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British Association for American Studies ☰

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The United States of America and World War One: Exploring Political, Economic and Cultural Entanglements (British Academy)

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Borders vs Bridges: (Trans)nationalism in the Americas since 1968 (UCL)

For a long time, transnational trends have inspired social, political, economic and cultural transformations across the globe.  In the Americas, and particularly since 1968, there have been numerous examples of bridge-building across borders.  From Human Rights and transitional justice processes to solidarity movements and the international trade agreements of more recent times, building bridges between nations has been seen as a means of progress across the Americas. Today, developments across the region seem to signal a ‘centrifugal’ tendency towards isolationism and nationalism.  Propelled by complex social phenomena such as migration, human displacement, economic instability and political upheaval, many are turning to the erection of barriers – real and imagined – as a means to cope with uncertainty.  In the US, discourses based on nationalism are on the rise.  Meanwhile, in Latin Americas, the slowdown of the so-called ‘Pink Tide’ suggests a clear shift in the incentives to maintain hitherto strong […]

Food Studies in the USA: New Directions (University of Leeds)

THURSDAY 11 MAY, 16:30--18:00. School of English, University of Leeds On May 11, the School of English at the University of Leeds is hosting a panel session in which three leading scholars in the vibrant field of US food culture studies will join in conversation and discuss their new research: Dr. J. Michelle Coghlan is Lecturer in American Literature at University of Manchester and the author of Sensational Internationalism (2016). Her new project, Culinary Designs, "chronicles the rise of American food writing and the making of American taste in the long nineteenth century." Professor Elizabeth Engelhardt, incoming chair of American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, is the author of many landmark food writings including A Mess of Greens: Southern Gender and Southern Food (2011) and the student collaboration Republic of Barbecue: Stories Beyond the Brisket (2009). Professor Psyche Williams-Forson, chair of American Studies at the University of Maryland, is the author of Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power (2006). With Carole Counihan she is also the editor of the important collection Taking […]

Lives Outside the Lines: Gender and Genre in the Americas (York University, Toronto)

Lives Outside the Lines: Gender and Genre in the Americas, held from May 15-17, 2017 at York University in Toronto, is the third biennial conference of the International Auto/Biography Association Chapter of the Americas (IABAA). The conference brings together the leading scholars of autobiography, biography, and other forms of life writing, as well as new and emerging scholars, artists and practitioners of life writing, and graduate students. Focusing on regional and hemispheric research and scholarship, the conference will explore the multiple lines that gendered lives in the Americas cross, both physical boundaries of national borders and intangible crossings of the established borders of gender, language, and genre. "Lives Outside the Lines" is a timely theme, given the importance of transnational movements triggered by globalization and given the popularity of multi-media and multi-genre experimentation that creates new possibilities and forms of self-representation. Papers and presentations delivered at this conference will investigate […]

Hardboiled History: A Noir Lens on America’s Past (University of Warwick)

HARDBOILED HISTORY: A NOIR LENS ON AMERICA’S PAST Friday 19th May 2017 University of Warwick  Keynote Speakers: Dr. Helen Hanson (University of Exeter) Warren Pleece (Comic Artist and Graphic Novelist) Provisional Programme   09:00-9:30 Registration (The Oculus, OC1.06), Tea and Coffee 09:30-9:45 Opening Remarks 09:45-10:45 Panel 1: (Re)Creating/Marginalising History Alex Pavey (University College London), “‘Something is wrong here’: James Ellroy and the Historiography of Noir Los Angeles” Thomas Travers (Birbeck University), “Cuban Breach: Don DeLillo’s Libra as Historical Noir” Michael Docherty (University of Kent), “All Pachucos go to Heaven: Grim Fandango’s Interactive Requiem for the Mexican Dead of 1940s Los Angeles” 10:45-11:45 Panel 2: The “Historical” Female Body Katherine Farrimond (University of Sussex), “Black and White and Dead: The Femme Fatale as Corpse in Retro Noir” Esther Wright (University of Warwick), “‘It’s a sad story but this town has seen it play out a thousand times”: L.A. Noire’s ‘Historical’ Women” […]

American Colors: Across the Disciplinary Spectrum (University of Southern Denmark)

American Colors: Across the Disciplinary Spectrum (University of Southern Denmark) Color defines America. First of all color defines America through ideas of slavery, race, and civil rights. W.E.B. Du Bois’ claim that ‘The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line’ is certainly hard to deny in an American context. Yet American Colors are far from all about race. The respective colors of the Democratic and the Republican Party, since 1976 partitioning the country into demographics of blue and red, are significant reminders of the power of American Colors to divide and contrast. On the other hand, American Colors are not necessarily divisive, even if they stay distinct. Whether it is in the color of the rainbow, as seen on the pride flag of the LGBT community, or in the idea of ethnic and racial diversity, the notion of colors mixed as well as existing in diverse […]

Purple Reign: An interdisciplinary conference on the life and legacy of Prince (University of Salford)

“Purple Reign: An interdisciplinary conference on the life and legacy of Prince” A two-day international conference hosted by The School of Arts and Media, University of Salford, UK and the Department of Recording Industry, Middle Tennessee State University, USA 24th- – 26th May 2017 Media City UK, University of Salford, UK. Convenors: Dr Mike Alleyne, Dept of Recording Industry, College of Media & Entertainment, Middle Tennessee State University Dr Kirsty Fairclough, School of Arts and Media, University of Salford, UK Tim France, School of Arts and Media, University of Salford, UK A two-day international conference on the life and legacy of Prince. This conference aims to provide fresh perspectives on the creative and commercial dimensions of Prince’s career, re-examining the meanings of his work in the context of his unexpected death. This conference seeks to address the issue of Prince’s significant influence and lasting appeal from a number of multi-disciplinary perspectives.  We welcome […]

