U.S. Studies Online

Eyes on Events – Tim Galsworthy, HOTCUS PGR Conference 2020 (Online)

https://www.baas.ac.uk/usso/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Tim-HOTCUS-Final-Version.mp4

  The first in our new series Eyes On Events, this week we are interviewing Tim Galsworthy about the upcoming HOTCUS 2020 Postgraduate and Early Career Virtual Conference: America At and Beyond the Ballot Box. 

The conference is happening online on Friday 18 September 2020. You can find out more details about the…

With the publication of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), Frederick Douglass became the representative Black American man. Known for his careful self-representation on literary, oratorical and visual platforms, he was the preeminent abolitionist, women’s rights and civil rights advocate of his time. [i]It is these platforms, used as tools for…

#USSObookhour with Laura Rattray

Beyond The Writing of Fiction: Other Edith Whartons Dr. Laura Rattray Wednesday 23 September 2020, 4 pm, UK time

  We are delighted to announce that we will be relaunching #USSOBOOKHOUR at 4 pm, 23 September 2020 with Dr. Laura Rattray’s talk about her new monograph Edith Wharton and Genre – Beyond Fiction, which is the first study of Wharton’s full engagement with original writing in genres…

Review: Teaching Black HERStories, 24th-25th July, University of Missouri (Online)

“Teaching Black HERStories”: a review of transatlantic conferential learning 

Teaching Black HERStories was the University of Missouri’s Carter Centre’s 3rd Annual ‘Teaching Black History’ conference. Delivered online due to COVID-19, HERStories focused on “K-12” Black History education. For those unfamiliar with the acronym, K-12 terms US education delivered to children ranging from school…

How American Commentators Commit Violence Against the Middle East

When I wrote to a leading US newspaper to propose a dismayed response to Thomas Friedman’s column for the New York Times, “Beirut’s Blast is a Warning for America,” I received a deeply unsettling response.

“We have a lot of pieces in the queue at the moment, and with the conventions coming up readers aren’t likely to be thinking about Beirut, unfortunately. Please don’t hesitate to send us more…

60 Seconds with Will Carroll

The U.S. Studies Online 60 Seconds interview feature offers a short and informal introduction to a postgraduate, academic or non-academic specialist working in the American and Canadian Studies field or a related American and Canadian Studies association. 

Will Carroll is a second-year PhD candidate at University of Birmingham and is one of the new Co-Editors for 2020-2022. 

Will Carroll…

60 Seconds with Amanda Niedfeldt

The U.S. Studies Online 60 Seconds interview feature offers a short and informal introduction to a postgraduate, academic or non-academic specialist working in the American and Canadian Studies field or a related American and Canadian Studies association. 

Amanda Niedfeldt is a PhD candidate in English Literature at University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and is one of the new Co-Editors for…

60 Seconds with Jun Qiang

The U.S. Studies Online 60 Seconds interview feature offers a short and informal introduction to a postgraduate, academic or non-academic specialist working in the American and Canadian Studies field or a related American and Canadian Studies association. 

Jun Qiang is a a second-year PhD student in English and Related Literature at the University of York and is the Global Relations Editor for…

60 Seconds with Siân Round

The U.S. Studies Online 60 Seconds interview feature offers a short and informal introduction to a postgraduate, academic or non-academic specialist working in the American and Canadian Studies field or a related American and Canadian Studies association. 

Siân Round is a first-year PhD candidate in American Literature at University of Cambridge and is the Book Reviews Editor for 2020-2022.

  Si…

60 Seconds with Emily Brady

The U.S. Studies Online 60 Seconds interview feature offers a short and informal introduction to a postgraduate, academic or non-academic specialist working in the American and Canadian Studies field or a related American and Canadian Studies association. 

Emily Brady is a third year PhD candidate at the University of Nottingham in American and Canadian Studies and is the Events Editor for…

Review of Topophrenia: Place, Narrative and the Spatial Imagination by Robert T. Tally Jr.

Robert T. Tally Jr., Topophrenia: Place, Narrative and the Spatial Imagination. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2018. pp.210. $30.00. 

Cultural geographer Robert T. Tally Jr. publishes widely and frequently on many aspects of literary geographies, including the myriad forms of map-making. This book comprises his latest research and presents an excellent introduction to his work.…

Review of “The Market Logics of Contemporary Fiction” by Paul Crosthwaite

Paul Crosthwaite, The Market Logics of Contemporary Fiction, (Cambridge University Press, 2019). pp.306. £75 (hardback).

  In The Market Logics of Contemporary Fiction, Paul Crosthwaite examines how contemporary fiction has ‘increasingly internalised the structures, dynamics and demands of market systems’ (2) at the same time that the contemporary literary marketplace has become inexplicable from…

USSO statement on American uprisings

The editors of USSO stand unequivocally in support of the uprisings taking place across the United States. We support the efforts of our friends and comrades to abolish the police, to dismantle the carceral state, to end imperial violence and militarisation, to overturn racial capitalism, and to destroy white supremacy. We remember not only George Floyd, who was brutally murdered by officers of…

Book Review: A Literate South: Reading Before Emancipation by Beth Barton Schweiger

Beth Barton Schweiger. A Literate South: Reading Before Emancipation, (Yale, 2019). pp. 288. $35.00.

‘Culture is ordinary: that is where we must start.’ Raymond Williams’ famous statement provides an epigraph to Beth Barton Schweiger’s important study of reading in the antebellum South, A Literate South: Reading Before Emancipation.[i]Barton Schweiger builds on Williams’ statement to provide a…

WRAP for USSO – Serena Williams: Race, Representation and Feminism

  Each year the University of Winchester invites undergraduate students to apply to participate in the Winchester Research Apprenticeship Programme (WRAP). An extra-curricular scheme, WRAP provides students with the opportunity to work with academic staff on ‘live’ research projects lasting up to four weeks. [i]Since WRAP’s inception, students in the University of Winchester’s Faculty…

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…