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Report from Bill O’Brien-Blake, BAAS Barringer Fellow 2017

February 10, 2018, 8:57 am
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In 2017 I visited Monticello, Virginia, the home of Thomas Jefferson, as one of 14 teachers attending the Monticello Teacher Institute’s ‘Barringer Research Fellowship for Teachers of American History’, writes Bill O’Brien-Blake. Monticello was a thorough and exceptionally well-supported training environments for teachers and it helped me develop my understanding of historical events and the management of primary sources and the teaching of secondary interpretations and shifts in historiography.

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Monticello, Virginia, was the home of Thomas Jefferson, the man that all American students learn was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, the third President, and responsible for doubling America’s size with the 1803 Louisiana Purchase (into which he then sent Lewis and Clarke). Monticello was not only where he rested when not in Philadelphia, Washington or Paris, but also an artwork of his own architectural design, and the only house in America to be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site (along with the Jefferson-designed and equally beautiful University of Virginia in nearby Charlottesville).

I was visiting the site as one of 14 teachers attending the Monticello Teacher Institute’s ‘Barringer Research Fellowship for Teachers of American History’, an “immersive professional development opportunity” where, through a week of tours, activities and library visits, teachers have the “opportunity to research and study at Monticello and the Jefferson Library in Charlottesville, Virginia”. When the programme ended, the attendees were expected “to bring conversations about Jefferson’s ideas and Monticello into their classrooms, schools, and communities”, and create teaching materials that make use of the resources at Monticello for a store of lesson plans and supporting materials on the Monticello website known as their ‘digital classroom’. Courtesy of the British Association of American Studies, I was the one British attendee, and was soon pleased to be labelled ‘the redcoat’ by a wonderful Texan.

Each teacher in attendance was given the means and the time to develop lesson plans and teaching resources on their own topic of interest, before presenting to all other attendees on what they had created at the end of the programme. The American teachers focused on many areas: the changing historiography surrounding Jefferson; Monticello and the plantation economy of the American South; the Hemings family and Sally Hemings, who historians now largely agree fathered six of Jefferson’s children; and Jefferson as an inter-cultural communicator. Coming at it from having taught much US politics at A level, my own focus of study was Jefferson’s relationship with the judiciary. The ability of the Supreme Court to take upon itself the right to determine whether legislation was in line with the Constitution was established in the 1803 Marbury versus Madison decision, while Jefferson was President, building on implied aspects of the Constitution and Alexander Hamilton’s ‘Federalist No. 78’. A core statement from that decision – “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is” – is carved into the marble wall of the Supreme Court building in Washington DC. Jefferson wholly disagreed, leaving him at odds with how judicial review functioned in America from then until the present day. His own views on how states and the people could resolve questions of constitutionality laid foundations for the secession crisis of the 1830s and the constitutional arguments that would lead the republic to civil war in the 1860s. The capacity to explore his views through the study of primary material in the surrounding of the home where he had written much of it was truly exceptional.

Monticello is a thorough and exceptionally well-supported training environments for teachers. It has incredibly dedicated staff who know how to support history teachers in developing their own understanding of historical events and the management of primary sources and the teaching of secondary interpretations and shifts in historiography. The staff at Monticello have ensured that it is not merely a temple to American exceptionalism, and Jefferson is not subjected to hagiography in his own home – as one tour guide noted, “we’re not here to turn him into marble”. But at the same time, Jefferson’s impact is not lost – his works and words are celebrated as they are contextualised, the impact of the Declaration explained alongside accounts of the daily exploitation of the enslaved of the plantation. Monticello, although existing to champion the study of Thomas Jefferson, knows well his immense contradictions, and, like Christopher Hitchens, believe it would be “lazy or obvious to [merely] say that he contained contradictions or paradoxes. This is true of everybody, and of everything.”

In summary, Monticello presents itself as the home of the key enlightenment figure Thomas Jefferson, a renaissance man and author of the possibly the finest statement of human liberty put in writing. Yet it also presents itself as a plantation, one among what were many in Virginia and the South, which sustained the high living standard of a white master and his family through the exploitation of enslaved peoples, with a master who physically and sexually exploited his slaves and yet was arrogant enough to think himself enlightened and fair in his treatment. In taking on this role, Monticello is also home to the ‘Getting Word’ oral history project, seeking a greater understanding of the lives of the enslaved at the plantation from the recollections of their descendants. To further make the many facets of Monticello known to its visitors, at one major point in our tour we were stopped and reminded that when Jefferson died, he was in severe debt (Monticello rarely made him money). Unlike Washington, there was no commitment to free the many enslaved people of Monticello, except for five members of the Hemings family. Instead, to cover his debts, his property was sold off. One hundred and thirty enslaved people were auctioned at the house in 1826, most likely on the steps under the portico that faces the garden. This is the façade that has appeared on the reverse of the nickel since 1938; Jefferson’s profile, and the word ‘Liberty’, appear on the obverse. The Monticello Institute can provide for a thorough understanding of not only the ideals of American liberty, but the experience of American slavery, and how slavery, the original sin of the American Republic, must be fully comprehended alongside early America’s virtuous and lofty rhetoric.

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Report from Rachel Sykes, BAAS Founders’ Travel Award recipient 2017

February 11, 2018, 4:13 am
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The support of BAAS and the Founders’ Travel Award provided crucial funding for a highly productive and motivational research trip that has kick-started a major research project and my second monograph, writes Rachel Sykes. Material gathered during this trip will be invaluable to a future conference paper and journal article on Chris Kraus and her contemporary, Dodie Bellamy.

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In August and September 2017, I used the funds generously provided by the British Association for American Studies to cover the cost of travel to New York, NY and New Haven, CT for archival research at New York University and Yale.

The trip divided into two parts. First, I spent two weeks at NYU’s Fales library, working through the previously unsorted papers of Chris Kraus, particularly diaries, drafts, and promotional materials relating to her first novel, I Love Dick (1997). During this time, I learnt a great deal about the composition, reception, and 2006 republication of that novel and viewed several illuminating legal documents relating to the libel charges made by ‘Dick’ against Kraus’ infamously autofictional text. Material gathered in this archive will be invaluable to a future conference paper and journal article on Kraus and her contemporary, Dodie Bellamy, whose archive I also visited at Yale.

Second, while at Fales, and with the kind help of their librarians, I was lucky enough to access several previously unpublished zines by a variety of lesser known and largely forgotten women writers from the 1980s and 90s. For several days, I was also able to travel to New Haven and visit the Dodie Bellamy archive housed in Yale’s Beinecke library. Whilst there, I found correspondence between Bellamy and Kraus, verifying a link between the two authors that I hope to explore in the above-mentioned conference paper and journal article and which will provide the foundation for a larger research project on women’s life-writing, experimental fiction, and contemporary publishing communities.

The support of BAAS and the Founders’ Research Award provided crucial funding for a highly productive and motivational research trip that has kick-started a major research project and my second monograph. I am extremely grateful to BAAS, and to the committee who granted me the award, for the funds and above all for the opportunity to complete such a formative research trip, from which both myself and my future research has benefitted immensely.

Rachel Sykes is Lecturer in Contemporary American Literature at the University of Birmingham

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Report from Michael Docherty, BAAS Postgraduate Travel Award recipient 2017

February 11, 2018, 4:39 am
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The insights gleaned on my award-funded trip will be of invaluable benefit to my scholarship, which in turn I hope will represent a significant development in the field of John Fante studies, writes Michael Docherty. Thanks to the collections in UCLA’s Charles E. Young Research Library I was able to consult rafts of film treatments (many never sold or produced) from Fante’s time in Hollywood that are invaluable in ascertaining which themes and topics preoccupied him persistently throughout his career.

As I descended to the basement of UCLA’s Charles E. Young Research Library for the first time, about to set up camp for an intense few days of archival work in the Ahmanson-Murphy Reading Room, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I think perhaps I’d imagined something clinically sterile, in keeping with the Young library’s general appearance – it’s a refined hunk of ‘60s brutalism, recently renovated in the universal vernacular of contemporary university architecture. As I reached the foot of the stairs, however, and peered through the glass doors marked ‘Special Collections’, I was pleasantly surprised to see something altogether warmer and more welcoming. All dark panelling and soft lighting, the exhibition space and reception area beyond those doors seemed a world removed from the rest of the library, and indeed the sun-bleached city outside. Display cabinets and bookcases lined the walls, there was a rug across the floor, and in the centre of the space a couple of Barcelona chairs stood around a glass coffee table. University libraries sometimes feel to me, with their noisy bustle and their phalanxes of harried, computer-bound students, a little like battery farms for the intellect. This, though, seemed much more civilized, somehow both reverential and relaxed in atmosphere, the kind of hushed, deep-cushioned, bubble of my most bookish dreams.

I was early, and as I stood there, full of anxiety and excitement, nervous energy and anticipation, waiting for 10am to arrive, I was struck that, for all the moments of crisis and doubt that descend during the course of a PhD, this is how I know that academia suits me. There’s a feeling some people get when they walk up Wembley Way, a feeling that some people get as they approach the processional doors of a cathedral. I get that feeling, apparently, when I’m waiting to enter a reading room containing the papers of John Fante (1909-1983), the Italian-American writer of novels, short stories, and screenplays.

