2016 Biannual Conference of the Swiss Association for North American Studies, SANAS University of Bern, November 4-5, 2016 The “popular” and “people” and the “political” and “polis” find a common nexus in the concept of community. There are few topics as contentious in the Humanities as community, and its extension into American studies is of particular interest and import given the volatility of contemporary social landscapes. The American community undoubtedly extends beyond, and is neither as homogeneous nor as singular as, the geographical borders allotted to it on maps. This conference seeks to bring together contributions that investigate the nature of community as part of both popular and political discourses and practices in North America. The expression of the political in terms of a unified land or people is problematized in contemporary, fragmented accounts of community. The dissent is evident in the contemporary political situation of the US where the […]

Second International Conference of the Intercontinental Crosscurrents Network Institute of Arts and Humanities, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, Nov. 3 – 5, 2016 Convener: Department of English and North-American Studies (DEINA) and the Centre for Humanistic Studies (CEHUM) Networks are structures of relation, alignment, assembly, and linkage, however loose and asymmetrical their construction. They seem, first of all, combinative, their “work” deriving from or yielding to a common purpose or unifying theme. Along these lines, networks constitute structures of support or specific forms of exchange and solidarity, in essence bringing relations into being that can begin to exist across the norms and epistemologies of the status quo. This focus on the productive aspects of networks, which often goes hand in hand with a celebratory discourse of accomplishments or injustices addressed, obscures another important question, however, namely, the extent to which networks operate on, or are, or can be, in themselves, […]

Annual Public History Lecture (History Subject Group/School of Histories, Cultures and Languages, University of Hull), Wednesday 2 November at 6 p.m., Leslie Downs Lecture Theatre, Ferens Building, University of Hull. Light refreshments follow at 7 p.m. Professor Ann McGrath (Director of the Australian Centre for Indigenous History, Australian National University) is interested in deep history, gender and nation and is committed to public outreach via her work in Museums, Commissions of Enquiry and in legal cases. Her last film, Message from Mungo (Ronin Films 2014) co-directed with Andrew Pike, won the United Nations of Australia Media Award.  Professor McGrath is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences and has been awarded an Order of Australia Medal. Professor McGrath will be speaking about her latest book, for which she won the 2016 New South Wales Premier's Prize for History:   'Illicit Love: Interracial Sex and Marriage in the United States and Australia' (University of Nebraska Press, […]