American Studies in Britain Spring 2014

ASIB
5 9 t h annual C O N F E R E N C E: the UNIVERSITY of BIRMINGHAM

M
NO. 109 SPRING 2014 ISSN 1465-9956 BAAS.AC.UK
T U D I E S
R I T A I N
A N I C E R
Sue Currell: New Chair of BAAS
BAAS Executive: Vacancies Now Open
Martin Halliwell: Chairs Report 2013
EDITORS LETTER
ASIB 109 Spring 2014
Bs0u10e01
elcome to ASIB, magazine of the British Association for American Studies. Inside you will nd a wealth of report articles and features by some of the nest researchers from the UK and beyond engaged with America from such perspectives as literature, political science, history, linguistics, and more. Regular readers will have noticed that in recent issues, ASIB has gently evolved beyond its original purpose as a digest squarely for our communitys news. Recent issues, for example, have included interview features with the Associations distinguished Honorary Fellows. Concurrently, baas.ac.uk has become the rst stop for news and event announcements whilst the costs for distributing a printed ASIB to an international membership have continued to rise. As a consequence, ASIB has been redesigned to emphasise the long form report writing of the Associations award recipients, with online publication inside baas.ac.uk. In visual terms, you will nd a refreshed colour palette and revised typography, the inclusion of colour imagery, and more space to promote the activities of our membership. Indeed members are particularly encouraged to report recent publications and other activities of interest to our community to the Editor with the details supplied (p.51). This issues cover (see p. 3), and the image above (p. 51), emphasise the architecture of the city of Birmingham,
where the 59th BAAS Annual Conference takes place on the 13th of April. Conference details are highlighted on the next page as the organiser, Sara Wood, prepares the nal programme to go live shortly on baas.ac.uk. In other updates since issue 108, Sue Currell was elected as the new Chair of BAAS at the Annual General Meeting of April 2013, hosted at the University of Exeter. There, Martin Halliwell delivered his nal annual address as Chair and his report (p. 4) makes for very interesting reading. At the request of the Editor, this issue of ASIB includes a letter from Sue on her plans for the Association over the course of her term (p.10). In other key appointments to the BAAS Executive from the AGM, Bridget Bennett took over from George Lewis as Chair of the Publications Subcommittee, and Zalfa Feghali was appointed Chair of the Development Subcommittee. Complimenting baas.ac.uk, ASIB continues to be a powerful showcase of the important activities of Americanist researchers and scholars based in the UK and beyond. I hope you enjoy this issue, and look forward to bringing you further enhancements in the future. As ever, your feedback about the publication is both welcome and encouraged. Kal A!raf
INSIDE
ASIB N O. 1 0 9
The 59th annual conference of the British Association for American Studies (BAAS)!will be hosted by the School of English, Drama, and American & Canadian Studies at the University of Birmingham 10-13 April, 2014. The call for papers is now closed. A preliminary draft of the conference programme will be available shortly at baas.ac.uk. Registration for the conference is now available at birmingham.ac.uk/baas2014.
SPRING 2014
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The Chairs Annual Report Martin Halliwells nal annual report as Chair of BAAS, detailing the communitys achievements in the past year. Introducing Sue Currell The new Chair on her vision for BAAS in the coming years. Can You Host The BAAS Annual Postgraduate Conference? An invitation to host one of the most important events in BAASs annual calendar.
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Articles From BAAS Award Recipients New Orleans, Nashville, Arizona...Just some of the locations visited by recent BAAS travel and research award winners. Publishing Your Book? BAAS Paperbacks Series Editors Halliwell & West invite your proposals. Articles From Eccles Centre Postgraduate Fellows Woody Allen, William S. Burroughs and the cultural origins of Loyalism in New York: Eccles Fellows on recent work. Articles From Eccles Centre Fellows Research inspired by the British Librarys world famous Eccles Centre.
ON THE COVER Celebrating the architecture of Birmingham as the next BAAS annual conference heads to its eponymous University. Here, an artful composition of the Selfridge Building in the morning. With full attribution and thanks to Spinnykid. Image used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Hosted at the Wikimedia Commons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ File:Selfridges_BIrmingham.jpg). Date of access: 20.01.14. For attribution of all further imagery contained herein, see CREDITS & CONTACTS (p. 51).
CONTRIBUTE To contribute an article or feature to ASIB, contact the Editor, Kal Ashraf. Editorial guidelines and contact details appear in CREDITS & CONTACTS (p. 51).
Serve On The BAAS Executive A notice of the next BAAS AGM, plus information and application forms for BAAS Executive vacancies.
DISCLAIMER ASIB is an ofcial publication of the British Association for American Studies, but the opinions expressed in its pages are those of the contributors alone and do not necessarily reect the policies or beliefs of the Association.
MAGAZINE OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR AMERICAN STUDIES
THE CHAIRS ANNUAL REPORT
Martin Halliwell Spoke at the BAAS Annual General Meeting of April 2013 at the University of Exeter
Kal Ashraf
t is tting that I give my nal report as Chair of BAAS at the University of Exeter where I had four happy years as a BA and MA student. I want to begin by thanking the conference organisers Sinead Moynihan, Paul Williams and Jo Gill for planning and delivering a really excellent conference. I also want to thank Mark Whalan for bringing the conference to Exeter in the rst place and we are very glad that Mark can be here with us. My report last year was given during the presidential primaries. The late summer and autumn gave way to much excitement and interest in the presidential election, and I was very pleased to enjoy election night at the United States Embassy in London, along with Jo Gill, George Lewis, Iwan Morgan and other colleagues. The important allies and supporters and it is great that the Cultural Attach, Monique Quesada, is able to join us for
the Senior Cultural Specialist at the Embassy, at our 58th annual conference, as well as Tom Leary, the US Embassys Minister Counselor for Public Affairs. Another key theme last year was undergraduate admissions and the uncertainty that stems from the government recent shift in policy in respect of the recruitment of A Level students in English universities. Undergraduate recruitment on American Studies programmes did not suffer quite as much as we feared in 2012-13, and it is particularly heartening to see four-year degrees still attracting students. There are still dangers to American Studies degrees, though, and our institutions will have to work harder than ever to promote the subject to applicants and to our managers in a period when large vulnerable. There is more to say on this topic, but I want to save time to talk about two other issues: postgraduate
US Embassy continues to be one of the associations most administrative units are in vogue and smaller programmes
the banquet to announce this years Ambassadors programmes and Open Access publishing that have both Awards. And it is a pleasure, as ever, to have Sue Wedlake, loomed large on the horizon this year.

ACHIEVEMENTS We have had some really impressive distinctions since I last addressed the AGM. And, in terms of individual achievements:
Dr Andrew Preston (Cambridge) has won the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction (worth $25,000) for his book Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy, published by Knopf.
Professor Judie Newman (Nottingham) was awarded an OBE last summer recognition of her contribution to scholarship.
Professor Tony Badger (Cambridge) has been elected as Fellow of the Society of American Historians. Tony is the only British based academic invited to be a fellow.
Professor Celeste-Marie Bernier (Nottingham) has been appointed the Dorothy K. Hohenberg Chair of Excellence in Art History, University of Memphis for 2014-15.
Among the senior promotions in the American Studies community this year I am very pleased to report that:
Professor Dick Ellis (Birmingham) has been elected President of the Society for the Study of American Women Writers, from January 2013.
Sylvia Ellis has been promoted to Professor of International History in the Department of Humanities at Northumbria University.
And we are delighted that a good friend of BAAS, Nicola Ramsay has been promoted to Head of Editorial (Books) at Edinburgh University Press, from February 2013.
Mark Whalan (formerly Exeter and BAAS Publications Chair) has been promoted to a full Professorship in the Department of English at the University of Oregon.
With respect to institutional news:
We were very pleased to see the opening of the new Institute of the Americas at University College London in summer 2012. Simon Newman, Philip Davies and I are on the advisory board of the new Institute. One of the most exciting initiatives this year is that UCL and BAAS have collaborated on an annual Fellowship in US Studies to be based at the Institute a Fellowship that is particularly geared towards Early Career Scholars. I am happy to announce that for academic year 2013-14 we are splitting the award between Dr Nick Witham (Canterbury Christ Church) for Semester 1 and Dr Maria Ryan (Nottingham) for Semester 2. Details of next years Fellowship are included in the list of BAAS related awards in your delegates packs.
I would like to note the following major grants:
Professor Matthew Jones (Nottingham) was awarded an AHRC Fellowship in summer 2012 entitled 'Supreme National Interests: The Ofcial History of Britain's Strategic Nuclear Deterrent and the Chevaline Programme, 1962-1982 worth 112,000
Dr Stephanie Lewthwaite (Nottingham) was awarded an AHRC Fellowship for her project Remaking Modernism: Cross-Cultural Encounters in Hispano Art, 1930-1960, worth 48,000
Dr Andrew Johnstone (Leicester) was awarded an AHRC Fellowship for his project Internationalism, Ideology, and the Debate over US Entry into World War II, 1937-1941, worth 33,000.
We have positive news about the development of a new American Studies Centre at the University of Sussex, which will give institutional shape to Americanist research and teaching activities.
Professor Tim Armstrong (Royal Holloway College, London) has received a Leverhulme Trust grant of 31,204 for his research project on Micromodernism
And, last autumn I was invited as an external assessor to validate the new BA in American Studies at Northumbria University, starting from 2013-14.

Finally, in this section I want to record the death of Professor Susan Manning, Grierson Professor of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, who died in January. Susan was a pioneer on the relationship between American and Scottish literature and on transatlantic literary cultures more generally. Andrew Taylor from Edinburgh has written a very moving tribute to Susan in the current issue of American Studies in Britain. BAAS ACTIVITIES Most of our activities will be detailed under the reports from the other ofcers and the Subcommittee chairs, but I would like to make three points here. that we have been doing in recent years it is vital that we have a strong membership base, and we are always very pleased to receive donations to supplement our array of awards and the very generous support we receive from the US Embassy, the Eccles Centre at the British Library, and current donors. Could I please ask you to promote the benets of BAAS to your colleagues and postgraduates: this includes the American Studies in Britain magazine, a discounted rate to the annual conference, and a very preferential rate on the Journal of American Studies. RESEARCH EXCELLENCE FRAMEWORK 2014 We are soon approaching the submission date for the 2014 REF, and I wanted to spend a moment to update you on subpanel membership here. In winter 2012/13 Professor Faye Hammill (Strathclyde University) was appointed to Professor Heidi Macpherson who moved to the US in July. Faye will join Brian Ward and Susan Hodgett as the North Americanists on the Area Studies subpanel, to join other Americanists: Susan Mary Grant on the History subpanel; Martin Halliwell on English; and John Dumbrell and James Dunkerley on Politics and International Relations. BAAS has recently been asked by the REF manager to make further nominations to support the English and History REF 2014 sub-panels. The reason for this is that more submissions are likely to be submitted to these two sub-panels than was rst estimated. We have made some nominations and wait to hear back from the REF team. OPEN ACCESS
1. In July 2012 we published the report American

Studies in the UK, 2000-2010. BAAS commissioned the report in conjunction with the Fulbright Commission, and the research was during 2011-12, in collaboration with the Development Subcommittee. We think this is a really important document available through the BAAS website which outlines institutional trends across the last decade, taking note of disciplinary developments, recruitment patterns, study abroad opportunities, American Studies research centres, and the 2001 and 2008 Research Assessment Exercises.
conducted by the BAAS intern Dr Richard Martin the Area Studies REF Subpanel to take the place of
2. This year we are very excited to launch a new

BAAS publication, American Studies in the UK: Impact and Public Engagement, which showcases our research across a range of funded projects and across the diversity of our disciplines.
The future of open access publishing was the major policy We will be launching the brochure formally focus during winter 2012-13. In February and March tomorrow lunchtime [Saturday 20 April] and there BAAS submitted responses on Open Access to BIS and is a hard copy of the brochure for each conference HEFCE, and we have worked closely with the English and delegate. The brochure will also be available via History subject associations in coordinating our responses, our website soon after the conference. and on a joint position statement involving 20 scholarly
3. We have also spent a great deal of time this year

looking at our membership, via our new BAAS membership ofcer Rachael McLennan. Please can I draw your attention to the Join tab at the top right of the BAAS website and the new Donate button just underneath it. For BAAS to continue to work in the energetic and diverse ways
associations from the arts, humanities and social sciences. I would like to say a few words about Open Access and indicate three areas that are of particular concern for us, but I wont go into all the details here.