On the stroke of ten I entered, and approached the reception desk to present my credentials – which amounted to nothing more than proof of identity. Given the financial clout and reputation of top American universities, and the prestige they attach to high-profile acquisitions, that UCLA holds a tremendous wealth of rare documents is unsurprising. What I found remarkable, however, is that anyone who can get to the library can make full, free use of that resource. Not only is there no requirement to be affiliated to UCLA, there isn’t a requirement to evidence any academic status, or even give an explanation of one’s need to access the collections. I’m aware that this is a widely-held, unexceptional special collections policy, in both the UK and the US, something a more seasoned academic might therefore perhaps take as a given. To me, however, on my first ever archival research trip, it seemed faintly magical that there should be such ease of access to these documents, documents that occupy in my mind a status approaching that of religious relics. Here I was, an uncredentialled member of the public, and I could see whatever I wanted to, for as long as I wanted to, for free. All I had to do was ask. “What’s the catch?”, I wanted to ask the helpful librarian as I impatiently stowed my possessions in a locker. She led me into the reading room, dimly lit and bracingly air conditioned, furnished with a long, boardroom-style table, and explained the procedures, which seemed straightforward. Then, a minor bombshell.

“And I see for this collection no photography of unpublished writings is permitted.”

My heart leapt into my mouth, then immediately sank to somewhere below my knees. So that was the catch. The Fante papers comprise 55 boxes. I thought I’d breeze through them with my camera, effectively using my time in the Special Collections to create a close-to-complete personal copy of the entire Fante archive, which I could consult at my leisure. This was not to be. It was clear that I would have to prioritise and target the available resources with greater care than previously expected – a difficult task when many of the boxes are only catalogued in fairly general categories. With a three-day lead time on orders from the offsite storage location and a five box-per-day limit, the risk of a container turning out to contain nothing of significance was one that carried a potentially major impact on the value of the trip as a whole.

In light of the photography restriction, my days in the archives would thus be characterised by rapid reading, fast and difficult decisions as to which documents could be discarded and which warranted closer investigation, copious note-taking, and lengthy transcription – in which it was imperative that I balanced speed with total accuracy. I had not, I confess, anticipated the level of physical and mental exhaustion induced by having to work in this manner, and would be at particular pains to warn fellow ‘beginner’ researchers about this aspect of an archive trip. Working each day for the full duration of the department’s opening hours, minus a half-hour lunch break, I emerged from the basement at 5pm each day utterly drained.

Prior to the trip I’d planned to utilise my evenings to explore the city, particularly downtown. My research examines spatiality in mid-century Los Angeles fiction, so a chance to wander the streets that figure so heavily in my work but which I’d thus far only experienced vicariously – to make real the geographies that are so significant for me but which had previously been only the stuff of fiction and theory – represented almost as academically valuable an opportunity as Fante’s papers. In mid-September the oppressive heat of the LA summer has subsided, but there remain a couple of hours of good daylight and t-shirt temperatures after library closing time, so it seemed a fine plan. As it transpired, however, the archive work proved so tiring that each evening I would find myself quite literally struggling to keep my eyes open and focused, my wrists aching from several thousand words of transcription and notes, my back sore from hunching over the papers for hours at a time. So I’d get back on the bus, try not to miss my stop, grab a burrito at the excellent Korean strip-mall taqueria on the corner of Palms and Overland, then fall into bed ready to start again the next day. I still managed some downtown flânerie, thankfully, but it was restricted to the weekend.

I’ve thus far focused on how this research trip felt, its practicalities and the challenges it posed as an exercise, rather than on the outcomes of the research itself, for two reasons. Firstly, at the time of writing I’m still processing the large volumes of material I was able to accrue while in Los Angeles, so I am hesitant to present firm conclusions about what I found. Second, I felt that some more general observations on the research experience might be of broader interest and use to colleagues at a similarly early stage of their academic careers. That said, there are some archival highlights that I wish to share in brief. First are those moments at which one is most aware of touching a piece of history. In the Fante papers, these often occurred when reading his correspondence, much of which is invaluable in articulating Fante’s place as a node in a nexus of a tight-knit community of American men of letters. This is glimpsed principally in correspondences spanning decades that bespeak tender, uproarious, lifelong friendships with Carey McWilliams, Bill Saroyan and Ross Wills, as well as in less intimate but no less fascinating exchanges with Louis Adamic, H.L. Mencken, and Pascal Covici.

Some of these letters have been published, but nothing contextualises them physically, temporally, or socially, like reading the originals sequentially and collectively. They can only be understood as records of a life when set alongside the more mundane and dispiriting correspondences of a writing career that dominate the letters: dozens of rejections, notices of unpaid dues from the Writer’s Guild, angry disagreements with publishers and agents. A fond postcard from Kim Novak, meanwhile, (a legacy of Fante’s long and conflicted Hollywood period) sits a few leaves away from John Steinbeck’s terse explanation of his refusal to support Fante’s application for a Guggenheim fellowship. Brushes with acclaim and stardom are thus ever in dialogue with records of long sloughs of frustration and failure: the letters recount a life of stark contrasts and tumultuous fortunes, one in which embittered disappointment perhaps became a dominant note in later decades but from which sparks of mischief and vitality never vanished. Indeed, this sense shines through in Fante’s very last letter, dictated to his wife Joyce in 1981 (by this time Fante was blind and legless as a result of diabetes). It was ostensibly written to his ancient aunt Dorothy, from whom he had recently received a letter after decades out of contact. In truth, however, it reads (not least because Fante, in an extended play on the fact that Dorothy lived in a town called ‘Paradise’, impishly addresses her as if she is dead and in heaven), more as its author’s own last testament, a reckoning-up of his life. It contains a brief, proud, account of his writing career, his children, and his home, then concludes with a moving and frank declaration of love for his wife of forty years – the amanuensis revealed to herself as the letter’s real subject and addressee in the very act and moment of writing its words. There is perhaps, at the very last, even amid debilitating illness and mortal decay, a sense of contentment.

There are minor treasures in the unpublished fiction, too. Three differing synopses for the unwritten second half of the novella 1933 Was a Bad Year; a comic short story Fante was unable to sell anywhere but which had me stifling laughter in the reading room; the rejected initial chapters of Fante’s failed attempt at a novel about Filipino labourers (along with the excoriating comments thereon from the publisher’s readers); a terrible but instructive poem about a drive through the California countryside. Most of this is essentially high-grade ephemera; there is no great lost masterpiece in the papers, alas. For a Fante obsessive, however, there is much with which I feel I can begin to build a more complete picture of the man and his writing life.

For example, Fante published only one novel between 1939 and 1977, and vanishingly little short fiction beyond the early ‘50s. Thus, the collection’s rafts of film treatments (many never sold or produced) from Fante’s time in Hollywood, which are in effect short stories, are invaluable in ascertaining which themes and topics preoccupied him persistently throughout his career, crossing the span of the ‘lost decades’ between an early burst of literary production and a late revival. Just as useful in improving our understanding of Fante, however, are the themes that don’t appear in the extant published work, but which do crop up in the unpublished material. For example, it has always seemed strange to me that Fante, who spends so much of his fiction playing with and navigating the implications of the range of stereotypes and myths attached to Italian-Americans, never really invokes the mafia in his fiction. It transpires, however, that at least on a couple of occasions he did, but only in stories that never saw the light of day.

In short, my visit to LA felt revelatory on multiple personal and professional levels, and throughout my time in the archives I was palpably aware of what a near-miraculous privilege it is to be able to spend one’s days buried in these incredible documents, trying to eke out new revelations and connections. Regrettably, however, the resources that facilitate the enjoyment of such a privilege are in short supply in these straitened times, and I am therefore deeply grateful for my BAAS travel award, without which this visit would not have been possible. I am confident that the insights gleaned on my award-funded trip will be of invaluable benefit to my scholarship, which in turn I hope will represent a significant development in the field of Fante studies. I will be returning to Los Angeles next year to revisit the papers, but some early conclusions drawn from discoveries made on this visit will feature in a paper to be given at the BAAS postgraduate conference at the University of Essex, November 2017.

Michael Docherty is a PhD candidate at the Centre for American Studies at the University of Kent.

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Organiser’s report on the conference ‘Contesting Power: Rights, Justice, and Dissent in America and Beyond,’ Historians of the Twentieth Century United States (HOTCUS) Postgraduate Conference

February 11, 2018, 5:01 am
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On 21 October 2017, Kate Ballantyne and her co-organisers at the University of Cambridge hosted the Historians of the Twentieth Century United States (HOTCUS) Postgraduate Conference on the theme ‘Contesting Power: Rights, Justice, and Dissent in America and Beyond’. Read Kate's report on the conference here.

The 2017 HOTCUS Postgraduate Conference took place on Saturday, 21 October 2017 at Sidney Sussex College at the University of Cambridge. Continuing the organisation’s commitment to its postgraduate members and following on from its successful postgraduate conference at Northumbria University in 2016, this year’s event committed to offering postgraduate attendees with a number of opportunities for professional development. Thirty-six attendees from fourteen universities across the UK participated in the conference. Building upon the long history of social movements engaging with conceptions of power in the United States, this event addressed the renegotiation of boundaries of free speech, minority representation, and populist/nationalist fervour across the world. The conference began with four panels of conference attendees presenting their research on rights, justice, and dissent within American society and politics in the twentieth century. With presentations on the politics of sexuality and gender, foreign policy debates and the media, cultural and political challenges to the New Right, and literary and visual representations of power, the postgraduate papers demonstrated the breadth of research in American history in the UK and fostered engaging conversation.

