The 2013 Sulgrave Manor Watson Chair Lecture

Richard Carwardine: "Abraham Lincoln, Irish Americans and the US Civil War"

This year marks the150th anniversary of President Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. While the Emancipation Proclamation did not mark the ultimate fulfilment of the declared American principle that "all men are created equal", it was a major and remarkable step, providing a route to the post-Civil War Constitutional Amendments ending slavery, establishing equal rights under law, and protecting the right to vote.

The Emancipation Proclamation signaled that the war to restore the Union had become a struggle for a more profound freedom. Such significant steps present challenges to society. On 18th March 2013, one day after St Patrick's Day, Professor Richard Carwardine, world-renowned expert on Abraham Lincoln, and President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, examines in particular the trenchant questions asked of the Union loyalism of the Irish American community by his bold and public redefinition of the North's war aims.

The 2013 Sulgrave Manor Watson Chair Lecture is sponsored by Sulgrave Manor, ancestral home of George Washington's family in England, and supported by the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library.

When: Monday 18 March 2013 18.30-20.00

Where: British Library Conference Centre, London

Price: Free but by prior reservation ONLY.

GASF on IAAS and Other Acronyms

Our official launch received a mention on the newly-revamped Irish Association of American Studies Website. 

IAAS.ie has details of the association's history, upcoming events, prizes and more. I strongly encourage all GASF members to look into the WTM Riches Prize. Established in 2004 this is a monetary prize for high-quality working from younger scholars in the American Studies field. The winning essay will also be considered for publication in the Irish Journal of American Studies.

CFP: Transatlantic Studies Association Annual Conference

Northumbria University, Newcastle, 8-11 July 2013

The Chairman of the TSA, Prof Alan Dobson (St. Andrews University) and Dr. Michael Patrick Cullinane (Northumbria University) would like to extend an invitation to the 2013 Transatlantic Studies Association Annual Conference.

Our outstanding 2013 plenary guests are:

• Professor Donna Alvah (St. Lawrence University) 
• Professor Susan Manning (University of Edinburgh)
• Professor Michael Clarke (Royal United Services Institute)
• Professor Erwan Lagadec will lead a roundtable discussion of his book, Transatlantic Relations in the 21^st Century with respondents

Panel proposals and individual papers are welcome for any of the general or sub-panels.  A 300 word abstract of proposal and brief CV to panel leaders or to Alan Dobson ad98@st-andrews.ac.uk and Michael Cullinane michael.cullinane@northumbria.ac.uk

Deadline – 30 April 2013.

The general panels, subpanels and panel leaders for 2012 are:

1. Literature and Culture: 

Constance Post, cjpost@iastate.edu and Louise Walsh walsh.lou@gmail.com


Sub-panels:

• Transatlantic Romantic Dialogues: Clare Elliott, clare.elliott@northumbria.ac.uk

2. Economics: 

Fiona Venn vennf@essex.ac.uk, and Joe McKinney joe_mckinney@baylor.edu

3. History, Security Studies and IR

Alan Dobson ad98@st-andrews.ac.uk and David Ryan david.ryan@ucc.ie

Sub-panels:

• NATO: Ellen Hallams, EHallams.jscsc@defenceacademy.mod.uk and Luca Ratti ratti@uniroma3.it, Ben, Zyla, ben.zyla@gmail.com
• Ethnicity and security in the transatlantic world: David Haglund david.haglund@queensu.ca
• The U.S. Pivot to Asia: Erwan Lagadec, elagadec@gwu.edu
• Diplomats at War: The American Experience: Simon Rofe simon.rofe@soas.ac.uk
• Anglo-American Relations: Steve Marsh marshsi@cardiff.ac.uk and Charlie Whitham Whitham, cwhitham@uwic.ac.uk
• Transatlantic Relations during the Second World War: Tom Mills t.c.mills@lancaster.ac.uk and Gavin Bailey g.j.bailey@dundee.ac.uk
• Bringing South Borders In: Perceptions, Strategies and Political Action of Latin America and Africa in Transatlantic Relations: Alexandre Luís Moreli Rocha alexandremoreli@yahoo.com.br
• Transatlantic Approaches to Energy Security: John R. Deni, john.deni@us.army.mil
• 40th Anniversary of the 1973 Oil and Middle Eastern Crises: Transatlantic Perspectives: Fiona Venn vennf@essex.ac.uk

4. Planning, Regeneration and the Environment

Antonia Sagredo, asagredo@flog.uned.es and Tony Jackson a.a.jackson@dundee.ac.uk

5. Migration and Diaspora in the Atlantic World

Tanja Bueltmann, tanja.bueltmann@northumbria.ac.uk

Sub-panels

• The Anglican Church in the Atlantic World: Joe Hardwick, joseph.hardwick@northumbria.ac.uk
• British Cultural Legacies in the Atlantic World: Tanja Bueltmann, tanja.bueltmann@northumbria.ac.uk

Amiri Baraka to read at NUI Galway

Courtesy of the Moore Institute for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences, in association with Arts in Action, NUI Galway will be treated to a reading by poet, activist, and award-winning writer Amiri Baraka on Thursday, 25 October, in the O'Flaherty Theatre.

