Memorials and Popular Memory Special Series
The past four years have highlighted the influence of memorials and popular memory in American culture. From the toppling of Confederate statues to the decolonisation of school curricula, many Americans have fought to establish a more inclusive and nuanced memorial landscape. This series illustrates how widely “memory” is both interpreted and engrained in American life, as it manifests in physical memorials, film, novels, to name a few. To kick off the series, Dr Catherine Bateson explores memorials to Irish American Civil War Veterans and the (often) performative nature of commemorating marginalised groups. We then delve into an extremely pertinent theme: the memory of slavery and racial violence against Black Americans. Isabel Kalous analyses Ta-Nehisi Coates’s novel, The Water Dancer as a representation of slave memory. Shona Thompson then takes a different approach to memories of racial violence by analysing the Equal Justice Initiative’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the […]
Book Review: Forging a Laboring Race: The African American Worker in the Progressive Imagination by Paul R. D. Lawrie
The Progressive Era (1890-1920s) was a time of intense social, economic, and political reform largely carried out by the middle class. Most scholars of Progressivism, including David Thelen and Daniel T. Rogers, argue that Progressivism is not monolithic and there has never been a coherent definition. Paul Lawrie has chosen to focus on one particular aspect of the Progressive Era: the deepening inequalities that occurred due to an industrial and economic boom, causing a rise in racism and racial policy.
Review: HOTCUS Work-in-Progress Meeting 2019
Review: HOTCUS Work-in-Progress Meeting 2019, University of Oxford, 17 October 2019. At the second annual work-in-progress session, two developing articles were discussed: Liam O’Brien’s (University of Cork) paper, ‘Winning Back the Peace: The George H.W. Bush Administration and the Creation of Operation Southern Watch, 1992’ and Dr. Meghan Hunt’s (University of Edinburgh) piece, ‘”He was shot because America would not give up on racism”: Martin Luther King Jr. and the African American civil rights movement in British schools.’ Like last year’s event, papers were circulated before the session so attendees had time to read and develop comments for each paper. The goal of this session was to foster a supportive environment and to provide feedback which would aid the authors in the publication of their articles: this goal was met. There was an element of ‘article by committee’ which is often helpful to postgraduates and early career researchers who perhaps […]