The afternoon conference events focussed on career development for postgraduates in American history, featuring an academic roundtable and a workshop on CVs and cover letters. As established academics in the field, Professor Gary Gerstle (University of Cambridge), Dr Emma Long (University of East Anglia), and Dr Nick Witham (University College London) reflected on their careers, on the decisions they made along the way, and offered advice for postgraduates considering their futures in academia. Then, Dr Seth Archer (University of Cambridge) ran a session on how to write an eye-catching cover letter and streamlined CV. Using examples from his experience applying for jobs in the UK and the US, Seth took questions and concerns from the audience and structured the discussion around those points. The conference concluded with an outstanding keynote presentation by Dr Kerry Pimblott (University of Manchester) on the major themes of her monograph, Faith in Black Power: Religion, Race, and Resistance in Cairo, Illinois, published this year by University Press of Kentucky.

The generous financial support from BAAS allowed us to offer six substantial travel bursaries for postgraduate presenters. We were pleased to advertise this sponsorship in our call for papers, event announcements, and conference programme, and a flier for BAAS was included in the conference packs. Alongside BAAS, other conference sponsors included the Mellon Professorial Fund and the George Macaulay Trevelyan Fund through the Cambridge Faculty of History, the University Press of Kentucky, and Adam Matthew Digital.

Kate Ballantyne is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge

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Report from Miroslawa Buchholt, Eccles Centre Visiting European Fellow in North American Studies 2017

February 12, 2018, 6:56 am
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Thanks to the Eccles Centre Visiting European Fellowship I was able to explore Canadian writer Mavis Gallant's transcultural writing in more depth and compare her experience of expatriation with Ernest Hemingway and Miroslav Sasek, writes Miroslawa Buchholtz.

It was a great privilege to conduct research on Mavis Gallant’s fiction and its political and literary pretexts, subtexts and contexts in the British Library in London in September 2017. I found much more in the British Library than I had expected and as a result my research moved in directions that could not have been foreseen, while at the same time my grip on the issues that are central to Gallant’s transcultural writing was becoming stronger. I explored publications on history of emotions, comparing a variety of methodologies they exemplify with the needs of my own research. I compared Gallant’s experience of expatriation with the biographical information and work done by such authors as Ernest Hemingway (in whom I found resistance to transculturation) and Miroslav Sasek (who turned culture shock into a series of classics of picture guidebook). I returned home with an abundance of ideas which are taking the shape of essays, articles and a book. It was very reassuring and motivating to see so many hard-working people in the reading rooms of the British Library. The support of the British Association for American Studies and the Eccles Centre team, and especially its Director Philip J. Davies was beyond compare.

Miroslawa Buchholtz is a Professor in Toruń, Poland.

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Tim Youngs organiser’s report on the conference ‘Magazines on the Move: North American Periodicals and Travel,’ the third Network of American Periodical Studies (NAPS) symposium

February 17, 2018, 7:17 am
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On 22 September, 2017, Nottingham Trent University’s Centre for Travel Studies (CTWS) hosted ‘Magazines on the Move: North American Periodicals and Travel,' the third Network of American Periodical Studies (NAPS) symposium. Read Professor Tim Youngs organiser’s report here.

On 22nd September, 2017, Nottingham Trent University’s Centre for Travel Studies (CTWS) hosted the third Network of American Periodical Studies (NAPS) symposium. The event was organised by the CTWS’s Professor Tim Youngs and Dr Rebecca Butler with NAPS’ Dr Victoria Bazin (Northumbria University) and Dr Sue Currell (University of Sussex). A grant from BAAS’s conference support scheme enabled contributions to the expenses of postgraduate presenters Shannon Derby (Tufts University) and Josefin Holmstrom (University of Cambridge).

Keynote speaker, Professor Andrew Thacker (NTU), framed his discussion of modernist magazine Broom and its travels in Europe with the suggestion that several of the magazines journeyed to, interacted with and then departed from Europe in ways similar to US writers who spent time there.

In the first panel, ‘Tourism and Emigration in Periodicals’, chaired by Sue Currell, Shannon Derby focused in ‘Tourism Narratives and the Production of Paradise’, on Wells Tower’s account in The New York Times Magazine of his vacation to Oahu and Hawaii Island. Dr Claire Lindsay (University College London) spoke on Mexican Folkways and analysed its use of tourism advertisements in post-Revolutionary Mexico. Dr Mieke Neyens (KU Leuven) considered reports on Mexico between 1907 and 1940 in the state-funded emigrant periodical Nordmannsforbundet as it sought to build a sense of national pride while trying not to paint so positive a picture that Norway would lose more of its population to emigration.

The second panel, ‘Black Travel Writing and Periodicals’, chaired by Dr Nick Grant (University of East Anglia), began with PhD student Sofia Aatkar (NTU) discussing Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘On Seeing England for the First Time’, published in Transition (in 1991). Aatkar deployed John Locke’s notion of ‘motivity’ as a way of considering the diasporic subject moving between the US the UK and the Caribbean. Dr Rachel Farebrother (Swansea University) discussed ‘Travel Writing in the Brownies’ Book, 1920-1921’, analysing in particular W.E.B. DuBois’ column, ‘As the Crow Flies’ and the connections between African-American struggles for civil rights and Pan African movements. Dr Jak Peake (University of Essex), focusing on the significance of the Caribbean, and considering connections with New York, made the point in his paper that in the 1910s-1920s the vast majority of Black American travel writing was published in short form in periodicals such as the Nation, the Messenger, the New York Amsterdam News and the (Harlem) Liberator.

In the final panel, ‘Genres, Form and Location’, chaired by NTU’s Dr Stephanie Palmer, Josefin Holmstrom (University of Cambridge) discussed the serialisation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Agnes of Sorrento in the Atlantic Monthly between 1861-1862. Matthew Pethers (University of Nottingham) examined the presentation of travel in Royall Tyler’s picaresque novel, The Algerine Captive (1797) and the novel’s own transatlantic journey with its serialisation in Lady’s Magazine. Dr Eric White (Oxford Brookes University), concentrating on Globe and the New Review, highlighted tensions between the translocal and the cislocal in modernist magazines, questioning assumptions that their cosmopolitanism is ‘frictionless’.

In closing, Tim Youngs welcomed the symposium’s contribution to an understanding both of North American travel and magazines and to the relationship between medium, form and travel account. ‘Magazines on the move’ offered a stimulating meeting between periodical and travel writing studies that we hope will further research within American Studies and beyond. The organisers are grateful to all participants and attendees and to BAAS for its financial support.

Tim Youngs is a Professor in the School of Arts & Humanities at Nottingham Trent University and the Director of NTU’s Centre for Travel Writing Studies.

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Minutes 288

March 6, 2018, 10:23 am
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Minutes 288th

Minutes of the 288th meeting of the Executive Committee, held at Canterbury Christ Church University on Thursday 6 April 2017 at 10.30 am.

 

 

  1. Present: Brian Ward (Chair), Jenny Terry (Secretary), Cara Rodway (Treasurer), Paul Williams, Ben Offiler, Martin Halliwell, David Brown, Joe Street, Emma Long, Katie McGettigan, Katerina Webb-Bourne, Kate Dossett, Martin Dines, Nicole King.

 

  1. Apologies: Simon Hall, Bevan Sewell and Celeste-Marie Bernier.

In attendance: Jenny Terry.

  1. Minutes of the Previous Meeting

These were accepted as a true record and will now go up on the website.

  1. Matters Arising

None.

  1. Review of Action List

The Chair asked the Exec to comment on the status of their Action List duties. Items will be addressed under the relevant sections below.

 

  1. Chair’s Business (BW reporting)

(a) Chair’s activities, meetings and correspondence (February 2017 – April 2017)

 

  • Thanks as ever to all members of the Executive Committee for their hard work over the past three months.

 

  • Our response to the REF consultation was submitted. The call for nominations to chair main panels has just been issued.

 

  • Some time back Sue Currell wrote to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in support of the Marshall Programme, which was under threat. In March 2017 BW heard that the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission has retained its status as an independent fellowship programme, with increased funding in recognition of the 70th anniversary of Marshall Aid. Simon Newman wrote thanking SC and BAAS for the support. The number of US students coming to the UK for PGT courses on Marshall fellowships will increase from about 32 to 40 each year.

 

  • Embassy/BAAS Small Grants: for the January 2017 deadline we received 49 applications, marking the wide reach and high profile of the programme. 15 awards were made and the block grant is now fully spent. BW noted thanks to Carole Holden and Jo Gill for administering the scheme and also thanked Martin Dines for his contribution. It is still not clear if there will be a programme of grants next year or if BAAS will be involved. RESERVED: 15 applications were fully or partially funded at an expense of £32,969.60 in this round (13 funded in first round with a Sept 2016 deadline at £35,063).

 

The volatility in the US political scene and the uncertainty about what course the new Ambassador, presumptively Woody Johnson, will set for the future means that the nature of any awards, indeed, the whole tenor of BAAS’s relationship with the Embassy may change. We need to be aware of this and have contingency plans, but we also need to maintain a sense of perspective about where we fit into the Embassy’s universe – and where the Embassy fits into the world of BAAS and its members. We need to keep in mind our wider and long term responsibilities to our membership and to the overarching mission of BAAS – to continue to promote the study of America – in our dealings with the Embassy and its staff.

  • There has been some modest success in our call for American Studies contacts in countries potentially affected by President Trump’s travel ban. BW is in communication with a scholar in Tehran and there is a tentative plan for her to visit the Humanities Institute at Northumbria University next academic year.

 

(b) Achievements, announcements and events of note to BAAS members

 

  • Martin Padget (Aberystwyth) has completed a three-month senior fellowship at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center in Santa Fe, NM.
  • Donald Ratcliffe’s (Oxford) most recent book, The One-Party Presidential Contest: Adams, Jackson, and 1824’s Five-Horse Race (University Press of Kansas, 2015) has been awarded the Lasky Prize for the best book on American Political History published in the United States in 2015, and the Richard E. Neustadt Prize for the best book on American Government and Politics published in 2015 by a British-based scholar.
  • Sharon Monteith (Nottingham) has been awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for three years for her work on ‘The Civil Rights Movement: A Literary History’.