The debate stems from the publication of the Finch Report on the future of Open Access publishing (Accessibility, Sustainability, Excellence: How to Expand Access to Research Publications) in June 2012. This report sought to ensure that published scholarship was freely available, and recommended that the gold model that authors will pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) at the point of publishing, thus transferring the cost of publishing from subscribers to authors, some of whom will a research grant. The gold model was seen as future proof, whereas the green option in which published work is made available through university repositories was thought to be too baggy, in the respect that readers could not easily navigate their way around the various platforms hosted by the broad range of UK universities. The beginning of 2013 promised strict segregation between gold and green, but the last six weeks have brought a different perspective. The responses to the BIS inquiry, by all accounts, have given pause for thought. It seems now that the acceptance of the gold model by the government and RCUK was hasty because it conceives of the debate in narrow terms and in favour of science subjects.The gold option simply ignores the many varieties of publishing needs within the arts, humanities and social sciences, which includes practice-based research and creative disciplines such as design, art, music and creative writing. The rst area of concern for our disciplines is the monograph. Indeed, the Finch Report itself admitted that it had not fully considered monograph publishing which, when taking books and chapters as a whole, represents around 70% of the submissions for English and History is likely to be replicated in the 2014 REF. The second concern is that current debates do not fully acknowledge that American Studies and other Area Studies scholars frequently publish in journals and with presses outside the UK and there is little evidence that the gold open access model will be adopted by publishers in North America. And the third concern shared with many other associations is that the gold open access model raises equal opportunities issues for postgraduates, early career We are at an in-between time in terms of postgraduate funding in the arts and humanities. The AHRCs current ve-year block grant of postgraduate studentships awarded in 2008 comes to an end this year. Many UK institutions are currently bidding for a second phase of AHRC block grants. This time studentships will be awarded to consortia rather than individual institutions, and most of these consortia are regionally congured. The AHRCs published funding model will not allow all these bids to succeed, so we could be looking at signicant regions of the UK which do not have research council scholarships. The results will be known in the late summer, but however widely the funding is allocated the AHRC has withdrawn its support for Masters courses. This is a U-turn on the last round of block grants, particularly professional MAs Writing which seemed to be high on the agenda a few years ago. Arguably, this has been replaced with the AHRCs emphasis on partnerships between higher education and the creative industries, but it still leaves most MA courses without national funding and with institutions being pushed to spend much of their scholarship money on PhDs. POSTGRADUATES Although the horizon looks a little better than it did in December, the debate is far from won and it is still unclear Access compliant. However, it is heartening to see now a vigorous debate about the benets of the green model across a range of different academic disciplines. Indeed, publisher of the Journal of American Studies are already starting to prepare for a hybrid future, with arts, humanities and social-science journals likely to maintain both green and gold options. And it might be on this hybrid model that for most of us unless we are funded by a research council will continue to publish in ways that are not dissimilar from the present. researchers and retired academics. None of these groups will have access to institutional or research council funds to pay for article processing charges.
should underpin the future of UK scholarship. This means whether REF 2020 will demand that articles are Open
receive the cost of the APC from a funding body as part of publishers including Cambridge University Press, the
scholarship, as submitted to the 2008 RAE a trend which such as Librarianship, Museum Studies and Creative

The future of stand-alone MAs, then, looks fairly bleak particularly if we take into account the high level of debt that students will carry from taking a BA. Currently most MAs cost around half of an average BA fee (on the higher fee model), but we could envisage the MA fee soon creeping up towards the BA level, making Masters courses available only to the wealthy or to international students who are used to paying higher fees. The paradox, of course, is that we cannot simply focus on PhD funding, when PhD programmes are predicated on completion of an MA. We might see more research MAs or MRes courses develop, but it is important that those MA programmes focusing on American-related topics do not get squeezed out in favour of more generic or traditional programmes, and that we push ourselves to think creatively and in a far-sighted way about this issue. We have already seen a major threat this year to the only dedicated in 1994; and I met the new Chair, Sue Currell, at the Oxford BAAS conference of 2002. I am delighted that Sue has been elected as the 19th Chair of BAAS and only the fourth female Chair, following Heidi, Judie Newman and Charlotte Erickson. I know that Sue shares my view that BAAS should actively encourage grassroots groups and networks across the diversity of our disciplines, but that the association has a crucial role in representing the American Studies community in the broadest possible terms. I will continue our work to help further internationalise BAAS in my new roles as the UK Representative for the European Association for American Studies and as Council member of the International American Studies Association, and I will continue to engage in professional and public debates over the next three years in my new role as the Chair of the English Associations Higher
Education Committee. BAAS will always be my intellectual MA course in American Literature in the Republic of home, though, and where my strongest friendships are. I Ireland at University College Dublin (although the threat look forward to seeing the association ourish in the here is based on stafng, rather than fees) and we want to coming years. ensure that our MAs continue to act as feeders to PhDs in American Studies and related disciplines. Ma!in Ha"iwe"
FINAL REMARKS As this is my last Chairs report, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the colleagues I have had the pleasure to work with on the Executive Committee over the last seven years, and particularly over these last three years during my term as Chair. I would especially like to thank the BAAS ofcers between 2010 and 2013: Jo Gill and Catherine Morley as Secretary and Sylvia Ellis and Theresa Saxon as Treasurer, as well as the three colleagues who have acted as Vice-Chair: Sue Currell, Ian Bell and Will Kaufman. I would particularly like to thank Ian Bell, George Lewis and Tom Ruys-Smith who nish their terms of ofce this year; Dick Ellis whose role as Chair of BLARS passes to Michael Collins; and Michael Bibler who will start a new job at Louisiana State University in August. It has been an honour to serve the American Studies community and I hope I have done the role justice. BAAS has been a strong line of continuity through my career. My PhD supervisor, Richard King, was BAAS Chair in the mid-1990s; I met the previous Chair, Heidi Macpherson, at my rst BAAS conference in Cambridge
HAVE YOU VISITED
SULGRAVE MANOR?
Sulgrave Manor, 1910 prior to the reinstatement of the west wing.
A NOTE FROM TRACEY GOOCH ON SULGRAVE MANORS CENTENARY YEAR

Sulgrave Manor is celebrating a special centenary year in 2014. In 1914 the manor was purchased and restored to celebrate 100 years of peace between Britain and the USA. Today it is held in trust for the people of both these nations. Sulgrave Manor was the home of George Washingtons English ancestors. The original Tudor Great Hall and Great Chamber, built in the mid-1500s by George Washingtons ve times great grandfather, exist today alongside a Queen Anne wing built c.1715 and gardens designed by Sir Reginald Blomeld. We will be hosting a variety of events throughout 2014, including our annual Watson Chair lecture at the British Library in conjunction with the Eccles Centre on 21 February 2014. Check our website www.sulgravemanor.org.uk and join our mailing list to be kept up to date with whats on at the manor throughout 2014. We will also be launching our Centenary Appeal in 2014 Sulgrave Manor has suffered from lack of investment and is struggling to cope with the repairs and ongoing maintenance this Tudor house desperately needs. We are appealing for help to raise the funds we urgently need to ensure the manor remains open to the public for future generations. ! Contact us on enquiries@sulgravemanor.org.uk if you would like to know more about our Centenary Appeal or get further involved. Our phone number is (01295) 760205 and our address is Sulgrave Manor, Manor Road, Sulgrave, Near Banbury, OX17 2SD. Tacey Gooch
INTRODUCING SUE CURRELL

Elected Chair of BAAS, April 2013
s a Reader in American Literature at the University of Sussex I have taught a wide range of interdisciplinary American Studies courses at all levels. All of my degrees are American Studies: I gained my BA in American Studies (Literature) at Sussex, an MA in American Studies from the University of Maryland and a PhD in American Studies also from Sussex, I also spent two years as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Nottinghams School of American and Canadian Studies. Working in American Studies enabled me to follow an equal interest and curiosity in literature, history and politics. Until recently, then, I have been a thoroughbred hybrid, a product of this wonderful interdisciplinary eld that has sustained a community of Americanists with a broad range of interests. American Studies departments have been a crucible for my eclectic research interests in the cultural history of the US of the early twentieth century, which include the history of leisure, eugenics, and popular culture to the politics and publishing culture of the communist Left. The huge benet of having spent an entire academic career working within American Studies departments was brought home to me when this luxury ended and I was restructured into a School of English in 2009 and thereby institutionally split from the historians, political scientists and social scientists I had worked alongside for the rst time. While always a valued community, BAAS took on a new signicance and importance to me: it presented a haven of friendship, innovative scholarship and a support network of the kind that institutional structures now struggled to sustain. Becoming a member of the Executive Committee at that point, and then vice-Chair in 2012, I have seen at close hand the huge amount of work that goes into
providing that support and community: through awards, conferences, schools liaison, publications and engagement with governments, embassies, NGOs, commissions, and various international groups BAAS is at the forefront of making sure our presence is known and our work disseminated and understood. As a long time beneciary of this, I now feel it is time to repay my debt somewhat. As Chair I hope to build on Martin Halliwells excellent work to bring our research to the forefront of public awareness and to maintain a presence and voice in current discussions taking place within higher education policy discussions. These are certainly challenging times, from privatisation and funding issues to open access and American studies scholarship within the REF. Martin has worked incessantly to make sure that we are part of those debates and decisions and that the concerns of our community are well-voiced. We will need to work hard to maintain this function as a bulwark against the negative effects of changes. It is also more important than ever to make sure we continue working to steer change in positive and ethical directions. With the help of the executive committee and BAAS membership, I look forward to overseeing further expansion of our network, grow our online presence and enable increasing participation in new media and publishing developments. I would like to see increased benets to members evolving from a wider members forum and media contact database online but also by exploring and encouraging opportunities for us to take part in community engagement beyond academia. I look forward to working with you on these goals in the coming years. Sue Curre"
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YOUR INVITATION TO HOST THE BAAS ANNUAL POSTGRADUATE CONFERENCE

