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CfP: 15th SAAS Conference: “Fear Narratives” and their Role/Use in the United States (University of Deusto, Bilbao)

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Beasts of the Sky: Strange Sightings in the Stratosphere (St Mary’s University, Twickenham)

Beasts of the Sky: Strange Sightings in the Stratosphere 30 June 2018   Proposals are invited for an interdisciplinary symposium at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, to explore representations of creatures of the sky and air, within the context of popular culture. The one-day conference is on Saturday 30 June 2018. Keynote Lecture: Dr Chris Pallant, Canterbury Christ Church University. Taking place in the drawing room of Horace Walpole’s Gothic mansion in Strawberry Hill, this symposium will discuss the sky as space, as well as the creatures associated with it, whether monstrous or mundane, in popular culture. The sky is a privileged locale in popular genres, from science fiction, horror and dystopian film; in animation as well as live action; to natural history programming on television. Sometimes the sky is linked to the archaic, in myth and with prehistoric airborne creatures; at other times it is the site for our projections of the […]

CFP: ‘The Uses and Abuses of the American Past’, HOTCUS Annual PG and ECR Conference (University of Nottingham)

HOTCUS Annual Postgraduate & Early Career Conference: ‘The Uses and Abuses of the American Past’ Saturday, 20 October 2018, The University of Nottingham Keynote Speaker: Professor Michael Cullinane, University of Roehampton Recent political debates across the United States have witnessed different groups claim and contest aspects of the American past to advance their causes. From the changing role of America in the world to tumultuous conversations about civil war monuments, the Standing Rock demonstrations, arguments over school history curricula, and debates about contemporary racial politics influenced by the immigrant history of the United States, the meaning of American history has been invoked on behalf of a myriad of causes. In a mid-term election year, amidst apparently deepening divides of politics, identity and culture, the significance of the American past is only likely to become more contested. As we reflect on the fiftieth anniversary of the turbulent year of 1968, it […]

CFP: Divided Selves and Societies in Irish and American Literature and Culture (Queens University Belfast)

Common Ground Conference 2018 Divided Selves and Societies in Irish and American Literature and Culture 26 – 27 October 2018  commongroundsymposium.wordpress.com / @commongroundqub Following the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, the topics of borders and division are once again at the forefront of the global political consciousness. The central protections of the agreement that brought ‘The Troubles’ to an end are now threatened by both the collapse of the power-sharing government in Northern Ireland and by Brexit negotiations, during which concerns relating to the current NI/RoI border and future EU/UK border have posed many obstacles. Borders and division are also a principal concern of the current administration in the United States of America, particularly with respect to the proposed ‘border wall’ with Mexico and the ‘travel ban’ from several Muslim-majority countries. Moreover, Ireland and America share a common interest in the Irish border: it was Senator George Mitchell, […]

CFP: Book History Research Network Study Day: The Book in the Digital Age (Loughborough University)

Book History Research Network Study Day: The Book in the Digital Age Loughborough University (UK) 24 October 2018   Digital technologies are changing the ways we produce, disseminate, and consume texts. Texts may take traditionally tangible forms, but they may also now take coded forms, physically accessible only through desktop and mobile media. Our perceptions of extant textual artefacts also change in light of increasing digitisation. New digital tools for textual scholarship are regularly released; book historians now enjoy access to vast digital archives of textual material. Indeed, digital technologies allow us to engage with extant textual artefacts in new ways, while at the same time offering new avenues for text production and reception.   This study day, held at Loughborough University, will explore the new prospects afforded to book history scholarship by increasingly digital circumstances. It will do so through two types of presentations: 20-minute paper presentations and 15-minute presentations […]

HOTCUS Inaugural Work-in-Progress Meeting (University of Nottingham)

The University of Nottingham University Park, Nottingham, United Kingdom

HOTCUS Inaugural Work-in-Progress Meeting, evening of Friday 19 October 2018, The University of Nottingham HOTCUS are delighted to launch our inaugural work-in-progress session. This first meeting will include the presentation of two papers. Each presenter will introduce their project/piece of work, and then the majority of the session will be spent fielding questions from the audience and discussing the work in-depth. The sessions are designed to be an open forum for each presenter to share their writing and to receive detailed feedback from the HOTCUS community. Attendees will receive the papers to be discussed two weeks in advance of the session. Our presenters will be: Miguel Hernandez, University of Exeter. "“The Menace of Modern Immigration: Nativism and Violence in the 1920s Ku Klux Klan" Alex Bryne, University of Nottingham. "The Potential of Flight: Pan-Americanism and U.S. Aviation during the Progressive Era"

HOTCUS 2018 Postgraduate Conference (University of Nottingham)

The University of Nottingham University Park, Nottingham, United Kingdom

The 2018 HOTCUS Postgraduate annual conference will be held at the University of Nottingham on Saturday 20 October 2018. The plenary speaker will be Michael Cullinane of Roehampton University. The full programme can be found here.