 

  1. Secretary’s Business (JT reporting)

 

(a) Elections

 

The earlier deadline for candidate nominations and the new mechanism allowing for advance voting seem to have worked well. Advance votes will be added into the count at the AGM. JT thanked all those who had helped encourage and nominate a good range of strong candidates. Thanks also to this year’s independent election scrutineers, Mike Colins and Rachael McLennan, and to George Lewis, who will once again bring his experience to the single transferable vote count this year. JT asked panel chairs to encourage delegates to attend the AGM.

 

(b) Constitutional Amendment

 

The proposed amendment, adding our equality and diversity commitment to the BAAS constitution, will be voted on at the AGM under Secretary’s business. It has been available for consultation on our website for the required period in advance of the meeting. If adopted by members, JT will then submit the change to the Charity Commission.

 

 

 

  1. Treasurer’s Business (CR reporting)

(a) Bank Accounts (as at 5 April 2017)

BAAS Charity Barclays Current Account           £13,514.75

BAAS Charity Barclays Savings Account          £63,379.10

BAAS Charity Shawbrook Savings Account      £20,000.00

PayPal                                                             £2,431.67

BAAS Publications Barclays Current Account   £36,836.88

TOTAL:                                                                        £136,162.40

BAAS Charity Barclays Dollar Account              $3,405.68

 

(b) Membership Figures (provided by LC)

Honorary membership – 4

Schools membership – 13

Individual membership – 287 (133 online JAS, 154 with full JAS)

PG membership – 283 (225 online JAS, 58 with full JAS)

Retired (PR) – 27 (18 online JAS, 9 with full JAS)

Unwaged (PU) – 21 (19 online JAS, 2 with full JAS)

Total members on fully paid sheet: 635   [620 in Feb 2017]

(c) Narrative Report

The BAAS accounts are in a healthy position and in terms of what we are able to gift aid from BAAS Publications Ltd to BAAS the charity, this year the amount has been just over £50,000. CR shared our annual report to the Charity Commission and the annual accounts for BAAS and for BAAS Publications Ltd – covering the calendar year 2016 – with the executive. The turnover shown in these has been swelled by the Embassy/BAAS grant programme this year.

Since the last meeting CR has opened a Shawbrook Bank savings account for BAAS, which now holds £20,000 of our reserves, earning a higher rate of interest than our standard savings account (1.30% gross).

Our PAYE scheme for administrative support employees and the JAS editorial team is now fully operational. The opening of new bank accounts for BAAS the CIO and transfer of assets is still ongoing.

Now that we have reached our aim of reserves consisting of 18 months unrestricted spending, we need to agree on plans for spending more of the income from BAAS Publications Ltd. We are in a position to develop initiatives but do need to bear in mind that the CUP royalties may not remain constant over time and can fluctuate. One possibility is investing further in the Short Term Travel Award Fund (in 2016 and 2017, 5 named awards and 3 general awards were made, totalling £8000 per year). We also still need to bear in mind diversifying our income, for example targeted fundraising (e.g. to support a travel scholarship or named grant, perhaps drawing on Honorary Fellows to spearhead and promote fundraising).

 

  1. Equality and Diversity

All those standing for election this year have been asked to consider equality and diversity issues and initiatives in their candidate statements. After the elections, a member of the executive will be selected to hold the brief of co-ordinating on Equality and Diversity for 2017-18.

KD and KMcG proposed some training for the executive on trans equality issues. Some UK universities are now drafting policies tackling discrimination against trans groups and our need of some input arose in relation to the development of the American Studies Women’s Network. KMcG suggests Ray Filar, a trans journalist and activist who would be willing to offer some training. Agreed: To pay for travel and a fee (£125) for this training. The training could be scheduled to fit with an executive meeting in June or Nov.

 

 

  1. Awards Subcommittee (EL reporting)

The BAAS awards programme has run successfully again this year. 44 awards have been made, showcasing the depth and breadth of work by the American Studies community.  EL thanked everyone involved, especially the Awards subcommittee, former subcommittee chair Uta Balbier, and our administrator Louise Cunningham.

 

17 BAAS winners are collecting their awards in person as are 2 of the Eccles winners. Following the successful arrangement last year, the Eccles Centre prizes will be announced and awarded at the drinks reception on Thursday 6 April.  The BAAS awards will follow at the conference dinner on Friday 7 April.  A booklet containing the names of all the award winners will be available to all delegates.

 

Looking ahead, in line with the Association’s policy on equality and diversity, in the coming year we will be looking into ways to support and encourage scholars to participate in our awards programme.  Collecting demographic information at the points of application and award may prove helpful.

 

We will also be looking at our advertising strategy for the BAAS awards to consider whether our current methods are effectively reaching the target communities, particularly in relation to the schools and undergraduate awards.  EL would welcome suggestions from executive members on this.

 

 

  1. Conference Subcommittee (PW reporting)

(a) Belfast 2016

The accounts are now just about closed. Queen’s University Belfast has had to absorb a loss on the conference. For conferences involving multiple partners working together, the need for robust budgeting and clear expectations is all the more important.

(b) London 2018

Plans are looking good for London (4-7 April 2018), which could see the conference numbers reach 500. It should be attractive to delegates from the US. A smaller group, including Nick Witham, had met earlier in the day before the exec to discuss scheduling, venues, breakout lunches, bursaries etc. More of the conference will be based at King’s than at UCL and the organisers are looking carefully at delegates getting between venues. There will be recommendations of accommodation to suit all budgets. The CFP is included in the Canterbury conference pack and has an earlier deadline of 1 October 2017. Following a meeting in Switzerland last week, MH reports that the EAAS committee are happy with the conference identity/design and plans so far. KWB made a request for a BAAS postgraduate gathering to be factored into the programming. A launch will follow at the drinks reception tonight, which is sponsored by London conference partners.

(c) Sussex 2019

Representation from Sussex will be co-opted onto the subcommittee from June on. Organisers Tom Wright and Tom Davies are likely to take it in turns to attend. The provisional dates for the Sussex conference are 11-13 April 2019.

(d) 2021

Applications will open later in the year, with an end of year deadline, for bids to host the 2021 conference. So far PW has had one expression of interest (from Hull).

(e) Conference Hardship and Reciprocal Bursaries

PW and the Conferences subcommittee have administered the new fund to support Postgraduate and Early Career participation at Canterbury in cases where other funding is not available or sufficient. We have made 9 awards, totalling £2195. In future years it might be worth looking at other ways of supporting Postgraduate and Early Career attendance. However, the number and strength of cases this time reinforce the need for a scheme or dispensation of some kind. For London 2018, this is likely to be rolled into the EAAS bursary scheme.

KWB has administered our reciprocal award with the IAAS, supporting BAAS postgraduates to attend IAAS conferences and vice versa. PW thanked KWB for her excellent work on this. This year two BAAS postgraduates will be attending the main IAAS conference later in April with this support, although the usual pattern is for one recipient to go to the main conference and another to the IAAS postgraduate conference.

(f) Postgraduate Conference

KWB has also administered the bidding process to host this year’s BAAS Postgraduate conference in the Autumn. Pleasingly, we received three strong applications (from Essex, Hull and Nottingham). Applicants are just in the process of being notified about the outcome, with Essex’s bid being the successful one.

(g) Small Conference Support Grants

Following the 1 April deadline, we just have the latest round of applications to this scheme in. An increase in the pot to be distributed to £1500 has been agreed. The Conference subcommittee will judge these applications after the Canterbury conference.

 

  1. Development and Education Subcommittee (KD reporting)

(a)        Updates

The BAAS membership survey has just launched. KD noted our big thanks to BO for all his work on it and asked the executive to encourage as many people as possible to complete it.

The new Public Engagement award has also run successfully for the first time, and through this BAAS will be supporting an upcoming exhibition in Nottingham organised by Hannah Murray and part of ‘Journey to Justice’.

There has also been progress with the resources pages for Schools on our website and KMcG will be launching the expanded and new resources soon.

(b) BAAS Archive Internship

A proposal had been circulated to the executive for consideration in advance. KD has been liaising with the Cadbury Research Library at Birmingham University and they are keen to encourage more use of the archive and are happy to support an internship scheme via help with induction, skills development, and a sense of community among researchers at the library. As the proposal sets out, the research could have a focus on the archive and equality and diversity matters, public engagement, BAAS input on the school syllabus, or a number of other areas where the archive might prove rich. In the first instance, we could offer one paid internship to a postgraduate or Early Career researcher as a pilot, starting in the summer. In the future there could be something bigger in collaboration with the Midlands Three Cities AHRC Doctoral Training Centre and/or a funded PhD place. Our pilot could be advertised via the Three Cities partnership.

Discussion followed of how the promised research supervision of the intern would work, and about legacy and ensuring that the findings and connection are not lost at the end of the award. The intern would write a blog post and a note or short article could also be submitted to American Quarterly as the work might be something that US readers and ASA members would be interested in.

Agreed: to fund this important initiative up to £3500. The intern will be paid and the cost will vary depending on duration (envisaged as 15-20 days over three months) and the distance the successful applicant has to travel.