Dear Colleague, The British Association for American Studies is happy to announce that the deadline for applications to host the annual postgraduate conference in 2014 has been extended until the 28th of February 2014. This event usually takes the format of a one-day conference in November. Representing interdisciplinary research, academic exchange and scholarly networking, the postgraduate conference is a key part of BAAS. If you would like more information about organising this important event, please contact your Postgraduate Representative at Jonathan.Ward@baas.ac.uk. Best wishes,
Jon Ward
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A REPORT FROM STEPHANIE PALMER
(NOTTINGHAM TRENT UNIVERSITY)
BAAS Founders Award Recipient 2013
T
Thanks to this award from BAAS, I was able to visit
I found the English royalty ledgers particularly informative. The 1901 ledger begins by listing number of archives at Butler Library at Columbia University, the copies sold to date, which allowed me to trace reception American Academy of Arts and Letters, the New York of some writers back to the 1890s. I am able to say that Public Library, and Houghton Library at Harvard Harpers sold 3800 copies of Freemans A New England University in July 2013. I conducted research on Mary Nun and Other Stories (1891) by 1901. That story collection Wilkins Freeman, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Constance was the second of two collections that caused a stir of critical and popular interest in Freeman in Britain Fenimore Woolson, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman for a between 1890 and 1894 (the rst story collection was book project on the reception of American women published by David Douglas, an Edinburgh publisher). writers in Britain between the American Civil War and Today, Freeman is remembered primarily as a short-story World War I. Increased interest in transatlanticism in the writer of the 1880s and 90s, but the ledgers show that twenty-rst century has recently turned to close readings her novels, as well as her story collections, continued to of womens transatlanticism. Yet the new work on sell well in Britain up to around 1910. Beating out the likes of Thomas Hardy and William Dean Howells, she womens transatlanticism tends to emphasise U.S. was very often the best-selling Harpers author in many a womens indebtedness to British predecessors or treat six-month period. Author correspondence les were also specic gures as unique conduits for Atlantic exchange. interesting in the case of Freeman. Her letters to Harpers In contrast, this project treats a range of socially active have been published in Brent Kendrick, ed. The Infant women writers and demonstrates their impact on British Sphinx: Collected Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, but the Harpers archives also includes correspondence from F.A. markets and readers. The British responses to these Duneka, William H. Briggs, Cass Caneld, and other writers were admiring, pungent, and unique, and employees of Harpers. Most intriguing was a series of deserved to be remembered and analysed. The business letters from 1924 to 1925 about a play adapted by Susan records of American publishers were particularly rich Richmond of London from Freemans story A Conquest sources. Butler Librarys Rare Books and Manuscripts of Humility for the Arts League of Service Traveling room holds the archives of Harper Brothers, which Theatre, a subsidised society that produced good plays for small audiences in the provinces. Susan Richmond include correspondence with authors, contracts (including language about foreign and translation rights), wrote to Harpers London ofce asking if the story was still in copyright and for permission to adapt the play for and even English royalty ledgers dating from the years this company; Bernard Shaw advised them on their 1901 to 1919. Through its agship literary monthly, dealings with authors. Although Harpers was not the Harpers Monthly, which was published in London from original British publisher of the story (Douglas was), Harpers in London and New York agreed that 1880 onward, its literary agents like Sampson Low and Richmond needed to gain permission from both them Osgood and McIlvaine, and through its London ofce and Freeman and to pay royalty to both parties. Writing once that opened in the 1890s, Harpers were to the London ofce, an employee of Harpers in New instrumental in bringing many American authors to York expressed his doubts about the commercial value of Britain. Through their dealings with publishers in the play, which he reckoned he could not judge from the Australia and other parts of the colonial market, they great distance across the Atlantic. The correspondence also brought American authors to the Anglophone world. illustrates just how distant the British market and British tastes seemed from Harpers employees, even though they were keen to capitalise as much as possible on it.
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The Freeman correspondence also turned up a sheaf of letters from the 1950s requesting permission to publish her story, A New England Nun in various U.S. Information Service books issued with cooperation from local publishers around the world, in such languages as Sindhi. The story was selected, a U.S.I.S. ofcial wrote, because it would improve understanding of the United States. Perhaps the storys cautious combination of female chastity and female autonomy appealed to U.S.I.S. ofcials looking for respectable American literature to be read primarily in Asia, where there were Information Service at Beirut also wrote asking to publish the story in simplied English for its English
modest and difdent in leaving the negotiations for nding a British publisher to her American publishers discretion. But I now have an idea why Phelps stopped publishing with Sampson Low and turned to other British publishers.The trip was interesting partially for omissions in the record. I was unable to locate much correspondence between Harper and Brothers or Houghton Mifin and the British publisher Sampson Low, which operated as their London agent during the years in question. Only one scrap of paper remains in the Constance Fenimore Woolson le at Harpers, and Both transatlanticism and womens writing are difcult to research for some of the same reasons. Although
not many good American stories on the market. The U.S. Mary Noailles Mufrees papers consists of two contracts.
classrooms. Although Freemans stories were no longer in American publishers like Harper Brothers were highly copyright in the United States, Harpers agreed to receive interested in capitalising on the British and Anglophone the U.S. Information Services honorarium for world translation rights and schemed to divide the honorarium (which was $10 per short story) between themselves and Freemans heirs as advantageously as possible to themselves. The exchange illustrates that Freemans stories were read and remembered between the end of her life and the emergence of feminist literary criticism in the 1960s. It also points to a paper trail for the U.S. Information Service publications, one that may interest any scholar studying how this inuential government department shaped worldwide reception of American literature. At the New York Public Library Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection I looked at two readers reports for the T. Fisher Unwin of London reprint of Charlotte Perkins Gilmans Women and Economics (1898). G.K. Chesterton wrote that it was the best expression of the New Woman movement he had read, but he quibbled with Gilmans argument that women are not in a state of economic dependence by choice. Edward Garnett praised the book for being sensible and rational. The most striking thing about the two readers reports of this classic feminist text is that both are written by men. At the Houghton I read through letters between Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and her publisher, Fields and Osgood (later Houghton Mifin). Unfortunately few of the early letters have survived, so I was unable to nd out how Phelps felt about Sampson Low editing and annotating the 1869 British edition of her bestseller, The Gates Ajar. In the following years she frequently misspelled Sampson Lows name and seemed Ste#anie Palmer This trip gave me valuable insight into womens transatlanticism from the publishers perspectives, their mixture of carelessness and capitalist self-interest in approaching the British market for American ction. It also helped enrich my understanding of what writing for a British market meant for various American women writers. I thank BAAS for granting me access to these archives. market when the opportunity arose, they were not focused on it enough to preserve clear records. Although women writers who achieved popular success were treated warmly by the publishers, much of the record of womens dealings with their publishers is not extent.
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A REPORT FROM REBECCA WAGNER (ST JOHNS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE) BAAS Peter Parish Prize Recipient 2013
am a current third-year PhD student at the University of Cambridge, working on a dissertation on the politicisation of abortion among American evangelicals in the 1970s and 1980s.The generous grant I received from BAAS enabled me to spend July and the beginning of August in Nashville, Tennessee (USA), researching at the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archive (SBHLA). The Southern Baptist Convention as Americas largest Protestant denomination numerically and arguably its most thoroughly evangelical one occupies a place of particular signicance in understanding how Protestant evangelicals became pro-life in the 1970s and 1980s. The Southern Baptist Convention today is one of the most reliably Republican and pro-life denominations, and it is therefore tempting presumptively to read this back onto earlier decades; yet the SBCs current positioning is in fact the result of a profound and radical internal reState separation through the early- to mid-1980s. Throughout the 1970s, the applied ethics agency of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Christian Life Commission (CLC), was producing pro-choice material for the Conventions congregants; and the Baptist Joint Committee for Public Affairs (BJCPA), supported in largest measure by the SBC, was campaigning in Washington for legal abortion. These activities increasingly met with erce resistance from a growing conservative faction in the SBC, who ultimately emerged ideologically victorious over the moderates. By the late 1980s, conservatives had gained control of the denomination, grafted the SBC onto the rising panevangelical Religious Right, and under the leadership of Dr Richard Land had turned the CLC itself into a forceful exponent for the pro-life cause. I had hoped that
my visit to the SBHLA would illuminate how Southern Baptists in particular became politicised about abortion, and how this tied into the national and ecumenical story of American evangelicals politicisation about the issue. The bulk of my research last summer at the SBHLA centred on the les of the CLC. During my ve weeks at the SBHLA, I worked through virtually all of the archives relevant CLC holdings, which extended through the 1970s. I was able to get a clear sense of the ways in which, over that decade, the CLC framed legal abortion as an extension of key Baptist tenets of freedom of conscience and separation of Church and State. I had known before I had visited the SBHLA that the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1970s was not against abortion, but I was surprised by the extent to which this was dramatically borne out by the material at the archive. The head of the CLC through the mid-1980s, Dr Foy Valentine, had ties with the Religious Coalition for produced in 1977. The CLC tended to skew liberal in general Valentine was close to President Johnson and was a strong supporter of many aspects of the Great Society reforms of the 1960s; yet I learned last summer through personal documents I discovered that even many key conservatives in the SBC were not yet opposed to abortion by the late 1970s. I discovered letters and statements in the archive that indicate that abortion was not an issue that had permeated the moral consciousness of even those Southern Baptist conservatives who would be strongly pro-life by the 1980s and 1990s. During my time researching at the SBHLA, the archivist there recommended two further collections on the same topic the Foy Valentine Papers and the BJCPA Papers, both held in Baylor Universitys Texas Collection.
negotiation and re-imagining of the meaning of Church/ Abortion Rights, even signing a statement that the latter
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As a continuation of my BAAS project, I spent supporting my research, and for making the beginnings September in Waco, Texas, looking preliminarily through of this exciting new project possible. these collections. The Valentine papers afforded me a closer understanding of the concerns and motivations of the man who headed the CLC through the mid-1980s, Rebecca Wagner and the BJCPA papers allowed me a comparative view of another Baptist agency beyond the CLC that was in favour of legal abortion. The Valentine papers and the BJCPA papers are both currently unprocessed, and have thus been seen by very few scholars, and together they represent a trove of exciting new material. Before I began my BAAS trip, I had originally intended for this research on Southern Baptists and abortion to form one chapter of a broader dissertation on the politicisation of abortion among American evangelicals more generally from the 1970s onwards. However, as the material that I came upon during my visit was so fascinating and virtually untouched by previous scholars, I ended up shifting my entire doctoral project to focus specically on Southern Baptists and abortion in other words, to look at how, when, and why the SBC became pro-life. Last summer, the SBHLAs CLC holdings did not stretch beyond the late 1970s, leaving the rest of the story opaque. Through good fortune, however, there will be far more material in the SBC archive for me to work with in a few months time. With Dr Lands retirement from the CLC last summer, all of the CLC holdings from the 1980s through summer 2013 have just now been transferred to the SBC archive. The archivists have agreed to expedite their processing of this collection for me, in advance of my planned visit this coming spring/ summer. Additionally, Dr Land has just deposited his own papers in the SBC archive papers which contain key material on how he moulded the CLC into a vehicle for the evangelical pro-life movement, including material on his establishment of a Washington ofce for antiabortion lobbying in the 1990s. Although his papers will be closed for 25 years, I met with Dr Land last summer and secured special permission from him to research in his collection on the abortion issue a rare opportunity that no other scholar has had before. With these new primary sources, I hope to produce a comprehensive and well documented exploration of how Americas largest Protestant denomination became prolife. I am incredibly thankful to BAAS for nancially
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A REPORT FROM REETTA HUMALAJOKI (UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM) BAAS Marcus Cunliffe Prize Recipient 2012
was awarded the Marcus Cunliffe Prize by BAAS to enable a three week research trip to Tempe, Arizona. The main purpose of my trip was to gather material American Indian Tribes held at Arizona State University. This collection is central to my PhD thesis, which examines the rhetoric surrounding Native American Termination policy in the United States (1953-1970) in the domestic, global and Native reservation spheres. Termination aimed to split up reservation land bases and rid Native American tribes of their federal trust status, forcing them to accept the privileges and responsibilities of American citizenship. My thesis addresses the issue of why Termination which is now widely considered a disaster was accepted, by assessing attitudes towards Native Americans and government policy. Accessing the minutes of tribal council meetings is critical to understanding how Bureau of Indian Affairs ofcials addressed various tribes and how those tribes responded to and understood Termination, US citizenship and being American. On arrival on campus, I was pleasantly surprised to nd Hayden Library equipped with brand new microform scanners, attached to large-screen PCs providing visitors with unlimited, free scanning of sources. This meant that I could collect sources more efciently than I had
The resources I was able to access in Tempe are vital to my project, but were not the only benet I gained from this trip. My stay in Arizona and interactions with those I in a broader sense. On my very rst day I had the opportunity to have dinner with Professor Donald Fixico, a key historian in the eld of Termination as well as Native American historiography in general. His advice and encouragement of my project was invaluable and raised important questions regarding the theoretical background of my research. During my trip I also had an opportunity to meet Dr Katherine Osburn and hear about her upcoming book on the Mississippi Choctaws one of the tribes whose council minutes I have chosen to include in my study. The support from these academics and the chance to discuss my project alerted me to different, specically American perspectives on Termination and its context. This experience reminded me to be aware of how my position as a Finnish citizen in the UK affects my understanding of Native American and US history. Considering its location in the Southwest, it is unsurprising that Arizona State University houses such a wealth of resources for postgraduate students studying American Indian topics. I really enjoyed meeting other postgraduate students and being able to discuss my
from the microform collection Major Council Minutes of met there critically aided my development as a historian
planned. As a result I included a fourth tribal council, the project with people who are aware of Termination and Klamath, to the three I had already begun to look at its signicance in US history. As the only current history the Navajo, the Mississippi Choctaw, and the Five Civilized Tribes Inter-Tribal Council. The Klamath tribe was faced with a withdrawal bill in 1954 and eventually terminated in 1961. In including their tribal council minutes I will be able to examine how a tribe in these circumstances reacted to Termination, compared to others which were not immediately threatened. PhD candidate in Durham focusing on the United States, let alone Native Americans, this was a rare treat. In addition, hearing about the research projects of others broadened my understanding of the differences between UK and US PhD programmes. For instance, I was able to sit in on a graduate student class on colonialism and global indigenous populations; as a result I am aware of additional important literature on this topic.
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I was very impressed at times perhaps even a bit intimidated by the breadth of knowledge and skills of the American grad students. However, after talking to other students I found that the experience of doing a PhD is in many ways very similar: lled with stress, pressure to work non-stop, and often feelings of confusion when immersed in ones own thesis. Finally, without this trip I would not have been able to visit some of the places that I have read about in the tribal council minutes and gain a glimpse into life on the reservation of one of the tribes included in my thesis project. With the help of history graduate student Farina King and her family on the Navajo reservation, I spent a weekend in Monument Valley. Seeing the impoverished conditions many still live in (as well as getting stuck behind obviously inebriated drivers more than once in a single day) made the continuing problems of at least one tribe glaringly obvious. Yet more striking was the incredible beauty of the land and warmth of the people I spoke to. These factors afrmed to me how important it is to continue to study Native American history, as it remains relevant to examine why change has failed to occur in so many cases. Furthermore, this must be conducted in a respectful way understanding the reality of the challenges faced by tribes and the efforts that they make to overcome them, avoiding simplistic or generalised victim narratives. Three weeks may seem a short time in which to conduct substantial research, yet having completed the research trip I disagree. With the help of modern technology and networks of supportive fellow researchers, I was able to collect a great deal more sources than I had planned, as well as having stimulating conversations and getting a taste of Navajo daily life. Thanks to this award from BAAS, I have gained the sources and experience I need to complete a well-rounded thesis. Ree$a Humalajoki
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T
A REPORT FROM LINCOLN GERAGHTY (UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH) BAAS Founders Award Recipient 2013
he Founders Award allowed me to travel to the University of Iowas Special Collections Archive which contains important and valuable collections of fanzines, fan letters, science ction convention material and fan videos. The university has been the recipient of numerous and vast donations from fans and the librarians are still cataloguing new additions every day. The Special Collections Archive is currently involved in a major cooperative effort with the!Organization for Transformative Works!(OTW), called The Fan Culture Preservation Project, to preserve zines and other artefacts of fan culture. In partnership with OTW, a non-prot fan-run organisation, Special Collections at Iowa continues to receive donations of materials from their creators and collators and make them available to future generations of researchers and other interested parties. Visiting this archive forms part of an ongoing and developing research project on the history of popular fandom, fan relationships with the media industries, and the importance of memory and nostalgia in creating a fan identity. The four objectives of the project are: To investigate the affective relationship between the practices of fandom and the consumable merchandise and fanzines that fans collect from their favourite lm and TV franchises; To assess the impact of memory and nostalgia in the development of fandom and the formation of collecting and fanzine communities; To analyse the signicance of geography and space in the buying, selling and trading of collectible media merchandise and fanzines and how fans interact with and within that space; To establish the roles played by the media industry, manufacturers, sellers, traders, collectors and fans in the mass marketing of merchandising, fanzines and the creation of fan collecting communities. Trek convention memorabilia, represent an important resource for scholars of American studies and stand as a historical record of fan subcultures and their adherents. Researching this history of American fandom through fanzines and fan magazines is an important part of my overall project as understanding how communities of fans engage with media texts in the present can only be done through understanding and piecing together how they did so in the past. Studies of American fans and fandom hardly ever discuss fandom in its historical contexts thus having the opportunity to search the archives and read these rare fanzines and convention programmes can only enrich the project. Publishing the ndings will take this archival material, undoubtedly of interest and use to future generations of scholars and fans, beyond the connes of academia and out to a wider audience. Programmes, magazines and yers stored in the M. Horvat Collection of Science Fiction Convention Materials will be discussed in my forthcoming publication, Cult Collectors (Routledge, 2013) but further material found in the Morgan Dawn Fanzine and Fanvid Collection and the M. Horvat collections of zines and convention material will serve as the basis for a future book on fan histories. The size and diverse contents of the archive means that further research and dissemination through publication are required to fully exploit the collated material. In visiting the archive I was not only able to gather previously unseen material that will be used in current research but it has also introduced me to historical objects and data that have inspired ideas for future work.
I would like to thank BAAS for the nancial support provided by the award that enabled me to travel to Iowa. The library staff at the university, including Kathryn Hodson, Greg Prickman and Kalmia Strong, deserves praise for its informed and ever-present help with the As part of this project I needed to go to Iowa and gather collection. The fanzine archive is growing constantly and I important research material held in their archive. The do hope to return to Iowa in the near future. As a fan archive holds publications donated by collectors and fans studies resource its contents is still largely untapped and its dating back to the 1920s. The twenty individual collections importance has therefore sadly gone unnoticed. I that make up the archive, ranging from the Papers of encourage interested researchers to discover whats there. Norman Felton, Gertrude M. Carr and the Debbie Lincoln Geraghty Hoover fanzine collection to the collections of TV shows such as Farscape, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and Star
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A REPORT FROM MARK NEWMAN (UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH) BAAS Founders Award Recipient 2013
would like to thank BAAS for supporting a very productive visit to the Archives of the Archdiocese of New Orleans to research the recently opened Rummel Administrative Records for essential nal material for a study of Catholic desegregation in Louisiana. The Rummel Administrative Records are a vital source, because Rummel, archbishop between 1935 and 1964, was responsible for the largest Catholic populated diocese in the South and led the Province of New Orleans that included Louisianas three other dioceses. The archdiocese witnessed a prolonged struggle over parochial school desegregation, which until now, could only be studied through public sources, such as pastoral letters and newspaper reports. The newly processed materials revealed the inner workings of the Catholic chancery as it sought a viable desegregation policy for its churches, schools, agencies and organisations. The Rummel Administrative Records comprise school desegregation les, correspondence with other Louisiana Catholic bishops and New Orleans city ofcials, Catholic schools, parishes, and organisations, and lay people. The materials revealed Rummels early attention to racial discrimination in both the church and secular world, but also his reluctance to desegregate Catholic schools in the face of entrenched opposition from state politicians and vocal lay people. Correspondence with segregationist lay people offered insights into segregationist arguments and beliefs, and Rummels attempts to counter them. Mark Newman
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NEW PUBLICATIONS
The Poetics of the American Suburbs is the rst book to consider the rich body of poetry that emerged from and helped to shape the post-war American suburbs. Jo Gill discusses the work of forty or more writerssome well-known, such as Anne Sexton and Langston Hughes, others not primarily known through their poetry such as John Updike, and some who were best-sellers in their own time but have since largely been forgotten such as Phyllis McGinley. Combining detailed textual and archival study with insights drawn from other disciplines, the book offers a new perspective on post-war suburbia and on the broader eld of twentieth-century American literature.
FROM BAAS MEMBERS

