American Studies in the UK Impact and Public Engagement
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American Studies in the UK Impact and Public Engagement British Association for American Studies American Studies in the UK The impact of American Studies nature of American Studies is at the research in the United Kingdom core of the diverse range of projects has been immense over the last 60 profiled in this brochure. Contents years and has enhanced the public 1 Cultures of the Suburbs The case studies collected here are all understanding of the history, culture ambitious projects that push beyond and politics of the United States. 2 North American Print Cultures disciplinary boundaries and take American Studies research in the academic research directly into the 3 Woody Guthrie, American UK spans a group of subjects drawn public sphere. All these projects – Radical from the arts, humanities and many of which are collaborative and social sciences: United States history; international in scope – have attracted 4 Translating Penal Cultures American and comparative literature; US external funding for the ways in which 5 Un-Americans and the politics (including government, foreign they challenge our preconceptions Un-American policy and international relations); and and deepen our understanding about North American culture (including film, the past, present and future of the 6 The Presidency and Tribal television, theatre, visual art, music and United States from regional, national, Diplomacy the mass media). The interdisciplinary transatlantic and global perspectives. 7 The English in North America 8 UK-US Relations in an Age of Global War 9 American Studies Schools Project 10 American Studies Doctoral Research 11 American Studies Resources 12 British Association for American Studies 2 I British Association for American Studies I Impact and Public Engagement I www.baas.ac.uk Cultures of the Suburbs The Cultures of the Suburbs international research network brings together researchers from five countries, four continents, and a range of disciplines. The partners in the network – including specialists in literature, sociology, geography, and urban studies – share an interest in the history, growth and future of the suburbs, with a particular emphasis on the ways in which experiences and perceptions of suburbia are shaped by and reflected in cultural practice. Those involved work together with other interested parties – planners, developers, economists, environmental scientists, civic and heritage groups – in order to further the scholarly, professional, and public understanding of the cultures of the modern global suburbs through collaborative international and identity. Partners in the network are June 2013, which will be followed by interdisciplinary research, and thereby liaising with architects, planners, and a conference at Exeter in June 2014. address the implications of suburban local authorities to understand and By the end of the project the team development. inform debates about the suburban aims to have established a Journal of environment and working with local Suburban Studies and to have founded The project is funded by a three-year schools, community groups and an International Suburban Studies Leverhulme Trust grant (2011–14) and individual residents to explore how Association. is based at the University of Exeter, with specific sectors experience suburbia and links to Kingston University, UK, Hofstra create their own cultures and cultural University, USA, Griffiths University, memories. Australia, the National University of Ireland, Maynooth and the University The project has a publically accessible Contact of Witwatersrand, South Africa. The website that features scholarly work Dr Jo Gill project’s primary aim is to understand in progress, exhibitions of suburban University of Exeter e: [email protected] the role played by different forms art and photography, latest news, and of culture in shaping suburban other resources. The network hosted Dr Jill Sullivan experience and in transmitting an international symposium in Ireland e: [email protected] the ideals and realities of suburban in 2011 and in Hofstra, Long Island in w: suburbs.exeter.ac.uk British Association for American Studies I Impact and Public Engagement I www.baas.ac.uk I 3 North American Print Cultures This section showcases three projects that demonstrate the breadth of the Beyond the Book current interest among American Studies and Canadian Studies researchers Beyond the Book is an interdisciplinary in North American print cultures. collaborative investigation into the organization, production and reception The impact of the project Middlebrow of large-scale shared reading events – derives from conferences at or mass reading events – such as Sheffeld Hallam and Strathclyde The Middlebrow: radio (Canada Reads), television Universities (2008–9), book A Transatlantic (Richard and Judy’s Book Club), and journal publications, and a Interdisciplinary local news media, the internet and project website. The publically Research Network, face-to-face activities such as the accessible Readerships and funded by the Arts One Book, One Community model. Literary Cultures 1900-1950 and Humanities These events aim to involve as many special collection at Sheffield Research Council people as possible in reading, discussing Hallam University has been (2008–10) engages or participating in events associated augmented by a follow-on over one hundred with a selected book. The involvement project which actively engages researchers in ten of government agencies, arts community readers with the countries drawn organizations, public institutions (such special collection. This has led from the disciplines as libraries and schools), commercial to enhanced library catalogue records of social and cultural history, literature, sponsors and broadcast media in film and the media to explore and with notes on each novel, and has been debate the contested and provocative accompanied by a series of public events term ‘Middlebrow’. In the early-to-mid and book club meetings. These outputs 20th century, middlebrow referred to have stimulated new transatlantic the art and culture which lay between explorations of middlebrow culture from high and popular culture, and to the perspectives of class, gender and tastes and lifestyle choices associated nation. A further AHRC-funded project, with the middle class. It also referred Magazines, Travel and Middlebrow to aspiration and self-improvement, Culture in Canada 1925-1960 (2011– and to institutions such as book clubs 13), led by Faye Hammill (Strathclyde), and adult education programmes. was one of several collaborative projects The tensions surrounding middlebrow emerging directly from the network. are related to discourses of class and taste which are embodied in a Contact range of lifestyle choices and cultural Professor Faye Hammill consumption: from interiors, gardens, University of Strathclyde design and fashion to preferences in e: [email protected] music, film and books. w: www.middlebrow-network.com 4 I British Association for American Studies I Impact and Public Engagement I www.baas.ac.uk the production of these events raises History of the New Masses Magazine questions about the social and cultural value attached to print texts and This project traces the intellectual and reading in a digital age. artistic development of the magazine using archival materials such as Led by Danielle Fuller at the University writers’ and editors’ correspondence, of Birmingham and DeNel Rehberg alongside critical analysis of the artistic, Sedo at Mount Saint Vincent University, written and marketing content of New Canada – and supported by the Masses in order to reassess the role AHRC, the British Academy and a that women, African Americans and Canadian Government grant – the Communist Party members played in project investigated whether these developing the magazine. The project models of shared reading can uniquely looks beyond the printed enable social change. Focusing on pages of the magazine to show that ten locations in the US, Canada and New Masses operated as a cultural the UK, research methods included hub for a huge range of political and interviews with organisers, focus groups social events and performances, such as with readers, participant observation dances, ballets, lectures, plays, concerts of activities, analysing event ephemera and art auctions. and media reports, and using an online This project, conducted by Sue Currell at questionnaire. New Masses had a global reach and the University of Sussex and sponsored by engagement with mass culture that was Since the main project finished in a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2011– unique compared with other arts and 2008, the research has contributed to 12), analyses the significance and reach culture magazines of the period. As the the professional development of of the American radical arts periodical most detailed study of the magazine public librarians through a series of New Masses, published in the United to date, this project makes a significant invited presentations, and the States between 1926 and 1948. New contribution to the historiography of methodologies derived from the project Masses contained work by some of the American cultural modernism and have been the focus of workshops with most celebrated artists, illustrators and print culture, offering new insights into PhD students and early career scholars writers of the era, first as a monthly and the artistic and political history of the in the UK, Finland, Estonia, Australia then a weekly magazine. Aimed at