 

 

 

  1. Publications Subcommittee (JS reporting)

(a) Journal of American Studies

As discussed at the last executive meeting, the JAS editors propose an expansion of the editorial board, in the first instance making three new appointments. They have re-emphasised the importance of this in terms of improving diversity of representation on the board. Their proposal had been circulated to the executive in advance. Agreed: the appointment process should go ahead and we give our full support to the editors’ initiative. RESERVED: The proposal as accepted involves suspension of the usual vote to approve appointments.

 

 

Also, as discussed last time, the editors are hoping to mark the 50th anniversary of the Journal with an event in Edinburgh in 2018. The executive had asked if Edinburgh could share some of the event costs and also for further consideration of audience and reach, including perhaps running an Early Career session. Financial support from Edinburgh was not available.

Agreed: We are glad to support this celebration of the Journal and its history. £2000 was approved. The executive would welcome the incorporation of a session on publication for Early Career researchers (possibly with some travel bursaries to support the attendance of those outside of Edinburgh). If the event takes place in a venue with the technical capacity for recording then it can also be captured and shared online in order to reach and benefit more people. It would make good practical and financial sense if the event could be tied in with a BAAS executive meeting, boosting exec member attendance and saving costs.

(b) British Records Relating to America in Microform (BRRAM)

A proposal had been circulated to the executive for consideration in advance. Following on from David Sarsfield’s visit to the last exec meeting and discussion of the future of BRRAM, JS and the subcom would like approval to proceed with plans for an internship scheme.

In terms of digitising new collections and resources, and widening use, an editorial board will be formed, offering expertise and new ideas. An intern or team of interns would be able to help in identifying new American Studies resources and also possibly in promoting new packages. Such an internship initiative also fits with BAAS’s commitment to developing new Early Career and skills development opportunities; it should appeal to those planning publishing, archiving or other careers, not just those hoping to become university academics.

Discussion followed on the potential composition of the board, which would draw on PhD and Early Career expertise and could be recruited via BAAS channels. JS envisages drawing on members of Publications and Development in setting this up. JS pointed out that the board costs, such as member expenses, could be shared with Microform Academic Publishers (MAP) and the internship scheme could be cost neutral given that there is an annual royalty from BRRAM, although the details need to be worked out with MAP. Agreed: to take forward discussions with Kenneth Morgan and MAP, with finalisation of the financial support and details in due course.

 

 

  1. EAAS (MH reporting)

Most EAAS matters to report have already been covered under conferences. Venice had been scheduled as the venue for the 2020 EAAS conference but that is no longer the case and bidding to host will reopen. MH will put KD in touch with the co-ordinator of a recent EAAS women’s network event.

 

  1. Any Other Business.

None.

 

  1. Date of next meeting. June 2017; date tbc.

 

Secretary: Dr Jenny Terry / Email: j.a.terry@durham.ac.uk / Phone: 01913 342570

↧

Minutes 289

March 6, 2018, 10:25 am
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Minutes 289th

Minutes of the 289th meeting of the Executive Committee, held at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne on Saturday 10 June 2017 at 1.00 pm.

 

 

  1. Present: Brian Ward (Chair), Sylvia Ellis (Secretary), Cara Rodway (Treasurer), Kate Dossett, Joe Street, Simon Hall, Sue Currell, Althea Legal-Miller, Laura MacDonald, Ben Offiler, Emma Long, Paul Williams, Nick Grant, Katerina Webb-Bourne
  2. Apologies: Celeste-Marie Bernier, Bevan Sewell, Emma Long, Tom Wright, Tom Davies, Katie McGettigan, Dan Matlin, Martin Halliwell
  3. Minutes of the Previous Meeting

These were accepted as a true record and will now go up on the website.

  1. Matters Arising

None.

  1. Review of Action List

The Chair asked the Exec to comment on the status of their Action List duties. Items will be addressed under the relevant sections below.

 

  1. Chair’s Business (BW reporting)

(a) Chair’s activities, meetings and correspondence (April 2017 – June 2017)

 

  • The Chair welcomed the newly elected members of the Executive Committee (Sue Currell, Sylvia Ellis, Nick Grant & Rachel Williams) and those co-opted to serve on sub-committees (Martin Halliwell, Althea Legal-Miller & Laura MacDonald). He also offered thanks to all members of the Executive Committee (some of whom were re-elected to new terms of service in April,) for their continued hard work over the past 3 months.

 

  • He reported it had been a relatively quiet period, mainly taken up with minor reshuffles, but reported the following:

 

  • Embassy/BAAS Awards: As mentioned to the Exec and at the AGM in April, it is no clearer about if, whether or how the Embassy will want to handle its funding support in the coming year. There’s still no confirmed Ambassador and, until such time as there is, we’re in a kind of limbo;

 

  • Several months ago BW wrote to the Dean of Arts at the University of Wyoming, to help make a case against plans to shut down one of the oldest and most influential American Studies BA programs in the US. He received a very nice reply at the time and three  weeks ago heard that the program has been spared for the indefinite future, subject to hitting some recruitment levels, and the MA is also safe for now;

 

  • Priorities for 2017-18: BW confirmed that all the sub-committees have their plans and sub-agendas. Last year the Exec completed the move to CIO status and made considerable headway on issues relating to Equality and Diversity – something that should continue to built upon (not least through our responses to the Membership Survey). This year, and maybe for the next two years, special attention should be given to our work with schools, in particular, and to outreach or public engagement plans more generally.

 

  • The health and status of American Studies as a discipline and as an undergraduate degree program in the UK is perennially perilous (peaks and troughs), and it’s difficult to predict how things will play out over the next few years with Donald Trump in the White House. He did note, however, that BAAS is uniquely placed to encourage awareness that there’s an American Studies community in Britain who can offer expertise and perspective on events in the contemporary US and to publicize the possibilities for undergraduate and postgraduate study in the subject – not least to teachers advising 6th

 

(b) Achievements, announcements and events of note to BAAS members

 

  • James West, currently a teaching fellow at Birmingham, won a Leverhulme ECR fellowship to come to Northumbria to work on “African American Media Architecture,” but won’t arrive until 2018 so that he can complete a Fulbright fellowship.
  • Congratulations to Michael Cullinane who has been appointed to the position of Reader in American History at the University or Roehampton.

 

  1. Secretary’s Business (SE reporting)

 

(a)        The Secretary confirmed that an election for Vice Chair had been held and that Kate Dossett had been duly elected.  She also confirmed the 2017-2018 co-options of Martin Halliwell, Althea Legal-Miller and Laura MacDonald.

 

(b)        She reported that a handover meeting was held with Jenny Terry and she now has all necessary documents, leaflets, and electronic data.

 

(c)        She confirmed that the Charities Commission website had been updated with new member details and old member details had been deleted.

 

(d)        The Charities Commission have also acknowledged receipt of the revised Constitution.

 

(e)        She had received several enquiries from the media in relation to the Trump presidency and the names of suggested contacts were forwarded.

 

(f)         The next Executive meeting to be held on Friday 24 November 2017.

 

 

  1. Treasurer’s Business (CR reporting)
  • Bank accounts (as at 9 June 2017)

BAAS Current Account                 £4,729.13

BAAS Savings Account              £91,031.65

PayPal not reported

BAAS Publications Ltd   £38,069.23

CAF Savings Account    £20,000.00

 

  • Membership Figures

Headline figure is 627 active members [620 in April 2017]

  • Transfer of assets
    1. the old accounts have been closed, including the dollar account
    2. new current and savings accounts have been opened, still with Barclays, and the monies transferred from the old accounts into the new ones
  • BAAS Publications remains unchanged
  • Payroll – operating smoothly and Treasurer has distributed the first P60s
  • Accountant – Aysha Rangrez at Moffatt & Co has left to take on a new role; one of the partners, Masaud Shah, is the new BAAS accountant.
  • Forthcoming Issues
    1. CUP/Bertoli Mitchell – BAAS is due its final payment from CUP on the 2016 volume of which we will pay the agreed portion to the lawyers – this will be the last payment due to Bertoli Mitchell under the agreement that saw them help BAAS renegotiate the CUP contract
    2. Standing Orders – due to having had to open new bank accounts to comply with the change in legal status, members’ Standing Orders will cease to work; the bulk of SO payments arrive in January so Louise, Katie and CR are in discussions with the web developers to see if improvements can be made to the PayPal/BAAS website interface so that we can encourage all members to move to PayPal rather than have them set up new Standing Orders; PayPal is easier to administrate for Membership purposes.
    3. Equality and Diversity

Althea Legal-Miller agreed to lead on equality and diversity issues for this year.

It was agreed that trans equality training by Ray Filar would take place at the beginning of the November Exec meeting.

ALM highlighted good practice at other conferences, including a scheduled equality and diversity session, and there was a discussion of how this might be replicated by BAAS. BW supported this but anticipated some scheduling difficulties.

Action Point:  PW to write a paper on what BAAS could explore re future conferences

 

  1. Publications Subcommittee (JS reporting)
  2. a) Report of editors

 

JS confirmed that after double-checking the Nottingham/Edinburgh term dates (and taking into consideration Edinburgh’s early graduation) the proposed date of the JAS 50th birthday event is Monday 25 June 2018.   BAAS Exec members to attend and funded by BAAS.

 

Three additional board members have been proposed to join the JAS editorial board (N. King, G, Musila and S. Kurashige).  CVs and mission statement received from King and Musila and Kurashige to follow.