Border Control: On the Edges of American Art (Tate Liverpool)

Border Control: On the Edges of American Art Thursday 25 and Friday 26 May 2017 Tate Liverpool, Albert Dock, Liverpool Waterfront, Liverpool L3 4BB, UK Convened by Julia Tatiana Bailey (Tate) and Alex J. Taylor (University of Pittsburgh) Supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art Reserve your place now for this major international conference. Led by Tate Research, the two-day event brings together historians of art and visual culture, to share new scholarship exploring the crossed boundaries and expanded limits of art from the United States. Border Control: On the Edges of American Art is presented as the culmination of the three-year Tate Research project Refiguring American Art and coincides with a related display at Tate Liverpool. As space is limited, attendees must RSVP to julia.bailey@tate.org.uk by 5 May 2017. Places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

Remembering Annie Hall: A One Day Conference (University of Sheffield)

Remembering Annie Hall: A One Day Conference University of Sheffield 31st May 2017 Confirmed plenary speaker: Professor Annette Kuhn (Queen Mary, University of London) Since its release on 27th April 1977, Annie Hall has established itself as a key film for Woody Allen’s career and the history of romantic comedy more generally. At the 1978 Academy Awards, it won Oscars for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actress. In addition to its central place in Allen’s oeuvre (film critic Roger Ebert called it “just about everyone’s favorite Woody Allen movie”), it is regularly cited as one of the greatest film comedies. In 2015 it was voted the funniest screenplay ever by the Writers Guild of America. To mark the fortieth anniversary of the film’s release, the University of Sheffield is hosting a one-day conference to consider the importance of Annie Hall and its cultural influence. We are particularly interested in conversations […]

CFP: Special Issue of Comparative American Studies – American Networks: Radicals Under the Radar (1868-1968)

Call for Papers for a special issue of Comparative American Studies: American Networks: Radicals Under the Radar (1868-1968) Networks are the life-blood of many collaborative artistic and political movements. The aim of this special issue is to explore the confluence of American art and radicalism transnationally in the hundred-year lead up to 1968, a high-point in radical artistic and political expression. In focusing on the precursors to this watershed, its editors seek essays that investigate American networks and challenge conventional scholarship about the makeup, shape and associations of such artistic and political collaboration. Affiliations between American artists and radical thinkers have led to paradigm shifts that have changed world history. Communists, Wobblies, revolutionaries, socialists, Fabianists, Pan-Africanists, Pan-Americanists, revolutionaries, anarchists, political exiles and Garveyites all played their role in shaping American literature, art and politics. Whether such networks existed in tangible social enclaves—homes, bars, cafés, offices and neighbourhoods—or virtually in an […]

PHD STUDENTSHIP: American Political Pamphlets, 1920-1945 (University of Sussex and the British Library)

Collaborative Doctoral Project Studentship Sussex University and the British Library: American Political Pamphlets 1920-1945 (2017) The project: This project will draw on the British Library's extensive holdings of American political pamphlets to study and contextualise the writing, printing, distribution and dissemination of political pamphlets produced in the years preceding and during the Second World War. The Library's collection of American pamphlets from the interwar period contains publications by different anti-fascist, anti-capitalist and pacifist societies. These include the Socialist Party of America, the Young People's Socialist League, the American League Against War and Fascism, the Jewish People's Committee, the War Resisters League, the World Peace Foundation, as well as anti-imperialist societies such as the United Aid for Peoples of African Descent, among many others. The researcher will also benefit from access to the extensive collection of US political pamphlets at the Marx Memorial Library, a partner of the project. Further details at: […]

CFP: Studying the South: Approaches and Orientations (University of Hertfordshire)

Studying the South: Approaches and Orientations A one-day colloquium organised by the Southern Studies in the UK Network (www.ssukn.com) 26th August 2017, University of Hertfordshire Studies of the U.S. South have radically changed across the last century, and especially so in the twenty-first. As Michael Bibler (2016) has argued recently, southern studies scholars “begin with the assumption that there’s no such thing as a solid South. We are interested in all kinds of Souths, bringing a dazzling range of theoretical approaches” to the region. This one-day colloquium will explore the variety of perspectives or “orientations” (Bibler) that open up discussion of the U.S. South today. Where historically the South has been considered as the “nation’s region” (in Leigh Ann Duck’s words), southern studies scholars see the region in smaller and larger scales and frames. The South can be read in relation to other American regions like the West or Midwest; it can be thought […]

CFP: The Apollonian, Special Issue on Troubled Identity and the Continuing Relevance of Cultural Studies

The Apollonian Vol. 4, Issue 3 (September 2017) Special Issue on Troubled Identity and the Continuing Relevance of Cultural Studies Deadline: 1 June 2017 Guest edited by Jonathan Wright and Susan Flynn (London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London) Our increased attention with new forms of citizenship, changing social landscapes and emergent sets of social relations suggest that Cultural Studies and its analyses of cultural products must rapidly evolve in order to stay relevant.  Our visions of the future seem to be replete with fears of new social realities; new media technologies call us to question privacy, location, marginality, the ability to relate meaningfully with others, and the unequal distribution of material wealth. Are Cultural Studies equipped to deal with the theorization of these new realities? Popular culture would have us believe that traditional identity categories are undergoing profound changes; gendered norms are called into question, the structure of the conventional […]