American Studies across Borders: International Opportunities for PhDs and Postdocs
International experience has become a prerequisite for success in academia – but depending on how you look at it, this can be exciting and terrifying in equal measure. I’m launching a new USSO series about how to take your research across borders, talking to representatives of those institutions and programs that can help PhDs and postdocs build an international profile. The Terra Foundation for American Art is my first interview partner.
Continue ReadingApplication Advice: Gerald Ford Presidential Foundation
This month I am visiting the United States for eighteen days to conduct primary source research central to my PhD thesis, ‘Spies, civil liberties and the Senate: the 1975 Church Committee’. It is the first time I have been to the US, and it is mainly due to the award I received from the Gerald Ford Presidential Foundation that I am able to spend such a significant amount of time there.
Continue ReadingApplication Advice: Eccles Centre European Postgraduate Award
Writing applications can be a scary undertaking, especially if you have only recently graduated and cannot yet boast with an impressive list of publications or extensive work experience in any specific area. You might even feel that you have not achieved anything truly noteworthy so far – except, maybe, making it through college alive.
Continue ReadingApplying for Research Funding: Four Key Principles
I have had some success in this area, having raised funds during my PhD and the first five years of my career from the AHRC, BAAS, the British Academy, Duke University, the University of Edinburgh, the Fulbright Commission, and the University of Nottingham. I have also served on the committee of HOTCUS, for which I have judged postgraduate travel awards on several occasions.
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 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 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
Continue ReadingJust one day to go: primaries are nearly over
California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota are still missing but today, 7 June, the Democratic and Republican primaries are finally going to be over (the former, in fact, will have to wait until 14 June for the result of the District of Columbia). Since the competition is almost over, the debate seems to be less focused on polling data and more concentrated on looking forward to the conventions, which await both parties in the next few weeks.
Continue ReadingBeyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’: A Complex and Intersectional Exploration of Racial and Gendered Identity
Much of Beyoncé’s career has been defined by an image that has spoken largely to notions of the form of ‘girl power’ and independence that we associate with the emergence of postfeminist popular culture in the 1990s. Largely conceptualised as a ‘non-political’ feminist discourse, manifestations of postfeminism in popular culture have been characterised by notions of choice, individualism and the re-commodification of femininity.
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