 

 

  1. b) Advert for new editors:

 

JS confirmed that the process for replacing the current editors, Bevan Sewell and Celeste-Marie Bernier should begin with an open call in October.  Applications will be sent in writing (CV and mission statement) to the Chair of Publications and a shortlist for interview at the BAAS conference will be drawn up by the Chair of Publications, BAAS Chair, Vice Chair and Editor of JAS (with one other member of the Publications Committee joining the interview panel).  JS proposed changes to the previous advert and the revised wording will be shared with the BAAS officers and then forward to the wider Exec for approval.  Given the timing of the next Exec (November), Chair’s action will be taken to approve the advert.

 

  1. c) Edinburgh University Press report of editors:

 

  1. i) Mark Newman has submitted the final typescript of his ‘Black Nationalism’ book. It is currently in copy editing and due for release in Jan 2018.

 

  1. ii) Tessa Roynon’s ‘Classical Tradition and Modern American Fiction’  was approved by EUP and is now under contract. The projected release date is Jan 2020.

 

iii)   An edited book ‘Theorizing the US-Canadian Border’ is out for peer-review.

 

  1. d) USSO report:

 

US Studies Online is continuing its collaboration with the Adam Matthew Digital Collections, which has seen four posts on topics from the wilderness to world’s fairs. We have also run two guest-edited special series so far this year. The first was Alfred Cardone’s (Kings College London), ‘Media Coverage and the Presidential Election of 2016’, which featured articles that took readers on a media-led tour of Trump’s election. Articles included an analysis of the Trump campaign’s relationship with the Tea Party movement, and a reading of the 45th US President through John Higham. Building on last year’s digital appendix, the series also featured a ‘trans-media post-mortem’ by Darren Reid and Brett Sanders. In May, USSO featured the series ‘Beyond the Graphic: Considering Violence, Sexuality and Obscenity in Comics’ guest-edited by Dr Harriet Earle (Sheffield Hallam). The six articles include analyses of vampires, sexual trauma, and notions of the divided city.  USSO are also pleased to announce that this year’s Keynote Competition will be running with the support of BAAS and the PG BAAS organisers Irina Popescu and Jess Houlihan. It is expected that a call will be released by 1 July, and we are looking forward to replicating the success of last year. Costings will be the same as last year (£100).

 

  1. e) British Records Related to America on Microfilm

 

  1. f) Equality and Diversity: statement to be added to the advert for JAS editors. 

 

  1. g) BAAS-MAP

Board to consist of one representative from MAP; BAAS Publications Chair; BAAS Development Chair; BAAS ECR or Postgraduate representative; Ken Morgan; one previous intern (to act as mentor on a one- or two-year term; once they finish, a new former intern will take their place).  Details of the Board responsibilities and MAP responsibilities were discussed and agreed.

 

  1. Development and Education Subcommittee (KD reporting)

E&D

 

KD welcomed Althea Legal-Miller as the new Equality & Diversity Co-Ordinator and confirmed that ALM will co-ordinate E&D across the sub-committee and wider Exec.

 

Each sub-committee to be responsible for E&D as in the previous year.  ALM and KD to formulate a plan of what to focus on for 2017-18.

 

E&D training for Exec members was discussed and it was agreed that members should take this at their own institutions.  Trans-awareness training session could be the model for further training,  Charities Commission guidance to be consulted by KD.

 

BAAS to encourage its wider membership to engage with E&D.

 

Website

KM gave her last report on her web role and thanks to her were expressed.  Nick Grant has agreed to take over the responsibility for the website and mailing list.  NG will review how this is going at the November meeting.

 

Work with Schools

KD reported that the sub-committed would work on a plan for the work with schools and a working group would report back to the Exec.  JT reported on Royal Geographic Society’s Ambassador Scheme as a possible model. Over the summer KM will focus on web resources for teachers.  A call for a new a schools rep will be put out.

 

Membership Survey

BO gave a progress report.  15% response rate was reasonable but aiming for 20% so a final push via the newsletter and social media (deadline 4 July).  Early data suggests a range of ages and experience but highlighted the ‘whiteness’ of BAAS membership.

 

Action:  BO to present data at next Exec and actions to follow

 

Mentoring

BO reported that was a take up on mentoring.

 

ECR Rep Report

RW interested in the mentoring scheme and its link to the survey.  She will explore this and other initiatives, eg. Developing PGR and ECR writing groups.

 

  1. Conference Subcommittee (PW reporting)

1)         Equality and Diversity

 

  • Laura MacD drew attention to an initiative run by the American Society for Theater Research: the José Esteban Muñoz Fund. This is targeted funding aimed at fostering the production of minoritarian knowledge and represents a model that could be adapted for BAAS.

 

Action Point:  PW to at Muñoz scheme and draft a BAAS version, liaising with Althea L-M and the Conference Subcom

 

 

  • The CFP for BAAS PG Conference is currently being drafted and will discourage proposals for all-male panels.

 

  • Paul W noted that, with the Small Conference Support Grants, BAAS explicitly states that applications must show consideration of equality and diversity yet we have not turned down any proposals that do not show such a commitment.
  • Nick W suggested adding a box to the form so conference organisers were forced to demonstrate that they had taken steps to address equality and diversity, which all agreed was a good next step.

 

Action Plan:  PW to redraft application for the SCGs and inform Nick G about website changes (by next round in November).

 

 

2) BAAS 2017

 

  • Debriefing on success of BAAS2017 held at Canterbury Christ Church U:
    • Many felt that the atmosphere and intellectual quality of the conference was
    • \of a high standard and it was extremely well organised.
    • Paul W reported that he is in regular contact with Gavan L and Lydia P about the final accounting; this  will be done by 31 July at the latest. A substantial surplus has been mooted.
    • Gavan L and Lydia P have been informed that they also need to (a) write a brief report for ASIB and (b) complete the online report form generated for the Embassy grant, and both are committed to doing this promptly (the deadline for the online form is 19 June).

 

Action Point:  PW to liaise with Lydia and Gavan L on reports/accounts and offer final report at next meeting

 

 

  • The format of the BAAS Annual Conference, and the nature of British conference culture generally, was debated in the Exec. Some of the points raised:
    • Joe S asked whether the number of parallel sessions led to poor attendance at some panels.
Action Point:  PW to bring figures on overall attendance/ratio of day/weekend attendance

 

    • Kate D reported from the Women’s Network meeting that non-academic activities at conferences alienating attendees when they are centred on drinking and incur extra expense (e.g. the banquet).  Other suggested options included: Coffee house evening with music; breakfast meetings.; Providing a meal on the first evening as part of the conference package; moving all of the awards to a different part of the schedule so seeing them given out isn’t dependent on attending the banquet.

 

    • EBAAS conference website should have a page – or clear link through to a different site – that lists cheap or free events taking place in London during the conference.

 

Action Point:  PW to ask NW if this can be done.  PW to ask the Toms to explore social events for 2019, perhaps asking for input from a PG supervisee, with the knowledge that BAAS can provide funds for an alternative extracurricular activity that seems attractive and appropriate

 

  • There seemed general agreement that, with BAAS having more funds available than in the past, and with less impetus on the Annual Conference to make a surplus, subsidising the banquet to maximise postgraduate attendance should be explored further. It was also suggested that attendance at the banquet should be automatically included in the cost of attending the whole weekend.

 

Action Point:  Once figures for attendance at BAAS2017 are known, PW to liaise with the Toms on providing a variety of costings for BAAS2019 (to assess the implications (a) if the banquet was included in the cost of the full conference package and (b) if BAAS significantly subsidised the cost of the banquet for PGs).

 

  • It was requested that the cost of attendance for the JAS and Eccles Centre speakers should not be borne by JAS and the Eccles Centre respectively but folded into the cost of running the BAAS conference. To date, this has been at the discretion of conference organisers.

 

Action Point:  PW to liaise with NW and the Toms to see if possible for 2018 and 2019 conferences/ place in briefing notes for conference organisers so standard 2020

 

 

3) EBAAS 2018

 

  • Report on progress (NW) – Flyers/posters mailed out this month; KCL has offered administration support via the Arts and Humanities Research Institute for free, but for the time being these costs remain included in the budget; UCL has agreed to indemnify the banquet at Senate House; the CFP was officially launched at BAAS2017; more notices to go in the weekly Email Briefing.  Any suggestions for publicising EBAAS far and wide should be sent to Nick W.

 

Action Point:  All members of Exec to explores ways of publicising EBAAS

 

  • A Facebook page has been set up for the conference:

 

Action points:  All members of Exec to LIKE the EBASS Facebook page.

 

NW to link the Facebook page to the EBAAS web page.

 

KWB to connect the Facebook page to relevant postgraduate pages

 

  • Various ways of facilitating the constructions of panel proposals were discussed, with some promising suggestions being the use of social media. It was agreed that the steer towards submitting preformed panels is something of an experiment for BAAS and individual paper proposals would still get reasonable consideration.
  • KWB is looking into a postgraduate social event on one evening and an alternative dinner for PGs who won’t attend the banquet.  CR confirmed BAAS can pay a deposit to secure a venue.

 

Action Point:  KWB to explore option and inform NW so PG events can be incorporated into the EBAAS schedule.

 

  • PW reported a request from ProQuest about a plenary session with various online database providers about getting feedback from potential academic users.

 

Action Point:  NW and PW to discuss viability of this.

 

  • The conference teams for 2018 and 2019 are liaising over the Sussex-sponsored reception.

 

  • No news available on when a decision will be made about the BAAS / US Embassy grants scheme for 2018. The intention remains to request £6100 to help subsidise PG attendance. Paul W has drafted an application for this amount and purpose.

 

Action Point:  PW to confirm details (when announced) with NW and submit the application for £6100.

 

  • In light of the recent terrorist attacks Brian W. asked whether a risk assessment of the conference had been undertaken and to ensure that this was done as a matter of utmost importance.

