the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and the tensions surrounding the presidential election. As these events have drawn awareness to the state of inequality in America, the symposium allowed scholars focusing on American studies to examine how their research ties in with America’s history of disparity. Held across two days, the virtual conference participants showcased their different interpretations of this year’s theme, with topics ranging between historical aspects on America’s racial inequality, queer feminist hip-hop in Cuba, how […]
Continue ReadingBook Review: Slavery at Sea by Sowande’ M. Mustakeem
Sowande’ M. Mustakeem’s Slavery At Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage redefines the existing narrative of the transatlantic slave trade by offering vastly new perspectives to the literature. This ambitious study brings together a wide array of archival sources – including diaries, medical logs, ship logs, account sales, and newspapers – to consider ‘this horrific period in time’ which ‘continues unchallenged’ and so remains ‘a bloodied yet sanitized chapter in global history’ (6).
Continue ReadingAmerican Catholicism and Empire: A Review Essay
The rise of Catholicism in the United States has been examined for the most part in relation to the expansion of the US empire. Early studies focus especially on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Only recently have the first arduous steps been taken in understanding the complex transformation of Protestantism and Catholicism in the US from the late seventeenth to the nineteenth century.
Continue ReadingBook Review: Abortion and the Law in America by Mary Ziegler
The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020 caused a resurgence of the long-standing debate over abortion in the United States, especially because it happened merely two months before the presidential election which could confirm Donald Trump for a second mandate.
Continue ReadingReview: Zoom into BrANCH 2020 (Online)
Conference Review: ‘Zoom into BrANCH’, 10th – 11th October 2020 In a pre-COVID-19 world, the Association of British American Nineteenth Century Historians (BrANCH) would have met in person for a range of exciting papers on nineteenth-century American history. But, just as the world has had to adapt, so too has BrANCH. Organised by Dr. Elizabeth Barnes, the decision to move the annual conference online brought together the BrANCH community through pre-circulated papers and an hour-long Q&A from each speaker. Making the most of the online platform, four papers dwelled on a range of topics and themes, from American sailors in Algeria to German anarchism in the late nineteenth-century US. The pre-circulated paper format allowed the attendees to think deeply about the work presented to them and contribute thought-provoking questions, fostering stimulating debates that, if in person, would have long continued into the post-panel drinks in the pub afterward. Saturday afternoon […]
Continue ReadingReview: ‘Teaching Histories of Race in America to UK Undergraduates: A Review Panel’, Rothermere American Institute (Online)
Conference Review: ‘Teaching Histories of Race in America to UK Undergraduates: A Review Panel’, Rothermere American Institute (RAI) Webinar, 22nd October 2020. Chaired by the University of Oxford’s Research Fellow, Sonia Tycko, ‘Teaching Histories of Race in America to UK Undergraduates’ hosted virtually by the Oxford Rothermere American Institute (RAI) invited scholars and academics of racial history to attend a review panel characterised by a discussion on a pre-circulated collaborative bibliography, ‘America and Race: A Bibliography for UK History Undergraduates.’ This event provided an interrogation of key issues in pedagogy on the history of race among early American and US historians based in the UK. The Black Lives Matter movement and the murder of unarmed African Americans including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of the police within Trump’s America amidst a backdrop of institutionalised racism, has sparked the latest conversation for the need of social and education […]
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