HOTCUS Annual Conference 2021 (Online)

AMERICANISTS VIRTUAL MEET-UP 15:00 (GMT) 30th October 2020 This is a free online event for PhD students, aimed at creating a stronger sense of community for those of us researching within the broad field of American Studies. This event will give PhD students the opportunity to give a short, five minute presentation on their research, and to meet others working in similar areas. If your research focusses on the Americas, and you would like to sign up for the virtual meet-up, please register at https://forms.gle/nJEyFk75rGynsN1W9 by Friday 23rd October. Feel free to contact patrick.1.turner@kcl.ac.uk or a.djelid@pgr.reading.ac.uk if you have any questions.

About this Event This event is part of the Rothermere American Institute's 'America Decides' series of election events, supported by the U.S. Embassy in London. In this special election-eve event, please join some of the RAI's Graduate Students and Early Career Researchers as they discuss the intersection between their area of research expertise and the 2020 election.   Speakers include: Dr. Emma Day on women's issues Dr. Rivers Gambrell on sport and the presidency Ella St George Carey on Evangelics and the Kanye West presidential campaign Joseph Guido on African foreign policy Dr. Daniel Rowe on trade Grace Mallon on the 'revolution of 1800' and the presidential transfer of power

November 5  Sveinn Johanesson (Edinburgh): The War of 1812 and the Hidden Transformation of the American Central State This session is part of the University of Edinburgh’s American History Fall Workshop series. If you are interested in participating in these workshops, please contact David Silkenat at the in order to be added to the mailing list and receive the pre-circulated papers. All of these workshops will occur on Zoom at 5pm on the indicated date.

The IAAS Postgraduate Symposium “Parallel Lives in America” Virtual Event via Zoom 13th-14th of November, 2020 Last year, the Irish Association for American Studies’ Postgraduate Symposium, titled “The Land of the Unfree”, sought to interrogate the legitimacy of democracy in America. One year on, in the midst of a global pandemic, this legitimacy has not only been interrogated, but put on trial. In the U.S., the COVID-19 pandemic has both exacerbated and exposed already existent crises: social, political and economic, among others. Referred to by The New York Times as “The Pandemic Inequality Feedback Loop”, research has shown that individuals of lower economic strata and minority groups are both more likely to contract the virus, and to die from it. From bulk buying to wide-spread job losses, the concerns and priorities of American citizens have existed on a wide spectrum according to relative levels of privilege and oppression. The 2020 […]

November 19  Abena Boakyewa-Ansah (Vanderbilt): 'She Was Hunting Freedom': Black Women's Paths Out of the Confederacy This session is part of the University of Edinburgh’s American History Fall Workshop series. If you are interested in participating in these workshops, please contact David Silkenat at the in order to be added to the mailing list and receive the pre-circulated papers. All of these workshops will occur on Zoom at 5pm on the indicated date.

This symposium invites Postgraduate Researchers and Early Career Researchers in the field of American Studies to evaluate and analyse the relationship between the Americas and ‘space’. This could include a geographical approach to ‘space’ and ‘place’, an ecological focus on the environment, the art of mapping, the relationship between the country and the city, the American notion of ‘the frontiers’, a transatlantic focus on the relationship between the Americas and other spaces, or even a more literal look at America’s role in exploring outer space. The interdisciplinary nature of this symposium aims to subvert the common use of space as ‘a context’ by bringing it to the forefront of the conversation to interrogate how the Americas are spatially constructed. Keynote Speaker: Dr Anne-Marie Angelo, University of Sussex. Date: 21st November 2020

Speaker Event via Zoom: Tuesday 24 November, 4.15 (UK), Professor Mary Chapman, University of British Columbia Please join us on Tues 24 Nov at 4.15, when Prof Mary Chapman will give a talk, “Onoto Watanna’s Japanese Kin: Re-recovering Winnifred Eaton”. All welcome. If you'd like to attend, email Dr Laura Rattray (Laura.Rattray@glasgow.ac.uk) and you'll receive a secure Zoom link on the day of the talk. “Onoto Watanna’s Japanese Kin: Re-recovering Winnifred Eaton” Professor Mary Chapman (UBC) Thirty-five years ago, Amy Ling initiated the recovery of Chinese-American novelist Winnifred Eaton, whom she praised for her feminist heroines, charming style, and prodigious output.  But enthusiasm for the recovery of Eaton’s oeuvre was quickly tempered by the chagrin that critics felt, even in the wake of scholarship that understood identity as provisional and strategic, in response to Winnifred Eaton’s masquerade as Japanese author “Onoto Watanna.” Eaton’s posturing as the daughter of a Japanese […]