Jo Gill is Associate Professor and Director of Education in the Department of English at the University of Exeter, UK. She is the author of Anne Sexton's Confessional Poetics, Women's Poetry and The Cambridge Introduction to Sylvia Plath, and the editor or co-editor of several other books. She is Lead Researcher on the Leverhulme-Trust funded "Cultures of the Suburbs International Research Network."
ial spec e ff o r
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Only the American right has ever really recognised the potency of the American left. Now, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones fully details the lefts numerous achievements, including the welfare state, opposing militarism, reshaping American culture, black rights and civil liberties, awakening the USA to the dangers of fascism, and great public enterprises such as the late Twin Towers. Jeffreys-Jones tells the full story of the USs left wing: how the socialists of the Old Left gave way by the 1960s to the anti-war militants of the New Left, and how they in turn gave way to a Newer Left that advocated causes such as gay rights and multiculturalism. Bringing the discussion into the 21st century, he shows how the post-2000 Bush administration succumbed to the socialist nationalisation it despised, and considers Barack Obamas claim to be a president of the left.
Save 25.00 Special Price: 65.00 39.99
To contribute your recent publications to ASIB, contact the Editor with the details on p.51. - Ed. 20
BAAS PAPERBACK SERIES EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS

A NOTE FROM MARTIN HALLIWELL AND EMILY WEST
BAAS Paperbacks are published by Edinburgh University Press in association with the British Association for American Studies. BAAS Paperbacks has two new Series Editors who, along with Edinburgh University Press, wish to promote and develop BAAS Paperbacks as the denitive series of lively, accessible and focused books (70,000 words maximum) in any eld or subeld of American Studies. Volumes in the series combine overviews of the subject with original research and are vigorously marketed by Edinburgh University Press in the UK and via Oxford University Press in North America. Volumes can be pitched within a single discipline or with an interdisciplinary focus. In particular, we are keen to recruit proposals relating to areas where we feel the series needs developing, including all areas of pre-twentieth century research; regional, urban and transnational studies; the history of borderlands, ethnicity and citizenship; colonial and revolutionary America; gender and sexuality; international relations; literary and lm genres, contemporary events; public and intellectual cultures; and visual technologies. The book should be appropriate for adoption as required reading on relevant undergraduate courses. Please do contact us with your ideas for potential books, which can be either thematic or chronological in scope. For a list of titles in the BAAS Paperbacks series so far, please go to www.euppublishing.com/series/ BAAS.
Contact the Series Editors: Martin Halliwell (University of Leicester) mrh17@leicester.ac.uk Emily West (University of Reading) er.west@reading.ac.uk
euppublishing.com/series/BAAS
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A REPORT FROM KAREN HEATH (ST ANNES COLLEGE, OXFORD) BAAS/Eccles Centre PG Award Recipient 2013
hanks to the generosity of the Eccles Centre Postgraduate The research that I undertook at the British Library enabled me to considerably strengthen, broaden, and contextualise my primary source basis. In particular, I was able to access a number of key periodicals, including conservative magazines (American Mercury, National Review), My doctoral thesis, Conservatives and the Politics of Art, from specialised art journals (Theatre Arts, Art News, Craft Red Scares to Culture Wars, offers a new policy history of the Horizons), plus other non-arts publications that National Endowment for the Arts, the federal agency that infrequently offered critical commentary on the makes grants to artists and arts organisations in the Endowment, (Esquire, Saturday Review, Business Week). I United States. My thesis explains the development of conservative perspectives on federal art politics from the Red Scares of the late 1940s and early 1950s, to the Culture Wars of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and hence the evolution of conservative political power. The most popular story holds that the National Endowment for the Arts found itself caught up in the Culture Wars when Christian right groups strenuously objected to certain federal grants, particularly to Andres Serranos Piss Christ and Robert Mapplethorpes SelfPortrait with Whip. Numerous studies have sought to uncover the meaning of the Culture Wars, but scholars have yet to examine conservative approaches to federal activism in the arts in a historical sense. My thesis therefore uncovers the older origins of conservative opposition to federal support for the arts, analyses conservative conceptions of art, and illuminates the limited role the right imagined for the federal government in the arts in the post-war period. Most importantly, my work also offers a focussed analysis of the agencys grant-making priorities in order to understand the limited impact of conservatives in terms of inuencing public policy. In a more general sense then, my thesis illuminates the overall odyssey of modern American conservatism, provides a new insight into the ways we periodise political history, and also invites a broader view of how we understand politics itself. arrived at the library with a comprehensive index of references drawn from the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature, meaning that I was able to easily order up the correct issues to the reading room, and hence quickly locate the relevant articles to copy. I also made good use of the LexisNexis Congressional Hearings Digital Collection, a database that offers the full text of published and unpublished congressional hearings. As this material is now available in digital format, I was able to easily undertake searches to nd the Endowments appropriations and re-authorisation submissions. Overall, my time at the British Library has been extremely fruitful, and I am very grateful to BAAS and the Eccles Centre for their support of my work. Karen Hea% Award in North American Studies I was able to make regular research trips to the British Library over the course of 2012-3.
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A REPORT FROM ROBERT W. JONES II (UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER) BAAS/Eccles Centre PG Award Recipient 2013
uring the 2012-2013 academic year I was fortunate to make several trips to the British Library due to the support I received from the Eccles Centre. These trips were made with the goal of strengthening my doctoral research on William S. Burroughs and specically for my thesis tentatively titled The Only Complete Man in the Industry: William S. Burroughs and the Post-war avant-garde. Much of my research at the British Library focused on the archives of Burroughs, Brion Gysin (Burroughs primary collaborator during the 1960s and 70s) and Genesis P-orridge who, aside from his primary work as the driving force behind Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV was a long time disciple of Gysin and Burroughs and an executor of the estate of lmmaker Anthony Balch. The archived materials I was most interested in contained limited release and unreleased audiotape experiments that William Burroughs created during the 1960s and 70s. William S. Burroughs written work is difcult to classify. His most famous literary work Naked Lunch is often described as everything from post-modern to cyberpunk. My research focuses on the decade and a half after the publication of Naked Lunch where his work became increasingly experimental and began to leave the page to interact with audiotapes and avant-garde lm. While there has been some research on this portion of Burroughs oeuvre none of the research focused on creating an intellectual history of the cut-up movement and tracing the origin of much of Burroughs philosophy to his interest in what I refer to as fringe sciences. This is commonly dened as science that was not part of the mainstream, yet may have been borne out of cold war experimentation. This includes elds of interest such as brainwashing and remote viewing. Thinkers such as W. Grey Water (neuroscience and cybernetics), Wilhelm Reich (orgone theory), Alfred Korzybski (general During the academic year I was able to listen to dozens of hours of audio that are not available to the general public. These tapes and sound server items generally cover the times that Burroughs lived and worked in London as well some recordings from his time in Paris, New York and Lawrence, Kansas. These recordings provided excellent source material for the chapters of my thesis that show how his use of audio tape was a direct extension, not only of his literary cut-up project, but of his interests in the work of Alfred Korzybski, W. Grey Walter, Vladimir Gavreau and Wilhelm Reich. In addition to the primary source material for my research these tapes contained private interviews and phone calls in which Burroughs speaks at length about the cut-up technique, his collaborations with Brion Gysin and others. These interviews and conversations provide a wealth of contextual information on the primary materials that I am researching. In addition, the archives contained many rare pieces of audio including one of Burroughs reading the text Hassan I Sabbah while under the inuence of mescaline and also contained a cut-up of this text that is subject to tape dragging. semantics) and Vladimir Gavreau (infrasound) greatly inuenced Burroughs and he often spoke of them in interviews and wrote about them in non-ction work. However, the depth of their inuence on his philosophy in the 1960s and 1970s is often overlooked. The materials I had access to at the British Library have provided ample evidence and source material in support of my primary argument that the way Burroughs used the cutup method was not simply to expose truths hidden within texts, but, to use these texts as a means of passing on specic ideas to his audience.
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This is an explicit example of the way in which text can be obscured with this technique and also displays how new words can emerge from the dragging, thus backing up Burroughs idea that these experiments could bring to light new and different texts simply by speeding up and slowing down tape. The research that I conducted was instrumental in completing the third chapter of my thesis as well as providing information for chapter four. In addition, I prepared a conference paper Body is Evidence of the Film: William S. Burroughs and the Post-war Avantgarde that I presented at the British Association For American Studies conference April 2013 at the University of Exeter. This paper examines the ways in which artists and musicians have collaborated with Burroughs and utilised his ideas in their work. Further, I have used material collected during my time at the British Library to prepare an abstract for an upcoming conference on William S. Burroughs and the image, taking place in London during February 2014. I would like to thank The Eccles Centre at the British library for providing the nancial support for my research trips and the British Association for American Studies for selecting my grant application. Due to the generous support of these organisations I was able to spend several days exploring archival material that has already proven to be incredibly important to my PhD research. In addition, I would like to thank the staff at the British Library especially the staff in the audio archives that were extremely knowledgeable, helpful and generous with their time during each of my visits. Robe! W . Jon& II
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A REPORT FROM BARBARA PITAK (UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW) BAAS/Eccles Centre PG Award Recipient 2013
am extremely grateful to the BAAS and the Eccles Centre for awarding me a Visiting European Postgraduate Award in North American Studies 2013. I spent almost two months April/May 2013 on a research in the British Library. This experience has signicantly improved my PhD project. Library, conrmed my thesis that the discomfort in research on this specic genre in the context of its musical representations, is related to a negative paradigm of racism. In such musical lms like Show Time (1936) The Duke is Tops (1939), Babes in Arms (1939), Stormy Weather (1943), Hello Dolly (1969), the blackface character is present and becomes a kind of platform for discussion on My dissertation examines the manifestations of grotesque American identity. The grotesque side of this topic is based in American stage and lm musical. My research approach primarily on the fact that it was being presented in a happy is based on cultural studies. Therefore an in-depth study of and joyful form from which the musical comedy is known. the history of culture of the United States, in particular aesthetics of theatre, lm and literature is necessary. The grotesque, so popular in the European culture, relates to the representations of American culture? What are the symptoms of this aesthetic category that indicate specic nature of this musical genre? I spent the time mostly researching a chapter of my dissertation on various aspects of grotesque in the nineteenth-century pre-musical stage form: blackface minstrelsy and its later manifestations in lm musicals. I had the opportunity to nd various materials, make a profound readings and almost 120 pages of notes from such monographs like Inside the minstrel mask: readings in the nineteenth-century blackface minstrelsy (Bean, Hatch, McNamara 1996), Demons of disorder: early blackface minstrels I would also like to mention that the EThOS online platform turned out to be extremely useful as it afforded me an access to various unpublished doctoral dissertations. I managed to nd several documents that became and By exploring a range of materials offered by the British Library I was also able to make excellent use of publications on the theory of grotesque, I have not been able to access elsewhere, such as: The Grotesque: A study in Meanings (Barasch 1971), The gruesome doorway: an analysis of the American grotesque (Uruburu 1987), The American Stage and the Great Depression: A cultural history of the grotesque (Fearnow 1997). Extreme energy and carefree shown by dancing, singing and playfulness clashes with traditional caricatures and
basic research questions are: In what extent the category of racist stereotypes.
and their world (Cockrell 1997), Grotesque Essence: Plays from the inspiration for my own work. A research stay at the British American Minstrel Stage (Engle 1978), Jump Jim Crow: lost Library was a very productive time as well as a great plays, lyrics, and street prose of the rst Atlantic popular culture (Lhamon 2003), Dan Emmet and the rise of early Negro minstrelsy, (Nathan 1962), Blacking up: the minstrel show in the nineteenth century America (Toll 1974), Disintegrating the musical: Black performance and American musical lm (Knight 2002). This allowed me to look more thoroughly at this cultural phenomenon which earned its popularity due to stereotyped and caricatured presentations of black people. These monographs as well as various secondary materials newspapers and journals articles found in the British opportunity to gather valuable materials that are not available in my home country. It was also an important scientic experience. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Philip Davies and the staff at the Eccles Centre as well as to BAAS for making such an invaluable and inspiring research possible. Barbara Pitak
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A REPORT FROM AMELIA PRECUP BAAS/Eccles Centre PG Award Recipient 2013
T
hanks to the Eccles Centre Postgraduate Award, I was able to conduct my research at the British Library in London for a period of four weeks. This experience contributed greatly to the advancement of my research project. The main objective of my research project is to approach Woody Allens ction, considering the historical and cultural implications which shaped his writing, in order to better understand how he continues, develops and replies to the Jewish tradition within the American urban thinking pattern. In order to accomplish my research objective, I have to take into consideration the immediate context of his writing, i.e. the aesthetics coordinates recommended by the editors of The New Yorker magazine, the publication where most of Woody Allens short pieces had been published rst, as well as the larger literary context which most denitely inuenced his writing, that is, the playful aesthetics of literary postmodernism. Another important aspect I am investigating is represented by the implications of Woody Allens Jewish cultural heritage in his short ction and the way in which he processes all the elements pertaining to the legacy of his Jewish upbringing as compared to other contemporary Jewish-American writers.
clearly see the inuences of S. J. Perelman and Robert Benchley on Woody Allens literary style. I would like to mention that I did not have access to any critical approach to the work of Perelman or Benchley until I got to the British Library, not to mention that the aesthetic direction of the New Yorker short stories was still rather unclear until I got the chance to analyze the relevant research in the eld. Moreover, I could also consult a series of books on JewishAmerican literature, Jewish stereotypes and Jewish humor, as reected into the twentieth century American mainstream culture and literature. One might think that some of the resources I consulted in the British Library are also available at other libraries and that is true (except for the Romanian libraries I have access to). Nevertheless, when writing a thesis, it is extremely important to have all the resources you need available to you in one place. The thought that you can check your hypotheses without having to travel to another library or wait for weeks to get a book is extremely refreshing when writing and conducting research. At least, this is how I work better.
The access to resources (some of which I did not even know existed) is just one of the highlights of the research trip made possible by the Eccles Centre Postgraduate I began my research based on the fact that most studies on Award. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity this Woody Allens work focus on his lms, analyzing various grant offered me to meet extremely interesting people, aspects, from plot, technique, inuences, and characters to working in different elds of North American studies. I his use of humor or his ideological perspectives. had the chance to discuss my research with people working Nevertheless, his short stories, essays and plays received both in connected academic areas and in completely little attention from critics worldwide. Given the scarcity of different research elds, but all the discussions I had critical material on Woody Allens short ction, I had to seemed to shed even more light on my research project. build a theoretical framework for each section of my thesis, These discussions helped me see my research from based on researches and theoretical standpoints relevant different perspectives and also offered me the opportunity for the evolution and the marketing of the short story on to learn extremely interesting things about American American soil, as well as for postmodernism and history, politics, culture, and literature, directly from contemporary American literary trends. Moreover, the specialists in the eld. To sum up my experience, I can say debates around the denition of Jewish-American that my research gained more depth, my thesis advanced literature and the implications of ethnicity in the work of considerably, and I got to meet interesting people with contemporary Jewish-American writers are also essential whom I could share experience and knowledge. For all of for my research. During my stay at the British Library, I these I am extremely grateful to the support I received was able to consult books and articles which helped me from the Eccles Centre and the BAAS. understand better what the best approach for the rst and Amelia Precup the third section of my thesis would be. I am now able to understand much better the impact of The New Yorker on Woody Allens short ction and its readership, just as I can 26
A REPORT FROM CHRISTOPHER MINTY (UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING) BAAS/Eccles Centre PG Award Recipient 2013
