Review: BAAS Annual Conference 2019
Review: BAAS 64th Annual Conference, 25-27 April 2019, University of Sussex “The only reason you’d go to uni,” the young man on the train confidently declared to his friend, “is so you don’t have to work anymore.” The participants of the BAAS 64th Annual Conference, to which I was travelling, quickly proved him wrong. Over the course of three days Americanists from the UK and far beyond discussed current issues in the field, built new networks, and expanded existing ones. Given that the conference was celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall riots and took place in Brighton, a city with a rich LGBTQ+ history, it should come as no surprise that the LGBTQ+ experience proved a central theme throughout. Activism and radicalism also took centre stage, both within academic sessions and beyond, with a walking tour to celebrate Brighton’s queer legacy and a one man show by Ian Ruskin […]
Review: The British Association of Contemporary Literary Studies Biennial Conference: What Happens Now 2018
Review: The British Association of Contemporary Literary Studies Biennial Conference: What Happens Now 2018, Loughborough University, 10-12 July 2018 If the inaugural British Association of Contemporary Literary Studies (BACLS) conference is anything to go by, academics are a dedicated lot. Even persistent hot weather and a World Cup semi-final did not deter over a hundred scholars from gathering at Loughborough University for three days of literary exploration. What Happens Now 2018 (WHN18) evolved from the conference series of the same name that was hosted by Lincoln University from 2010 onwards. In Loughborough the title proved to be a particularly apt description of the conference’s scope. WHN18 showcased the variety of contemporary literary studies as a field, as well as its ability to address pressing issues within academia and beyond. Three broad themes connected many of the papers. Some presenters explored the ability of literary studies to facilitate social activism by making […]
Penetrating the “Pink Wasteland”: Gender and Environmentalism in Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975)
More than forty years after its first publication, Edward Abbey’s 1975 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang (MWG) remains a major environmentalist text. The story, in which four ecoterrorist activists use sabotage techniques to protect their beloved Western landscape from industrial and commercial interference, has inspired real life movements such as Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front. However, the environmentalist project the novel describes is not as radical as it may appear at first sight. This article argues that MWG’s message of ecoterrorism depends on the (re)construction of a rigid gender boundary which turns the American West into a feminine entity that can only be saved through masculine interference.
British Association for American Studies Annual Conference 2017, Day One
While the programme jokingly suggested ‘Trump group therapy’ as a potential feature of the conference, a more serious assessment of the value of American Studies research suggests that multidimensionality and critical interrogation of cultural myths are more important than ever, given the current political climate in the US. The conference demonstrated the value of transnational and transcultural perspectives which do not uncritically accept a limited definition of ‘Americanness’, and instead acknowledge, explore and celebrate the crossing of borders through interdisciplinarity.