Let the Sun Shine In: American Theatre, Protest and Censorship (British Library)

British Library 96 Euston Road, London, United Kingdom

Let the Sun Shine In: American Theatre, Protest and Censorship An international conference co-sponsored by the American Theatre & Drama Society and the Eccles Centre for American Studies, October 26-27, 2018, British Library, London (UK) Keynote speakers: Prof. Ramón Espejo Romero, Universidad de Sevilla (Spain) Dr. Marlis Schweitzer, York University (Canada) In 1968, the American musical Hair opened on Broadway, in London’s West End, and in Munich, West Germany. Hailed by many for capturing the zeitgeist of the late 1960s, Hair also reflected changes in the writing and production of American theatre. Produced Off-Broadway at the Public Theater, it emerged from experimental theatre practice to achieve commercial success on Broadway and internationally. Staging contemporary protest and dissent, the musical was censored on tour in Boston but became the first production to open after the Theatres Act ended both censorship in British theatre and the power of the Lord Chamberlain. This conference investigates American theatre, protest, and censorship in […]

British Association of Nineteenth-Century Americanists Panels at BAAS Annual Conference (University of Sussex)

University of Sussex Brighton, United Kingdom

CALL FOR PAPERS: BRITISH ASSOCIATION OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICANISTS PANELS AT THE BAAS CONFERENCE, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX 2019 The British Association of Nineteenth-Century Americanists invites submissions to three panels to be submitted to the British Association for American Studies Conference, taking place at the University of Sussex, April 25-27, 2019. More information about the BAAS Conference can be found here: https://hes32-ctp.trendmicro.com:443/wis/clicktime/v1/query?url=https%3a%2f%2fbaas2019.org&umid=016d9e0b-a105-487d-b682-597d2d539645&auth=768f192bba830b801fed4f40fb360f4d1374fa7c-52377cb15bc80a57e1060df589f0c07061ccc65d More information on BrANCA and its activities can be found here: https://hes32-ctp.trendmicro.com:443/wis/clicktime/v1/query?url=http%3a%2f%2fwww.branca.org.uk&umid=016d9e0b-a105-487d-b682-597d2d539645&auth=768f192bba830b801fed4f40fb360f4d1374fa7c-192f481ce12a7f0134bd94404c8afcadee66837f 1. OPEN PANEL ON 19th CENTURY AMERICANIST TOPICS Each year BrANCA hosts a special panel at BAAS showcasing progressive, interdisciplinary work on the United States in the long nineteenth century. This year BrANCA invites paper proposals on any relevant topic to be included within a sponsored panel at the BAAS Conference the University of Sussex, April 25-27, 2019. We invite proposals for papers from all researchers working in the field. We are particularly interested in global, hemispheric and […]

Midterms and Mandates (National Library of Scotland and University of Edinburgh)

University of Edinburgh Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

To coincide with the 2018 midterm campaigns, this colloquium seeks to analyse these elections over time. Although presidential elections are the subject of extensive scholarly interest, midterm elections are comparatively neglected. Focusing on a series of case studies, covering the period from Franklin Roosevelt to the present day, the colloquium explores how presidents interact with their parties during midterm campaigns (and how the “out-party” mobilizes support in the absence of a president as party leader), and of how midterms modify a president’s mandate. Midterms and Mandates will take place on November 1-2, 2018, at the National Library of Scotland and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK. The project is supported by the British Association for American Studies and the US Embassy in London.

British Association of American Studies Postgraduate Conference (Northumbria University)

Northumbria University Newcastle, United Kingdom

America’s Urgent and Great Problems: Antecedents and Legacies of 1968 BAAS Postgraduate Conference 2018 3rd November 2018 Department of Arts and Humanities, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon-Tyne “There are three urgent and indeed great problems that we face not only in the United States of America but all over the world today. That is the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1968 was a watershed moment in American and global history. It witnessed mass social movements, student and anti-war protests, shifting racial consciousness, urban riots, and several high-profile political assassinations; a year emblematic of America’s ‘three urgent and indeed great problems’ which Martin Luther King described during his visit to Newcastle upon-Tyne a few months before his death: War, Poverty and Racism. These issues and the challenges they posed, along with other sites of conflict and inequality, including place, gender, […]

Straight to the Front Row: Investigating Contemporary Western Gay Male Cinema (University of Northampton)

University of Northampton Park Campus, Boughton Green Rd, Northampton, United Kingdom

CFP: Straight to the Front Row: Investigating Contemporary Western Gay Male Cinema Conference to be held at the University of Northampton (UK) 16/02/2019 – 17/02/2019 From Weekend (dir. Andrew Haigh, 2011) to Call me By Your Name (dir. Luca Guadagnino, 2017), from God’s Own Country (dir. Francis Lee, 2017) to Moonlight (dir. Barry Jenkins, 2016) and Love, Simon (dir. Greg Berlanti, 2018), contemporary Western gay male cinema has endured a shift in both representational strategies and a boom in popularity within both mainstream and independent spheres, since 2010. ‘Western gay male cinema’, more specifically, refers to cinema that features a gay male protagonist, has narrative themes that relate to gay male identities and films that are primarily produced for gay male audiences. Prior to 2010, there have been Western gay male films that have been significant in either their representations or their popularity (ranging from the films that centred on gay men in New Queer Cinema to films such as Brokeback […]

2019 HOTCUS Winter Symposium (University of Lincoln)

University of Lincoln

2019 HOTCUS Winter Symposium: “Nuclear States": Science, Technology, and American Society in the Atomic Age University of Lincoln  February 16th 2019 Plenary Speaker: Dr Audra Wolfe University of Pennsylvania In August 2017 President Donald Trump tweeted that if North Korea continued its path of missile development than it would be “met with fire and fury the likes of which the world has never seen”. This aggressive rhetoric, coupled with Trump’s subsequent withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear agreement, acted as a stark reminder for citizens of the United States and the world beyond of the continuing apocalyptic potential of nuclear technologies. Americans have lived with the shadows cast by the bomb on American politics, society and culture, alongside more affirmative visions of ‘free energy,’ ‘plowshares’, medical applications, and scientific advance for seventy years. As Trump’s fiery rhetoric revives Cold War concerns about nuclear doom, the time is ripe for historians to […]