I recently undertook a research trip to the British Library, future-Loyalist William Laight were close friends, whilst London, to carry out crucial research for my Ph.D. project. Based at the University of Stirling, my dissertation examines the cultural origins of Loyalism in New York, c. 17631775. The characters and subjects of my dissertation are over 9,300 Loyalists from across the various counties of eighteenth-century New York. To pinpoint who these Loyalists were, I have identied and analysed a dozen Loyalist subscription lists or petitions, two Declarations of Dependence and three fantastically detailed oaths of allegiance. Although each document varies in specicitysome oaths of allegiance, for example, list age as well as occupation, whilst the petitions usually just have a namethey have provided me with an interesting challenge and pertinent research question: just who were these people? To answer this frustratingly large question, my Ph.D. has adopted an interdisciplinary approach. By drawing upon traditional historical methods, I have also implemented prosopographical, quantitative and qualitative analysis and social network analysis to pull these people together under the aegis of Loyalism. To do this, I have used the ostensibly amorphous concept of community as a methodological tool to illustrate how these Loyalists were intimately connected with one another prior to signing a Loyalist declaration or taking the oath of allegiance. By using what some historians may classify as aesthetically unappealing sourcesdaybooks, ledgers, account books, receipts, probate recordsmy Ph.D. dissertation wants to suggest that the path to Loyalism was far from a linear or teleological process, and allegiance was a peculiarly elastic concept. During the 1760s and early-1770s, future-Loyalists, if they may be called that without falling foul to inferred teleology, worked with future-Patriots throughout the various crises that engulfed New York. For example, John Jay and in 1775 Alexander Hamilton fended off a noisy mob who sought to tar-and-feather the president of Kings College, Rev. Dr. Myles Coopera noted and hated Loyalist. What this project hopes to demonstrate is that Loyalism was not an overtly political stance; rather, it was more a statement of community. With a scratch of the pen, Loyalists sought to legitimise the community and protect it from being recongured by a group of individualsthe Rebelswho they did not know or trust. My project argues that our ideological dichotomy of Loyalist and Patriot is not only misleading, but it is actually less important than the already- forged division of political, economic, and social communities in New York. It was their desire to stay together in these safe, imagined communities allowed them to suppress the ideological discord that existed between them. In the current academic climate, research is becoming increasingly and frustratingly expensive, especially when the primary focus of your work is New York. For me, a large proportion of my funding has been directed towards conducting archival research in the United States. Although it was extremely productive, it left me with less nancial leeway to visit key archives in the United Kingdom. Fortunately, however, I gratefully accepted a fellowship at the Eccles Centre at the British Library in mid-2012, which I undertook in May 2013. It proved to be an absolutely critical trip. When I rst arrived in London, I knew that the papers of Maj.-Gen. Sir Frederick Haldimand would be of utmost use to this project. Haldimand, born in Yverdon, Switzerland, served throughout the Seven Years War (17561763) and proved to be a highly procient military ofcer.
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After serving as Governor of Quebec, Haldimand was soon bound for New York when Thomas Gage left the colonies for a brief period in mid-1773. Haldimand became acting commander-in-chief of British forces in North America during the Tea Act crisis, and these were the rst papers I sought to consult. Through reading his correspondence with ofcials back in London,
William Smith Jr.s Alternative to the American Revolution, two copies remain extant, one in Smiths handwriting. Both are in the William Salt Library, preserved in the Dartmouth Papers. When I visited the British Library, I was aware of Smiths Alternative, but did not expect to nd it neatly preserved in the Haldimand Papers.
Haldimands evocative lettersbound in stunning olive green volumesprovided me with a key insight into life in An absolutely central collection of documents I also New York during this period. Writing to Lord Dartmouth, consulted were Haldimands personal correspondence Secretary of State for the Colonies, the general wrote: From several inamatory [sic] Papers, there is great reason to suppose, that some opposition will be made to the importation of the Tea reported to be sent by the East India Company, I shall Endeavour to prevent it as far, as will appear consistent with prudence, in the present state of Affairs in America. A month later, after the Boston Tea Party, Haldimand again wrote to Dartmouth. In this letter, it is possible to gauge New Yorkers increasing radical consciousness and the importance of intercolonial support. Had the ship with the Tea for this Province, arrived ten Days ago, Haldimand opined, it might have been safely landed, but the Account of what happened at Boston, which was sent off by Express to this place & that the Governors, to prevent dangerous extremities, will rather chuse [sic] to permit that the Tea shoud be sent back to England. From reading all their extant correspondence, it becomes perfectly clear how a torrent of licentiousness was brewing in New York, which would soon force its inhabitants to tentatively determine where their allegiance lay, at least for the time being. Another key manuscript I consulted was William Smiths Thoughts on the disturbances in America written in 67 and given to me at N: Y July the 4th 75. A year before independence was declared, Haldimand desperately sought to gain a more thorough understanding of the York merchants. Both Hugh and Alexander would
with Hugh and Alexander Wallace, two prominent New become Loyalists during the American Revolution, and the former would sign both Declarations of Dependence. This correspondence, dated from 17651778, allowed me to track the development of the imperial crisis through the eyes of two men who would become Loyalists. For instance, in 1765 and with considerable prescience, Hugh Wallace lamented to Haldimand that we hope the Parliament will relieve all our Sufferings & rid us of the Stamp Act, tho they may punish us from rashness in violently opposing it. In fact, this series of letters was actually so useful, that I have decided to implement the friendship of Wallace and Haldimand as a case study to community evolved throughout this period. On the eve of the American Revolution, colonists began to turn towards their friends and associates in times of need. In 1766, Wallace gratefully thanked Haldimand for sending his wife some oranges; in 1775, before the British occupation began in September 1776, Wallace desperately sought Haldimands help as he requested his advice and inuence in London to alleviate the losses he may accumulate. You will no doubt in your rounds, Wallace speculated, see Lord Hillsborough, [and] when you do, & can lett [sic] his Lordship know that I am known to you, honoured with your Friendship &
Philadelphia has created such a ferment that I apprehend, demonstrate how New Yorkers perception of
origins of the crisis, and called upon noted lawyer William Condence & your giveing [sic] me such a Character as you think will do sense to his Lordship, both as a Smith, Jr. for advice. Smith, a Whig and member of the infamous New York Triumvirate, actually wrote this document in 1765 during the Stamp Act crisis. In it, he posited that because the colonies had signicantly contributed to the British war effort in the Seven Years Merchant & a Friend to Government, may be of the greatest Use to me. The Haldimand Papers were even more useful than I had anticipated, and I hope to use them again in my research. Although the majority of my
War, they were entitled to an increased position within the time was spent in the Manuscript Room at the British Library, I did manage to pull myself away to consult other British Empire. Of course, as we know, this was not the case. As Robert Calhoun illustrated in his useful article, materials.
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Although a vast number of documents are becoming available online through various databases and the democratisation of the archivemost notably for me, Early American Imprintsthe visceral charge of reading and touching the real thing remains preferable, especially as a young historian. During my time in London, I was lucky enough to consult volume one of A Collection of Tracts from the late News Papers, &c. containing particularly The American Whig, A Whip for
infrastructure through the grid-like roads at the bottom end of Manhattan Island, as well as New Yorks ethnic and religious diversity. It shows man-made developments of the landpastures, orchards and gardensand, at the bottom of the map, it shows the dening images of New York City during the eighteenth century: commercial vessels.
My trip to the British Library proved to be one of the the American Whig, With some other Pieces. Published by most fruitful research trips I have carried out for my Ph.D. I gathered materials that will become central to my local printer and future-Patriot, John Holt, the tightlybound volume contains hundreds of essays concerning the potential establishment of an American Episcopate in the colonies in 17671768. Sparked by John Ewers infamous sermon, the chance to consult this rare text was argument and ideas as they develop. The British Library is a fantastically vital institution for all students and academics, and thanks to British Association of American Studies I was able to utilise their brilliant collections. I
a privilege, and it also provided me with several key points would like to thank BAAS, the British Library and the that I intend to use in a chapter of my project. But within Eccles Centre for their generous contribution. It was a this volume, too, were small pieces of marginalia, when the unknown owner marked the document at key junctures in the text. Despite highlighting to me the important sections, A Collection of Tracts gave me a real understanding of the sensuous immediacy of the past as I followed the rhythmic construction of the conicting arguments. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this 400pp volume. Alongside this, I also consulted Samuel Johnsons fantastically vital 1755 Dictionary to understanding how eighteenth-century colonists understood society, loyalty and loyalist, and Philip Livingstons The Other Side of the Question. These also provided me with particularly useful information. Lastly, I consulted Bernard Ratzers magisterial map of New York. A journalist has described Ratzer as the Da Vinci of New York cartography, and it is a truly breathtaking document. Only four remain in existence and this is the only one in Great Britain (the other three are based at the New-York Historical Society and the Brooklyn Historical Society). Formerly owned by King George III, it vividly portrays the streets of eighteenth-century New York City and is arguably the nest portrayal of the seaport town prior to the American Revolution. Engraved on the map are the houses of future-Loyalists James DeLancey, Robert Murray and Peter Stuyvesandt. It illustrates who were neighbours and how colonists probably bumped into each other on their daily trips to a marketplace or down to the closest wharf. The map gives us a great deal of information, as we see a developing privilege, as always.
Ch'(o#er Minty
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A REPORT FROM RUTH MARTIN (UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE) BAAS/Eccles Centre PG Award Recipient 2013
he Eccles Centre Postgraduate Award enabled me to research an extensive collection of archival materials essential to the completion of my thesis, Defending the Unpopular: Civil Liberties, fear and conformity in New York, 1937-1969. These ndings make a major contribution to current This thesis examines how civil liberties organisations developed to defend the constitutional right of freedom of association during a period characterized by conformity and fear of un-American political ideologies. Assessing the activities of three inter-connected groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, and National Lawyers Guild, my research addresses challenges faced by civil libertarians in periods of national emergency during the early Cold War. The development of legal defence strategies and employment of the rhetoric of rights acted to defend suspected subversives, particularly Communists against virulent political attacks. historiography in several signicant ways. Firstly, it challenges the traditional notion of the death of progressivism, left-wing non-communism by 1952. Continuities of membership and ideology can be traced between the Progressive Party of the 40s and civil liberties defence groups in the 50s and beyond. Legal defence of the unpopular in the US, based on constitutional rights, acted as an acceptable issue over which progressives could coalesce. Secondly, it emphasizes the substantial commitment of non-communist lawyers in defending those attacked as subversive, as many lost their license to practice and were jailed for contempt of court. This contrasts to the dominant narrative which emphasizes the Bars failure to uphold the right to counsel during this My aim during my research trip was to assess the strategies time-period. Finally, it underlines how civil liberties groups developed by the ACLU and ECLC. The collection of ACLU ofcial policy pamphlets held at the British Library shed light on the Executive Committees changing priorities and the ways in which they promoted the group and portrayed its aims. Of greatest importance was the microlm of the Papers of Roger Nash Baldwin, founder of the ACLU in 1920 and leader until 1950, who continued to exercise immense inuence over the organisation until the late 1960s. He presided over the ACLUs 1940 resolution banning communists or political extremists from leadership positions in the organisations. The Library also contains several political pamphlets produced by long-term ACLU Board member and socialist philanthropist Corliss Lamont, which were produced from the late 1930s to the 1950s. Lamont continually pushed the ACLU for a more stringent commitment to defending the rights of the unpopular, even at the expense of the I am immensely grateful to the British Library for allowing me access to the documents, and to the individual archivists for their hard work and expertise in suggesting relevant records collections. The documents I researched formed a seminal part of my PhD thesis. I wish therefore to reiterate my sincere appreciation to the Eccles Centre for providing me with this invaluable opportunity. Ru% Ma!in played a key yet forgotten role in ameliorating the lingering effects of anti-Communism during the 1960s civil rights and anti-War movements. organisations nancial security. He resigned from the ACLU to become a powerful nancial backer of the ECLC, a move which strained the poor relationship between the USs two largest civil liberties groups.
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Katie Barnett is completing her PhD at the University of Birmingham, based in the Department of American and Canadian Studies.
Bonnie Huskins teaches Atlantic World History and the History of North America at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Her research examines sociability as a vehicle of community formation amongst Loyalist refugees who resettled in Nova Scotia after the American Revolutionary War. A related publication is Remarks and Rough Memorandums: Social Sets, Sociability, and Community in the Journal of William Booth, Shelburne, 1787 and 1789, in the Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, Vol. 13 (2010). Simon Middleton teaches in the History Department at the University of Shefeld. He was educated at Kingston Polytechnic, Harvard Graduate Center, where he completed a Ph.D. From 1997-2005 he taught in the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. His research interests lie in the area of early American social and cultural history. Simon has won several awards for his work including a 2001 PEASE Prize for the best journal article in early American economic history, and the Hendricks Manuscript Award and 2007 BAAS Book Prize for, From Privileges to Rights: Work and Labor in Colonial New York. Katie Muth teaches in the School of English at the University of St Andrews and has taught contemporary literature, cultural studies, and liberal arts at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and at Washington University in St. Louis. She is currently at work on a book manuscript on postwar American ction and the history of computing. Thomas E. O'Bryan is a human rights
WELCOMING NEW MEMBERS OF BAAS
Her current research centres on representations of fatherhood in Hollywood lm during the 1990s, with a particular interest in how masculinity is constructed within this paternal paradigm. Katie currently serves as Editor of the interdisciplinary journal of North American Studies, 49th Parallel. Lisa Bogert is a PhD candidate at the Queen's University Belfast and holds degrees from Yale University, Centenary College and the University College Dublin. Her research focuses on 20th century cultural and social immigration history and foodways, which aims to analyse Irish American cultural transmission. It further examines the rise of diasporic heritage tourism aimed at Irish Americans with a focus on postmodern commodication and culinary tourism. Chris Bradshaw is a PhD student at the!University of the West of Scotland!based in the School of!Social Sciences.!His!esearch focuses!on American presidential elections, particularly the campaigns between 1960 and 1980. Jonathan Coburn is a PhD student in American History at Northumbria University. Jons research interests include U.S. foreign policy and peace history. His thesis is an analysis of the peace protest group Women Strike for Peace, paying particular attention to the efcacy of maternal identity in justifying a pacist position and in allowing for mature womens involvement in politics. Ben Houston is lecturer in modern US history at Newcastle and specialises in the civil rights movement, nonviolent direct action, and oral history. !He is author of The Nashville Way, a community study of the civil rights movement in Nashville, Tennessee (UGA Press, 2012). !Previously he directed an oral history project on African Americans in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University.
identity construction in regards to cross-generational University, and the City University of New York
practitioner and scholar, having studied and taught in the UK, China, India and at American University in Washington, D.C. He also worked for international human rights NGO, Freedom House, while in D.C., and Mr. O'Bryan maintains a keen interest in American foreign policy, politics, and culture. You can contact Mr. O'Bryan via tobryan@ukjfpi.org.
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Jenna Pitchford-Hyde is currently Lecturer in Humanities at the University of East Anglia with special responsibility for developing outreach activities across the Faculty. Jenna has previously held lectureship posts in English Literature at Nottingham Trent University and American Studies at the University of Lincoln. Jennas research examines how contemporary warfare impacts on identities, specically focusing on issues of technology, gender, the psychological effects of war, national identity, and perceptions of the Other in Persian Gulf and Iraq War narratives. Her recent publications include The Global War on Terror, Identity, and Changing Perceptions: Iraqi Responses to Americas War in Iraq, Journal of American Studies, 45: 4 (2011), and her current research projects include a monograph which explores the complexities of technology and identities in Persian Gulf and Iraq War narratives. Stephen Robinson holds a PhD in American History from the University of Southampton. He currently teaches at the University of Southampton, and has also taught at the University of Winchester. Stephen's research focuses on race relations in the US South, with a particular focus on the 1880s. His publications include Rethinking Black Urban Politics in the 1880s: The Case of William Gaston in Post-Reconstruction Alabama, The Alabama Review, 66 (January 2013) and a forthcoming book entitled Freemen and Citizens: Black Politics in the 1880s South. Ibram H. Rogers is an assistant professor of Africana Studies at the University at Albany, SUNY. He is the author of the award-winning book, The Black Campus Movement: Black Students and the Racial Reconstitution of Higher Education, 1965-1972. He has published essays on the Black Campus Movement in several journals, including the Journal of Social History, Journal of African American Studies, Journal of African American History, and The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture. He has earned research fellowships from the American Historical Association, Chicago's Black
Metropolis Research Consortium, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, and the Lyndon B. Johnson Library & Museum. Charles J. Shindo is Professor of History at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana specialising in 20th century cultural history, especially the interwar years.!He!holds a PhD from the University of Rochester and is!the author of Dust Bowl Migrants in the American Imagination (University Press of Kansas, 1997) and 1927 and the Rise of Modern America (University Press of Kansas, 2010). Charles is currently working on a project examining the various media adaptations of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. Imaobong Umoren is a DPhil student at the University of Oxford based in the Faculty of History. Her research focuses on the global travels and connections between a group of English and French speaking black women intellectuals from the Caribbean, Africa and the US between the 1920s -1960s. Nicole Willson is a PhD student at the University of East Anglia in the school of American Studies. Her current research traces the resonances of the Haitian Revolution in the American unconscious. Her other research interests include intersections between race, class, gender, transatlantic modernity, and the Diasporas of Africa and the Caribbean. Michelle K. Yost is a PhD student at the University of Liverpool's School of English, researching the American Hollow Earth narrative and the Ohioan John Cleves Symmes, whose theories inspired a century of hollow earth writing. She had written reviews for Foundation: the international review of science ction, and was a contributor to the third edition of the Science Fiction Encyclopedia.
WELCOMING NEW MEMBERS OF BAAS