 

Action Point:  PW to ask NW about this and for the EBAAS organisers to work with all institutions involved to conduct a risk assessment of conference security.

 

4) BAAS 2019

 

  • Report on progress (TD):
    • The timing of BAAS2019 has changed to 25-27 April. This is an inevitable change responding to the shift in teaching dates at the University of Sussex. The Toms have checked these dates against other major American Studies-related conferences, religious holidays, and Brighton-based events.

 

Action Point:  PW to inform IAAS and the BAAS membership of the new dates via weekly email briefing

 

    • The Toms have reserved rooms for the new dates on the University of Sussex campus; keynotes are being programmed for the Attenborough Creative Arts Centre and panels in the Jubilee Building.
    • No accommodation will be available on campus but the conference webpage will take visitors through to a website offering discounted accommodation in Brighton.
    • Mobility issues are being included in the planning of venues / transportation and the Toms are looking into providing a bus pass for conference attendees.
    • The banquet is planned for the Metropole Hotel (provisional cost: £48 inc. VAT for 3 courses and half a bottle of wine per person)
    • The Toms are working closely with Visit Brighton.
    • In terms of the Sussex-sponsored keynote speaker, the Toms are thinking about Naomi Klein. The Subcom thought this was an excellent idea, with Paul W adding the caveat that speakers who are not full-time academics sometimes charge extraordinary fees and it is important to clarify what kind of keynote is expected for the occasion. The Exec was also cautiously enthusiastic about this suggestion.

 

Action Point:  PW to email Bevan and Celester to invite dialogue over JAS speaker

 

 

5) BAAS 2021

 

  • Strong expressions of interest have been received from Hull and Keele.

 

 

Action Point: PW to recirculate information about bidding process to BAAS membership via weekly email briefing

 

 

6) BAAS Postgraduate Conference

 

  • Update on PG Conference in Essex 2017 (KWB):
    • The conference theme will be ‘We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident’: Post-Truth and US Myths. Before the Subcom Kat WB circulated a draft CFP / report from Maria-Irina Popescu and Jessica Houlihan (the conference organisers) for comment.

 

Action Point: All members to promote opportunity for PGs to be USSO-sponsored keynote at PG Conference

 

    • The conference organisers have been impressively organised, attracting funding from a variety of sources and producing a well-developed (albeit incomplete) budget.
    • The conference will run over two days, 25 and 26 November, with the first day dedicated to American Studies and the second day focused on professionalization and funded by CHASE.
    • Members of the Exec are encouraged to attend the PG Conference; Kate D. is sitting on the Activism and Academia roundtable and the attendance of other members of the Exec would be covered by BAAS.
    • The Subcom unanimously agreed to fund the PG Conference £500.

 

Action Point:  CR to transfer money to PG Conference organisers

 

  • The Subcom agreed to look again at the application rubric for the BAAS-IAAS reciprocal conference bursary to ensure that applicants can actually attend both the conferences covered by the scheme.

 

Action Point: KWB to revise wording of the BAAS-IAAS PG Conference Bursary

 

  • Kat WB has received contact information for the current IAAS PG reps and will make inquiries about holding a joint BAAS-IAAS conference in Ireland in 2018.

 

Action Point: KWB to contact IAAS PG reps about a PG IBAAS 2018

 

7) Small Conference Support Grant

 

  • PW reported on the April 2017 round of applications:
    • It was agreed that the scheme would have £3000 to spend in 2017, covering two rounds of award-giving.
    • 6 awards were made in April for a total of £1650.

 

8) Briefing Notes

 

  • Paul Williams circulated a draft version of the briefing document for the BAAS conference organisers and will make revisions following feedback.

 

Action Point: PW to place revised document on Conference Organisers’ Dropbox and make regular changes

 

  1. Awards Subcommittee (SH reporting)

The 2016/17 awards season has now come to a successful conclusion and SH once again, thanked everyone for their help).

 

It became clear during the judging last year that applications for travel awards from postgraduates and ECRs are difficult, if not impossible, to compare in a fair manner.  To ensure both fairness and continued support for ECRs, the Awards Subcommittee would like to suggest that we create a specific ECR travel award (differentiated from the Founders Travel awards and the PG awards).

 

Agreed:  five named awards, plus 3 unnamed for PGRs, plus 2 ECRs, plus 4 Founders awards (one to ECR).  Definition of ECR (within five years of PhD – research council definition).

 

 

SH to look at the composition of judging panels for the next round of awards

 

The Awards Subcommittee is hoping to include in the 2017/18 round of applications an equal opportunities monitoring form so that we can use the information for E&D purposes and identify where more work might be done to encourage colleagues from particular constituencies to apply for the awards.  Any suggestions of good or bad examples to consider would be welcome.

 

  1. EAAS

No report. London 2018 plans were covered under Conferences (above).

 

  1. Any Other Business
  2. Date of next meeting: TBA

Secretary:  Professor Sylvia Ellis / Email:  Sylvia/ Phone: 01913 342570

 

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Minutes 290

March 6, 2018, 10:27 am
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Minutes 290th

Minutes of the 290th meeting of the Executive Committee, held at the UCL Institute of the Americas, London on Friday 24 November at 1.30 pm.

  1. Present: Brian Ward (Chair), Sylvia Ellis (Secretary), Cara Rodway (Treasurer), Kate Dossett, Joe Street, Simon Hall, Nick Grant, Althea Legal-Miller, Katie McGettigan, Laura MacDonald, Ben Offiler, Emma Long, Paul Williams, Nick Witham, Katerina Webb-Bourne
  2. Apologies: Celeste-Marie Bernier, Bevan Sewell, Rachel Williams, Emily West, Ken Morgan
  3. Minutes of the Previous Meeting

These were accepted as a true record and will now go up on the website.

  1. Training on Trans Equality

Ray Filar delivered training on trans equality followed by a discussion of possible changes to BAAS policies and procedures.

  1. Matters Arising

None.

  1. Review of Action List

The Chair asked the Exec to comment on the status of their Action List duties. Items will be addressed under the relevant sections below.

 

  1. Chair’s Business (BW reporting)

(a) Chair’s activities, meetings and correspondence (June 2017 – 24 November 2017)

 

 

  • The Chair report that he had held a meeting in Newcastle with Tim Gerhardson and Laura Saarinen (with Sylvia Ellis and Cara Rodway) re: future of BAAS-US Embassy grants. Agreed that BAAS would be invited to repeat previous year’s role, without having to reapply to administer the Embassy’s money, under precisely the same terms and conditions as in 2016-17 (ie: to promote interest in and understanding of the US). Next year, if there are still grants to disburse, BAAS will have to reapply formally for this role.

 

Because the Embassy money was only confirmed in late October, the two rounds of applications to cover the calendar year 2018 will be in January and May. The particulars will be advertised in the BAAS weekly email on November 26 and across our and the Embassy’s various media platforms.

 

The academic managers for this year will be Lydia Plath (Warwick) and Matthew Shaw (IHR, ex-British Library), with Katie Edwards (Keele) continuing as Admin support. The total amount of the Embassy grant is $100k, less the admin costs/honoraria of $10k. We would not anticipate awarding any single project with more than £10k. As last year, BAAS can apply to itself to support the annual conference. Colleagues should stand by to be recruited to serve on the assessment team once applications are in.

 

Provisional final reports for the 2016-17 rounds have now been prepared and shared with the Embassy, which is very happy with the diverse range of events and activities we selected for support – and extremely complimentary about the standard of record-keeping and reporting. Cara still has to sign off on the final accounts, but we may actually have an additional c.£4k coming to us, depending on how the Embassy wants to deal with ‘returns’ from projects that underspent.

 

The Chair expressed thanks to Katie Edwards and Jo Gill and Carole Holden, our first academic administrators, for their pioneering efforts.

 

 

  • Kim Dubois & Robert ‘Woody’ Johnson

The Chair reported that he had met with Kim Dubois, the very new cultural attaché, in Newcastle in mid-November. She seemed very amenable to further discussions about BAAS’s administration of awards moving forward and on other areas of cooperation.

 

Action Point:  the Chair to write a brief letter on behalf of the Association to formally welcome to the UK both Kim and the new Ambassador, Robert ‘Woody’ Johnson, who arrived in late August.

 

 

  • REF 2021

 

The Association was asked to nominate suitable sub-panel chairs for Area Studies in REF 2021 and asked for expressions of interest, with a CV and statement. We had three such applications and, after consultation among the Exec, we eventually endorsed all three candidates. UKCASA also endorsed the same candidates. REF/HEFCE will announce sub-panel chairs shortly.

 

We have also been asked to nominate suitable Americanist colleagues as sub-panel members, not just for Area Studies, but for English, history, politics, and possibly the new sub-panel that embraces film studies. We have advertised for expressions and, because of a potential conflict of interest and the Chair expressed his gratitude to Kate Dossett for overseeing the process of reviewing expressions of interest and making our nominations to REF and to UKCASA.

 

 

Achievements, Announcements and events of note to BAAS members

 

  • Promotion to Professor: Michael Cullinane (Roehampton);
  • Retirement: John Howard (King’s) – though still productive (published a documentary photobook White Sepulchres and gave at plenary at Palomares disaster symposium at the Autonomous University of Barcelona;
  • Prof. Martin Eve, Chair of Literature, Technology & Publishing at Birkbeck, University of London, selected for the 2018 KU Leuven (Belgium) Medal of Honour in the Humanities and Social Sciences for his work on open access publishing;
  • Death in August of Sandi Russell (Durham-based African American jazz singer-novelist-literary critic, frequent performer at many BAAS events and at Universities around the UK, especially with her one-woman show based on her book Render Me My Song).