From the Marketing & Communications Office, NUI Galway:

The writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and jazz criticism, Amiri Baraka was born Everett LeRoi Jones in 1934 in Newark, New Jersey. He moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1957 and founded Totem Press, which first published works by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and others.  He moved to Harlem in 1965 where he founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School.

His reputation as a playwright was established with the production of Dutchman at Cherry Lane Theatre in New York in 1964. The controversial play subsequently won an Obie Award for Best Off-Broadway Play and was made into a film. The author of several volumes of poetry, an autobiography, and numerous essays on culture, music and politics, Baraka also founded the jazz/poetry ensemble Blue Ark.

In 1994, Amiri Baraka retired as Professor of Africana Studies at the State University of New York in Stony Brook, and in 2002 was named Poet Laureate of New Jersey and Newark Public Schools. In the fall of 2002, Baraka came under fire from the New Jersey office of the Anti-Defamation League, the New Jersey Assembly and others after a reading of his controversial poem ‘Somebody Blew Up America’ about the 9/11 attacks.

According to Professor Sean Ryder, Chair of English and Acting Director of the Moore Institute at NUI Galway: “Amiri Baraka has been a cultural catalyst in the US for over 50 years, impacting upon and inspiring writers, students and the wider public. We are thrilled that he is coming to our campus, and our students of English are enthused about meeting in person an author they study and admire.”

Amiri Baraka’s numerous literary honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and many others. His book Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music was selected as a winner of the 31st annual American Book Awards for 2010.

The reading, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 5pm in the O’Flaherty Theatre in the Arts/Science Building.

Salzburg Global Seminar: American Studies Symposium

Screening America: Film and Television in the 21st Century

November 15-19, 2012

The Salzburg Seminar American Studies Association (SSASA) is organizing a four day symposium on American film and television, to be held at the Salzburg Global Seminar, Salzburg, Austria, from November 15-19, 2012. All activities will take place at the historic Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria, and the adjacent Meierhof. The symposium is open to individuals working or interested in areas related to the topic. The symposium will focus on developments in American film and television since the turn of the millennium and the way they reflect and communicate messages and images about varied aspects of life and culture.

As we edge further into the 21st century there have been notable changes in the modern media and particularly in the film and television industries. The symposium will concern itself both with these changes and with the ways in which film and television have reflected and engaged with America and abroad. In the cinema, the documentary has become a significant force while television, partly as a result of cable -- particularly HBO and AMC, but also through a network such as NBC -- has attracted major talents from the theatre and the novel to produce genre series which compare favorably to any of world television. Why and how has this come about? Has this had any impact on mainstream television or movies? How has it affected the perception of America around the world?

In addition to sessions related to and the impact of films and television on individuals, our sessions will also explore the institutional effect of films and television on the arts, technology and politics of the United States and ultimately their relation to the perception of America abroad. We will examine the global politics of film making since Hollywood films are part of this modern global system, asking what film and television tell us about the new century, and the American political system. Discussions will include the impact of new technologies and the impact of new methods of film making and distribution.

As print journalism declines, television news falls prey to ideologues, and the blogger assumes an equal authority to the trained professional, where will we turn for our understanding of a changing world? Do we need to concern ourselves, as once we did, with the impact that American film and television products have on local media industries and people around the world?

For further information about becoming a symposium participant, please contact symposium director Ms. Marty Gecek mgecek@SalzburgGlobal.org. See also www.SalzburgGlobal.org/go/SSASA2012FilmandTV.

Speakers

• Ron Clifton (Chair) - Retired Counselor, Senior Foreign Service of the United States; teaching, lecture and research interests include analysis of the perception, reaction and impact of American culture abroad and the implications for cultural diplomacy and foreign policy.
• Melis Behlil - Assistant Professor and Chair, Department of Radio, Television and Cinema, Kadir Has University, Istanbul; member of steering committee, European Network of Cinema and Media Studies; research interests include production studies, Hollywood, and globalization
• Christopher Bigsby - Professor of American Studies and director of the Arthur Miller Centre for American Studies, University of East Anglia, UK; broadcaster and award-winning novelist and biographer; currently writing a book on American television drama.
• Christof Decker - Professor of American and Media Studies, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich; editor and author of Visuelle Kulturen der USA/Visual Cultures of the USA (2010)
• Walter Hölbling - Professor of U.S. Literature and Culture, American Studies Department, Karl-Franzens-University, Graz, Austria
• Lary May - Professor of American Studies and History, University of Minnesota; current project: "Foreign Affairs: Global Hollywood and America's Cultural Wars
• Toby Miller - (Keynote Speaker) Professor and Chair, Media & Cultural Studies, University of California Riverside; Author, Global Hollywood 2(2005), Makeover Nation (2008), and Greening the Media (2012)
• Richard Pells - Professor of History Emeritus, University of Texas at Austin; author of "Modernist America: Art, Music, Movies, and the Globalization of American Culture"(2011)
• William Uricchio - Professor and Director, MIT Comparative Media Studies Programs; Professor of Comparative Media History, Utrecht University; currently working on the history of the televisual and on algorithms as cultural form