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A REPORT FROM BETSY DONALD (QUEENS UNIVERSITY, CANADA) BAAS/Eccles Centre Award Recipient 2013
was extremely privileged to be the Eccles Centre Visiting
food industrialisation. This led me to some of the food trade journal archives.
Professor in North American Studies at the British Library for the 2012-2013 academic year. It was during
this time that I was also on sabbatical at the University of I discovered a fascinating collection of business and food science journals that really gave me a sense of how the Cambridge, so this gave me the opportunity to research in the library throughout the academic year. However, my most sustained and productive research period at the the major issues of the day were. The sources for my
industry saw itself at particular points in history and what
British Library was the four month period between April, research were trade journals like, Food Processing and Food 2013 and July, 2013 when I became fully immersed in the Processing and Marketing, but the main and most interesting source was the monthly trade journal, Food Industries. This librarys collections. was the major food industry trade journal of its day with My project started out to be about the relationship between urbanisation and the industrial food system in the largest circulation. By 1920, the American food processing industrys numbers had peaked at 63,000.
the United States. I spent the rst few months drawing on After 1920, the industry began a process of mergers and the BLs vast American food literature collection, reading acquisitions and it was during this period that the through most of the major secondary sources on the history of food in America, including such classics as Richard J Hookers (1981), A History of Food and Drink in America, James E. McWilliams (2005), A Revolution in Eating: how the Quest for Food Shaped America, Harvey Levensteins (1988) Revolution at the Table and Andrew F. Smiths (2009) Eating History among dozens of others. As my research progressed I found myself looking more specically at the rise and fall of the American industrial foodscape through the voices of the food industry itself. Most of the contemporary social science books about the industrial food system tell the story of an industry under attack. Technological innovation may have provided cheap food to millions, but this has come at a cost in terms of rising obesity and other diet-related health industry established associations and produced a trade magazine. Food Industries inaugural issue was December 1928 and it continued to publish monthly until 1951. In 1951 the journal changed its name to Food Engineering, and then ran under this name until 1976. After 1976 the journals name was changed to Food Engineering International, 1976+ to reect the growing globalising focus of the American food industry. I also became enamoured by the monthly editorials written by Lawrence V. Burton in Food Industries during the depression and war years and the subsequent editorials written by Frank K. Lawler between 1948 and 1975. Both these men had a deep knowledge and passion for the industry; they saw the industry as more than just an
American industry among many, but as a keynote of 20th problems: food safety; workers' rights; animal welfare and century American purpose and prosperity. This was a the environment. Even the contemporary food industrial time in America when the American industrial food trade journals seem to be on the defensive with regard to how their industry is perceived by various publics. As I reected on this trend in the literature, I became curious to know how the industry saw itself in the early years of system was revered, its innovations celebrated for their signicant contribution to the success of social and economic life in 20th-century America.!The war years were a particularly fascinating time to read about as food was seen as a key weapon.
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The industry presented itself as the larder of the democracies as the US fought for freedom with food and claimed to have fed 200 million allies around the world. This was an interesting time as supply blockages created huge demand for sugar and spice substitutions and vitamin and mineral enrichment. These substitutions and enhancements became the underpinning of the American industrial diet in the post-war period. By the 1950s, food processing became increasingly automated, engineered and chemical laden. Food became an abstraction divorced from its natural origins as the industry was aggressively promoting synthetic foods. Until 1958 additives were added and removed in the food system only when the FDA could prove them dangerous. The 1960s saw industry continuation of additive creations including the making of reasonable facsimiles and analogs of natural foods. The industry responded to several major local and global political issues (such as the race riots in big city America and world hunger issues). However, they dismissed the growing consumer backlash of chemicals in their foods. By 1973, the economic crisis hit the industry hard, especially energy costs. It was at this time that the industry also became increasingly angry and defensive about unions, regulation and government intervention. Additionally, the radical consumerist became the scapegoat and was seen as a threat to the American free enterprise system and the American way of life. Starting in the mid-1970s, the industry began a stepped-up public relations campaign to extol the virtues to the publics and government on the benets of an American industrialised diet. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the British Library and only wished I could stay for another year. I was grateful for the sustained period of time within which to read, reect and write up draft chapters of my project. I was also grateful for the opportunity to present my ndings in the Summer Scholar Series on July 24, 2013 in a power point talk entitled, The Rise and Fall of the American Industrial Foodscape. I received excellent feedback and had the opportunity to meet interested and interesting members of the public, some of whom I have stayed in touch. Thank you in particular to all the librarians and British Library staff who made my time so enjoyable and productive. I am especially grateful to Jeremy on the second oor of the science reading room for his guidance and enthusiasm about my project and to Philip Hateld in
Canadian Studies. A heartfelt thanks too to Philip Davies and everyone at Eccles Centre. My time was so rewarding and productive and I look forward to returning home to the BL very soon. Betsy Donald
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A REPORT FROM BAHAR GURSEL (MIDDLE EAST BAAS/Eccles Centre Award Recipient 2013
TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY, TURKEY)
undertook research in connection with my project, The East, the West and America: How Nineteenth Century American Women Writers Depicted Foreign Nations in Childrens Books. The research endeavored to concentrate on the primary and secondary sources on nineteenth-century American
and impressions which were designed in a male-oriented environment would also reveal some major details about nineteenth-century American society, culture and the (un)changing roles of women. For the research that was conducted at the British Library, apart from the secondary sources on childrens
female writers childrens books at the British Library. literature and specic writers (especially like Catherine This offered the opportunity to conduct a comprehensive Maria Sedgwick), Jean Petrovics bibliographical study analysis on the American perspective(s) about the formation of national identity and the portrayal of other nations in the world. As Jean Petrovic indicates in the introductory part of For Myself, For My Children, For Money: A Bibliography of Early American Womens Writings at the British Library, the majority of those female writers came from highly literate and educated American families, and some of them made their living from their writing. These women did not only write childrens books; they also composed religious works, poems and textbooks. Some of them became the editors of important childrens magazines (like Lydia Maria Childs Juvenile Miscellany), some of them became famous with the moral stories that they wrote for children (like Caroline Howard Gilman), and some of them wrote about their travels in Europe (like Grace Greenwood and Caroline M. Kirkland) which possibly became inuential aspired to focus on the works of nineteenth-century American writers which were considered to be exceptionally constructive in grasping the attitude of the European/white Americans regarding the other people who lived inside and outside Europe and the West. The attitudes of the female writers were deemed to be particularly appealing because during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, childrens stories and books were primarily written for boys by male writers in the Englishspeaking milieu. Therefore, the women writers thoughts entitled For Myself, For My Children, For Money: A Bibliography of Early American Womens Writings at the British Library became the initial point of reference. The works of most of the names that are indicated in this study turned out to be signicant sources for the research. Ms. Childs The Mothers Story Book; or, Western Coronal (1833) offers some certain stereotypical depictions of native American (Mohawk), ancient Egyptian, French, English and Indian people. Additionally, in the same work, there is also a Persian fable. In The History of the Condition of Women, in Various Ages and Nations (1835), which was published in two volumes, Child refers to the representations of women in different geographies and time periods. Emma C. Emburys Constance Latimer: Or the Blind Girl. With Other Tales (1838) depict the story of a blind girl, but the details of the work provides some important aspects about India by specifying the life of a Legends of Travel and History, for Children (1857), Stories of Many Lands (1867), Stories and Sights of France and Italy (1867) and New Life and New Lands (1873), Sarah Jane Clark, who took the name of Grace Greenwood in 1844, provides information mainly about Europe and the continents comprehensive history.
sources for their stories for children. In brief, the research rich East India merchant from America. In Stories and
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Her above-indicated works constitute evident signicance since that they were written for children (primarily for the writers cousins and daughter). However, they are also important accounts because Greenwood was one of the States; hence her descriptions offer a journalists perspectives of other countries and cultures. Catherine Maria Sedgwick, who was one of the noteworthy female writers in nineteen-century America, also composed works which focused on both the United States and other countries and people. For instance, in The Travellers: A Tale Designed for Young People (1825), she denotes the main a nineteenth-century white woman by comparing them to other races. The Baths of Bagnole; or, the Juvenile Miscellany (1826), on the other hand, she mentions a struggle between the French and African pirates, and also reveals numerous portraits of Christians, indels, a Turkish woman and a Spanish general. In Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (1841), Sedgwick offers information on Britain (especially London), Belgium, Germany, and also Russian, German and English people and their characteristics. In the second volume of the same work, she refers to Italy and different cities in the peninsula by comparing the characteristics of the Old World to America. Pretty Little Stories for Pretty Little People: A Suitable Christmas or a New Years Gift (1849) is a 160 pages long collection of short stories among which there are a few narratives that depict western and eastern stereotypes in an outstanding manner. The British Librarys rich collection of nineteenth-century childrens literature also consists of books that are collections of short stories which were composed by various writers. For example, Cassells Shilling Story Book for the Young (1866), which is a multivolume work, comprises the stories of male and female writers which offer remarkable examples of nineteenthcentury All in all, the research which was conducted at the British Library for ve weeks provided me the opportunity of materializing the foundations of a book-length study which will concentrate on not only nineteenth-century American female writers, but also the changing and developing trends of Anglo-American childrens literature in the above-mentioned era. The notes which I took at the library (that consist of 71 pages and 49,667 words)
denitely constitute a very important part of my ongoing project. I wish to extend my many thanks to the executive and American Studies (BAAS), the British Association for Canadian Studies, and to the staff of the Eccles Centre at the British Library. Without the support and guidance of Prof. Philip Davies, the research could have been much more strenuous and demanding; I would like to thank him for his kindness and support. I am also particularly grateful to the staff of the British Library who facilitated contact information, please see: www.hist.metu.edu.tr/ assist-prof-dr-bahar-gursel. Bahar Gursel
rst paid woman newspaper correspondents in the United sub-committee members of the British Association of
features of native American people from the view point of my research during the period I spent in London. For my
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A REPORT FROM ROBERT MASON (UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH) BAAS/Eccles Centre Award Recipient 2013
y project, The struggle for free time: television, elections, and the politics of campaign reform, 1948 2008, investigates the ways in which television transformed the nature of political debate in the United States. Throughout this period, a consistent theme disappointment that television failed to realize its lofty potential to enrich that debate. The commercial imperative at the heart of the broadcasting sector controversy; a regulatory system that was light by international comparison fostered relatively limited, rather than extensive, coverage of politics. Over time, the cost of television commercials grew signicantly, constituting a leading element in the expense of electoral politics. In both respectstelevisions neglect of politics and televisions expense for politiciansthe relationship between television and politics was apparently a problem that demanded solution. For many reformers, over a period of many decades, the solution was free time for political candidates during campaigns. The project asks why free time was a persistent goal of the reform cause and why efforts in pursuit of the goal repeatedly ended in failure. The resources of the British Library on modern American history are very extensive, and access to these resources thanks to an Eccles Centre visiting fellowship has powerfully assisted and informed the development of this project about television and politics. These resources include rare publications issued by both the National Association of Broadcasters and the Federal Communications Commission, but the holdings that proved to be more important for the project were contemporary publications on journalism, television, politics, and campaigns, including the memoirs of
politicians and journalists. In many cases the British Library is the only library in the United Kingdom to house these books; the way in which an Eccles Centre fellowship provides an opportunity for intensive work with this material is without parallel, and it is topics. The picture that together these publications offered was journalists and politicians, between broadcasters and reformers. The cause of free time was one that was fundamentally critical not only of the broadcasting industry as decient in making adequate use of its access to the public airwaves, but also of journalists in covering electoral politics in a trivialized rather than substantial manner. An emphasis on speech freedoms provided an effective rallying cry against the reform cause. To achieve success, reformers needed to identify some degree of common cause with the business of broadcasting and with the profession of journalism. At best, this happened eetingly, notably during early discussions about public broadcasting and during the policy- and business-related uncertainties that surrounded the arrival of digital television in the 1990s. In this respect, systemic and technological changes emerge as an opportunity for a reform impetus, though historically speaking these have offered an opportunity no more than short-lived in extent and weak in nature. An alternative route to action depended on the mobilisation of political commitment for the cause. Such a coalition remained difcult to mobilize, however. Incumbent politicians were unenthusiastic about the prospect of modifying a system under which they had secured their own election.
among both participants in and observers of politics was outstandingly supportive of research on American
encouraged a focus on entertainment and a resistance to one of persistent tension and misunderstanding between
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Less straightforward to assess, even on the basis of the materials consulted at the British Library, but no less real was the signicance of the relationship between politicians and local broadcasters in home districts and home states. These relationships further boosted the strength of the broadcast lobby, the activities and inuence of which, moreover, tended to receive little journalistic scrutiny. Nevertheless, against the odds, there were a few moments when political support for reform increased. The rst surrounded the introduction of presidential debates on television in 1960. The debates are commonly remembered for their apparently advantageous implications for John F. Kennedys challenge to Richard Nixon; there was also a surge of enthusiasm for the debate format, which received widespread support as an innovation that improved democratic discourse. The second took place during the turbulent years of the Nixon administration, when the relationship between the White House and the news media became freshly and intensely controversial. Among Richard Nixons strategies to build public support was the use of presidential statements, supported by the avoidance of news conferences; Democrats on Capitol Hill demanded free time for congressional leaders as a legislative counterpart of the presidential statement. On both occasions, the CBS television network was innovative in crafting new forms of political programming in which the principle of free time was signicant. On the rst occasion, commercial pressures terminated the experiment; on the second, political controversies, supported by legal action, killed the innovation. The research conducted at the British Library also suggests that there was no golden age of American television, and instead that controversy about the mediums democratic responsibilities arrived as soon as its emergence to prominence. Despite the signicance and sometimes intensity of the charges against television, the debate was not one that secured positive change. In tracking the development of this debate and its legislative implications over time, as well as the obstacles that reformers encountered, material relating to Congress is especially important. The US Congressional Serial Set, now available remotely to holders of a British Library readers pass, offers countless insights on this history. Even as the context of politics and broadcasting underwent signicant transformations, and even as evidence
accumulated that the goal was an unrealistic one, legislators time and again returned to free time as a key way to improve election campaigns. Moreover, the arguments offered by the congressional advocates of reform demonstrate remarkable consistency over time, though an emphasis grew on the high cost of campaigning, and the fundraising imperatives that politicians consequently faced. This was nevertheless complemented by increasing concern about the quality of political debate in the United States. The people as well as the material of the British Library make an important contribution to the work of researchers there, in providing expert advice. I am very grateful for the opportunity to have spent an extended period of time working at the Library, an experience that has added substantially and signicantly to the research foundation of this project. Robe! Mason
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A REPORT FROM ANDREW MUMFORD (UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM) BAAS/Eccles Centre Award Recipient 2013
would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks Association for American Studies for awarding me a visiting fellowship. In this nal report I will outline the benet of the grant to my research. The fellowship was undertaken with the aim of furthering research for a book project provisionally entitled The Special Relationship in CounterInsurgency: Britain, America and Irregular Warfare. The purpose of the book is to place Anglo-American counter-insurgency conicts that the two nations of have fought, from the British small wars of decolonisation after 1945, through the testing Vietnam War era, up to the demands of modern irregular war in Iraq and Afghanistan. An analysis of military co-operation and diplomatic relations in the context of these particular forms of conict, it is hoped, will shed light on an underexplored dynamic between London and Washington at times of war. The resources available to me at the British Library were of immense help in deepening the primary source foundations of the book. Let me briey outline the materials that were utilised and their utility to my research. Predominantly I wanted to take advantage of the British Librarys subscription to online services that provided declassied US government documents including the Declassied Document Reference System; the Digital National Security Archive; the Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room; and the Public Papers of the President. Collectively, these online archival resources provided a wealth of material I had not seen before and offered up numerous revelations that will certainly nd
their way into the book. Of note was a 1952 National deployment of American troops to assist the British ght the communist insurgency in Malaya. This casts new light on now American Cold War priorities were primed to impinge on Britains colonial counter-insurgency campaigns. A keyword search of the online material at the Library also revealed that presidents from Truman to Obama have used the phrase special relationship to describe US ties with 22 nations other than Britain. This is food for thought when assessing the specialness of A series of secondary material was also of immense benet. I particularly took advantage of books relating to American perceptions of the British campaign in Palestine (1945-48), in order to garner how the conict shaped US responses to the creation of the state of Israel. I am currently in discussions with several publishers about securing a contract for the book. I hope that the manuscript will be completed by late 2014, with publication a year later. Should you be interested, once the book has been published, I would be delighted to come and give a public lecture at the Eccles Centre around US-UK relations in counter-insurgency wars from Palestine to Afghanistan. I also intend to submit a paper for the BAAS annual conference, based on the research for this book, in the next year or two. Once again can I thank you for the opportunity to undertake this fellowship. I look forward to maintaining a close relationship with the Eccles Centre in the future. An)ew Mumford
to the Eccles Centre at the British Library and the British Security Council report that mooted the possible
relations within the historical framework of the numerous bonds between London and Washington.
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A REPORT FROM JOANNE MANCINI (UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND MAYNOOTH) BAAS/Eccles Centre Award Recipient 2013
would like to thank the Eccles Centre for American Studies, the British Association for American Studies, and the British Library for supporting my research visit to the British Library, undertaken during the weeks of 20 June, 2011, 27 June, 2011, 4 July 2011, and 11 July 2011. My experience at the British Library was an overwhelmingly positive one. I was able to consult a range of very interesting material, and to make good progress on my work. I have been able to write a draft of a paper related to some of the materials I was able to see during my visit, and with luck it will be published in the near future. This opportunity was especially important to me in light of the lack of similar sources available within the libraries and archives here in Ireland. I am also happy to report that all of the staff I encountered in the British Library were extremely courteous and efcient. It truly is a wonderful place to work. I must give special thanks to Matthew Shaw, whose direction and advice greatly improved my ability to navigate the collections interface, and to Tom Harper, who very kindly took the time to meet with me to discuss maps in the collections. I must also thank Professor Philip Davies for giving me the opportunity to meet with him and for telling me
more about the activities and history of the Eccles Centre. I hope that this programme will continue for many years to come, as it will be of great benet to scholars of North America from all over Europe. JoAnne Mancini
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A REPORT FROM J. SIMON ROFE (SOAS) BAAS/Eccles Centre Award Recipient 2012
his report covers the research activities entailed in being an Eccles Centre Visiting Fellow in North American Studies at the British Library 2011-2012. First of all may I take this opportunity to offer my heartfelt thanks to the Eccles Centre at the British Library, and particularly, Carole Holden, Matthew Shaw and of course Professor Philip Davies. Further, I would like to thank the British Association of American Studies, and Dr Caroline Morley & Professor Martin Halliwell (both of University of Leicester), and Dr Sylvia Ellis (University of Northumbria). Finally, I would like to thank those of the course my time in the Library. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to speak with them and learn about their projects. The focus of my research during the course of my fellowship has been to explore the role played by the United States Embassy in Grosvenor Square London in Anglo-American relations. To that end I have undertaken a number of activities, including: 1. The Embassy in Grosvenor Square American Ambassadors to the United Kingdom 1938-2008, (Palgrave) www.palgrave.com/products/ title.aspx?pid=478112 published 7 December 2012. 2. 3. Conference Presentation TSA 2011 University of Dundee June 2011. Public Forum Transatlantic Diplomacy at Yale University March 2011. In connection to all of the above endeavours, the British Library has been a wonderful resource. I have spent many hours in the reading rooms, and particularly the Fellows Reading Room where the
tranquillity and absence of interruptions have been particularly welcome. The quiet physical space creates an attendant intellectual space which is very much appreciated. The main effort of my activities has been in the preparation of the manuscript for Palgrave entitled: The Embassy in Grosvenor Square American Ambassadors to the United Kingdom 1938-2008. Further, to providing me the opportunity to drafting of my own work in the volume, including the chapter on Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy and the introduction, the absence of distractions allowed me to copyedit the entire much welcome the opportunity to share the research that went into the book with colleagues in the British Association of American Studies. J. Simon Rofe
my fellow Fellows who I was fortunate to meet during manuscript, and compile the index. I would very
41
BAAS FUNDING REPORT
A LETTER TO THE CHAIR OF BAAS FROM GEOFFREY PLANK

Dear Dr. Currell, On behalf of the British Group in Early American History, I am writing to thank BAAS again for your grant of 250 to encourage postgraduate participation at our annual conference, which took place at the University of East Anglia from the 5th to the 7th of September, 2013. Your grant allowed us to reduce the conference fee for postgraduates from 70 to 35, and as it happened, eighteen postgraduate students took advantage of that offer. (We had funds to make up the shortfall.) We also ran a special session geared toward the concerns of postgraduates, on the theme of getting ones rst book published. Fredrika Teute, who edits the prestigious book series published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg shared the stage with Sally Gordon, who edits a series with Cambridge. Many older academics joined the postgraduates, and there were approximately forty in attendance, but the postgraduates denitely steered the discussion during the question time. It was very helpful. Overall, the conference was a good success. Next year were hoping to meet in Edinburgh, and we hope we will be able to continue our relationship with BAAS into the future. Thank you very much. Sincerely yours,
Professor Geoffrey Plank.
School of History
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University of Birmingham Friday 11 April, 2014 4.00-5.30pm
NOTICE OF THE BAAS AGM, 2014
Agenda 1. Elections: Secretary, 2 committee members, 1 PG representative, and any other ofces that fall vacant before the AGM 2. Treasurers report 3. Chairs report 4. Report of the Conference Sub-Committee, and Annual Conferences 2013-2015 5. Report of the Publications Sub-Committee Nominations should be on the appropriate written form, signed by a proposer, seconder, and the candidate, who should state willingness to serve if elected. The institutional afliations of the candidate, proposer and seconder should be included. All candidates for ofce will be asked to provide a brief statement outlining their educational
6. Report of the Development Sub-Committee backgrounds, areas of teaching and/or 7. Report of the Awards Sub-Committee research interests and their vision of the role of 8. Report of the Libraries and Resources Sub- BAAS in the upcoming years. These need to Committee 9. Report of the Representative to EAAS 10. Any other business Elections At the 2014 AGM, elections will be held for the post of Secretary, for two positions on the Committee (three-year terms), for one Postgraduate Representative (2 year term) and for any other ofces that fall vacant before the AGM. Current incumbents of these positions may stand for re-election if not disbarred by the Constitutions limits on length of continuous service in Committee posts. Elections can only take place if the meeting is quorate; please make every effort to attend. The procedure for nominations is as follows: Nominations should reach the current Secretary, Jo Gill, by the strict deadline of 12.00 noon on Friday 11 April 2014. Dr Jo Gill BAAS Secretary Dept of English University of Exeter Queens Drive Exeter, EX4 4QH Tel. 01392 264256 j.r.gill@ex.ac.uk / jo.gill@baas.ac.uk Contact be sent to the Secretary at the time of nomination so that they can be posted in a prominent location and available for the membership to read before the AGM. Those standing for election are expected to attend the AGM.
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Secretary of BAAS Nomination Form

I should like to propose " ................................................................................................ " for the above.
Proposer
BAAS NOMINATION FORM
Name: " " Institution:" Signature: " Date:" "
" " " "
................................................................................................ ................................................................................................ ................................................................................................ ................................................................................................
Seconder I should like to second the above nomination. Name: " " Institution:" Signature: " Date:" " " " " " ................................................................................................ ................................................................................................ ................................................................................................ ................................................................................................
Candidate I conrm that I am willing to stand for election to the above. Name: " " " ................................................................................................ ................................................................................................. ................................................................................................ ................................................................................................ ................................................................................................
Dept & Programme: " Institution:" Signature: " Date:" " " " "
Nominations must reach the Secretary, Jo Gill, by noon on Friday 11 April 2014.
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Secretary of BAAS Supporting Statement

Candidates Name# .................................................................................................... Please provide a brief statement outlining your educational backgrounds, areas of teaching and/or research interests and vision of the role of BAAS in the upcoming years.
SUPPORTING STATEMENT
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Member, Executive Committee of BAAS (2 Posts) Nomination Form

Proposer Name: " " " " " " ................................................................................................ ................................................................................................ ................................................................................................ ................................................................................................
Institution:" Signature: " Date:" "
Nominations must reach the Secretary, Jo Gill, by noon on Friday 11 April 2014.
46
Member, Executive Committee of BAAS Supporting Statement

47
Postgraduate Representative of BAAS* Nomination Form

Proposer Name: " " " " " " ................................................................................................ ................................................................................................ ................................................................................................ ................................................................................................
Institution:" Signature: " Date:" "
Nominations must reach the Secretary, Jo Gill, by noon on Friday 11 April 2014. * See BAAS Constitution 6 (d): Candidates for postgraduate representative must be registered postgraduate students not in permanent teaching employment.
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Postgraduate Representative of BAAS Supporting Statement

49
IN CELEBRATION OF THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR AMERICAN STUDIES, THIS PAGE RECORDS THE DISTINGUISHED INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE CHAIRED THE ASSOCIATION AND/OR EARNED ITS HONORARY FELLOWSHIP SINCE 1955.
CHAIRS HONORARY FELLOWS
Frank Thistlethwaite (195559) Herbert Nicholas (195962) Marcus Cunliffe (196265) Esmond Wright (196568) Maldwyn Jones (196871) George (Sam) Shepperson (1971 74) Harry Allen (197477) Peter Parish (197780) Dennis Welland (198083) Charlotte Erickson (198386) Howard Temperley (198689) Bob Burchell (198992) Richard King (199295) Judie Newman (199598)
Philip Davies (19982004) Simon Newman (20042007) Heidi Macpherson (20072010) Martin Halliwell (201013) Sue Currell (2013)
2009: Richard H. King (Nottingham) 2009: Mick Gidley (Leeds) 2010: M. J. Heale (Lancaster) 2011: Helen Taylor (Exeter) 2012: Susan Castillo (King's College London) 2013: Tony Badger (Cambridge)
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CREDITS
Image yer of the British Association for American Studies Annual Conference (p. 3). Courtesy, University of Birmingham. Date of access: 20.01.14. Image of the Library of Birmingham, UK (p. 2). With full attribution and thanks to Bs0u10e01. Image used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Hosted at the Wikimedia Commons (http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ File:LoB_001_20131030.jpg). Date of access: 20.01.14. Image of the Devon countryside, a short distance from the University of Exeter campus (p.4). Attribution Kal Ashraf. Hosted at Flickr (ickr.com/kalashraf). Date of access: 20.01.14. Image of Sulgrave Manor, The Cradle of the Washingtons (p. 9). Circa 1910. Public domain, royalty free, expired copyright. Hosted at the Wikimedia Commons (http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/File:Sulgrave-Manor.jpg). Date of access: 20.01.14.
CONTACTS
ASIB is edited by Kal Ashraf (University of Shefeld). Email the Editor at k.ashraf@shefeld.ac.uk. Feedback about the publication is encouraged. To contribute a research report to ASIB, please adhere to the following editorial guidelines regarding house style. Travel and research report articles should aim for a lower limit of 500 words and an upper limit of 600. For consistency, British English spellings are preferred. Books, journals or magazines named in the article should be italicised. Thus Native Son, Journal of American Studies, The New Yorker. Titles of journal articles should be placed in single inverted commas.
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51

American Studies in Britain Spring 2014

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ASIB

5 9 t h annual C O N F E R E N C E: the UNIVERSITY of BIRMINGHAM

NO. 109 SPRING 2014 ISSN 1465-9956 BAAS.AC.UK

Sue Currell: New Chair of BAAS

BAAS Executive: Vacancies Now Open

Martin Halliwell: Chairs Report 2013

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MAGAZINE OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR AMERICAN STUDIES

THE CHAIRS ANNUAL REPORT

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With respect to institutional news:

I would like to note the following major grants:

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1. In July 2012 we published the report American

2. This year we are very excited to launch a new

3. We have also spent a great deal of time this year

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HAVE YOU VISITED

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Sulgrave Manor, 1910 prior to the reinstatement of the west wing.

A NOTE FROM TRACEY GOOCH ON SULGRAVE MANORS CENTENARY YEAR

INTRODUCING SUE CURRELL

YOUR INVITATION TO HOST THE BAAS ANNUAL POSTGRADUATE CONFERENCE

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A REPORT FROM STEPHANIE PALMER

(NOTTINGHAM TRENT UNIVERSITY)

BAAS Founders Award Recipient 2013

Thanks to this award from BAAS, I was able to visit

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FROM BAAS MEMBERS

Save 25.00 Special Price: 65.00 39.99

BAAS PAPERBACK SERIES EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS

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A REPORT FROM AMELIA PRECUP BAAS/Eccles Centre PG Award Recipient 2013

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WELCOMING NEW MEMBERS OF BAAS

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WELCOMING NEW MEMBERS OF BAAS

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was extremely privileged to be the Eccles Centre Visiting

industry saw itself at particular points in history and what

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TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY, TURKEY)

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