 

  1. Secretary’s Business (SE reporting)

 

(a)        The Secretary noted that she had attended the meeting in Newcastle with Tim Gerhardson and Laura Saarinen (with Brian Ward and Cara Rodway) regarding the future of BAAS-US Embassy grants.

 

(b)        She confirmed that she had worked with Brian Ward and Kate Dossett on the REF panel chair nominations.

 

(c)        She had received several requests from media outlets for speakers and will worked with Nick Grant on a members directory of research interests.

 

Action:  To Liaise with NG re directory of members research on the web.

 

 

(d)        The next Executive meeting to be held on Thursday, 11 January 2018.

 

 

  1. Treasurer’s Business (CR reporting)
  • Bank accounts (as at 24 November 2017)

BAAS Current Account     £8,047.89

BAAS Savings Account   £105,149.66

PayPal                            £7,586.08

BAAS Publications Ltd   £49,224.50

CAF Savings Account    £20,000.00

 

TOTAL                        £190,008.13

 

  • Membership Figures per category as at 22 November 2017 (prepared by Louise Cunningham, BAAS Administrator)

 

Active memberships from the BAAS online membership system:-

Please note that I am unable to get a breakdown of concessionary membership types as the membership type field is not complete in all records. 

BAAS Membership (Honorary/Free) – 4 (Richard King/Helen Taylor/Sue Wedlake/Mick Gidley).  LC to contact Phil Davies/Ian Bell/Tony Badger to ask if they want free membership with online JAS or £25 membership with hard copy JAS.

Schools membership – 4 (schools data from the membership google spreadsheet hasn’t been imported to the online membership system)

Concessionary membership with JAS – 74

Individual membership with JAS – 149

Individual membership – 142

Concessionary membership – 273

Total active memberships = 646

 

Active memberships from the BAAS membership google spreadsheet:-

BAAS Membership (Honorary/Free) – 4 (Richard King/Helen Taylor/Sue Wedlake/Mick Gidley). LC to contact Phil Davies/Ian Bell/Tony Badger to ask if they want free membership with online JAS or £25 membership with hard copy JAS.

Schools membership – 16 (schools data from the membership google spreadsheet hasn’t been imported to the online membership system)

Concessionary membership with JAS – 69 (PG – 56, PR – 9, PU – 4)

Individual membership with JAS – 154

Individual membership – 150

Concessionary membership – 282 (PGN – 238, PRN – 20 PUN – 24)

Total active memberships = 675

 

Membership type key

Students (inc. Journal of American Studies) =PG

Students (JAS online) = PGN

Unwaged Members (inc. Journal of American Studies) =PU

Unwaged Members (JAS online) = PUN

Retired Members (inc. Journal of American Studies)           = PR

Retired Members (JAS online) = PRN

 

  • BAAS/US Embassy Awards programme 2017-18
    1. The first payment has been received from the Embassy on 21/11/2017 of £37,900.00 (equivalent of $50k). The second payment of $50k will be due in the Spring.

 

  • Move from old Charity registration to new CIO:
    1. Accounts for 2016 have been filed with the Charity Commission under our old registration (1002816) – these are now publically available via the CC website

 

  • CUP/Bertoli Mitchell:
    1. BAAS has now made its last payment due to Bertoli Mitchell under the agreement that saw them help BAAS renegotiate the CUP contract; this means BAAS will retain the 20% (plus VAT) of our CUP royalties which we have paid to BM since the new agreement was set in motion.

 

  • Standing Orders –
    1. As noted at the last meeting, due to having to open new bank accounts to comply with the change in legal status, members’ Standing Orders will cease to work; the bulk of SO payments arrive in January so Louise, Katie and CR have been in discussions with the web developers, Clear and Creative, to see if improvements can be made to the PayPal/BAAS website interface.
    2. The plan is to encourage all members to move to PayPal rather than have them set up new Standing Orders; PayPal is easier to administrate for Membership purposes. However, we will still provide Standing Order instructions to any members who request them.
    3. The Subscriptions area of the BAAS website has been much improved. Once logged in, members can now manually change their subscription levels.
    4. We need to do some final testing on the process of moving members from the old Standing Order category on to the PayPal platform [call for volunteers!]. Once that is complete, LC and CR will contact all affected members and explain the process for membership renewal.

 

  • Forthcoming Issues
    1. Charity Commission submission
      1. For the 2017 accounts we will need to make two submissions, one under our old registration for the first part of the year, and a second submission for the final part of the year under the new CIO registration (1170382). The accountants will help with this.
    2. Gift Aid
      1. This has not been collected in recent years. With the move to the online membership system it should be easier to get all members to complete a Gift Aid declaration and thus make an accurate claim to HMRC. There will be options for both new and existing members to make a declaration. CR will provide the web developers with the official wording and hopefully this will be made live shortly.

 

  1. Equality and Diversity (Althea-Legal Miller reporting)

ALM thanked Paul Williams for this paper on targeted research panels and the proposal that a pilot be launched at EBAAS and rolled out fully at the BAAS conference at the University of Sussex in 1919.  ALM confirmed that she would lead on this project.

Action Point:  ALM to provide updates on the launch of the project on target research panels

 

  1. Publications Subcommittee (JS reporting)
  2. a) Report of editors

Journal of American Studies:

JS requested and the Exec confirmed that the editors will be paid in line with inflation.

 

Numbers of submissions remain very high; there is a series of exciting forums and special issues coming up; and the editors are continuing to take steps aimed at improving the quality of the articles published to boost JAS’s standing in the field.   In 2017 JAS received 116 new manuscripts and 80 revisions, for a total of 196, and 85 have been accepted, or provisionally accepted (43%) and 57 have been rejected (29.1%).  The normal acceptance rate excluding those pieces committed to special issues, etc, is closer to 33%.

 

The editors noted that they see the next twelve months as marking the culmination of what they have been seeking to do during their time running the journal. The first phase, which probably accounted for the first two and a half years, was to encourage larger numbers of submissions from scholars across the American Studies community in order to make the journal more dynamic and diverse; the second phase, which they are presently in, was to start to try and encourage submissions that are stretching the boundaries of the field and that will position JAS as the leading publication in its field.  They always saw this as a four-year process and hope that by the time they hand over the journal to the new editors, those goals will have been accomplished.   This this will be reflected in the issues published in 2018, including:

* A special issue on Global Evangelicalism, guest-edited by Uta Balbier, Kendrick Oliver, Axel Schaefer and Hans Krabbendam (published in Nov 2017). * Two response by Kate Dossett and Katrina Powell to Sue Currell’s piece on Eugenics (published in April’s issue), which deal with questions relating to power and archives.

* A forum on the American South and the Black Atlantic, edited by Nicholas Grant and Elisabeth Engel.

* A group of short reflective pieces on doing American Studies in Australasia and the Pacific, edited by Sarah Gleeson-White and Thomas Adams

* A special issue edited by Joey Orr and Andy Ditzler, featuring a response by George Lipsitz, on Inhabiting Cultures.

 

In light of discussions at the executive, Joe Street has been delegated to nominate a keynote speaker for the 2019 BAAS conference, preferably one whose research focuses on and/or whose identity is LGTBQ+. JS drafted a shortlist of three (Robyn Wiegman, Duke Nan Alamilla Boyd, San Francisco State; Jon Bell, UCL) and requested views or additional suggestions from Exec members.

  1. b) Advert for new editors:

Advert was approved by Chair’s action.  Some expression of interest already and additional ones encouraged.

  1. c) Edinburgh University Press:

The editors had a productive meeting with Michelle Houston in December, and are planning strategically for new proposals. They are also mooting a session at EBAAS 2018.

 

  1. d) USSO

 

In the last quarter USSO has been focused on developing its engagement with its readership through special collaborations, guest-edited series, and a wide range of event and book reviews. The resulting works included Edward Mair’s (University of Hull) special article marking the 201st anniversary of the destruction of the ‘Negro Fort’ at Prospect Bluff (1816), Chelsea Olsen’s (University of Sussex) winning entry to the BAAS Postgraduate Essay Prize our continued collaboration with Adam Matthew Digital, which is currently on its second series, and our special featured series ‘Beyond the Graphic: Considering Violence, Sexuality and Obscenity in Comics’ guest-edited by Dr Harriet Earle (Sheffield Hallam).

 

Space has proved an important theme this quarter: reviews have examined the importance of urban spaces and the problems of homelessness and poverty within them, and sites we may not conceive as being traditionally ‘American’, like European and east Asian military bases, the Caribbean Islands, and Latin American states. The quarter will conclude with our State of the Discipline series. This set of reviews will survey cutting-edge work in the field while also celebrating its diversity. Christina Westwood (Keele University) will first take us to a contest fought between land and sea as Native Americans attempt to withstand colonial violence in Andrew Lippman’s The Salt Water Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast (Yale University Press, 2015). Jonathan Poutney (University of Manchester) brings us the latest in cultural theory with his review of Michael Denning’s fascinating portrayal of sound and movement in Noise Uprising: The Audiopolitics of a World Musical Revolution (Verso, 2015). Our series concludes with Miles Powell’s ambitious 2016 project on species extinction, racial peril, and the origins of conservation. Vanishing America (Harvard), Angela Sparks (University of Hertford shire)tells us, is the story both of America’s past and its future.

 

Next quarter we’re running a special book reviews series that will span the history of the United States from its inception to the present day with a veritable tour de force of this nation’s contested past: beginning with George Washington’s forging of a new state, we will consider communities of colour in the post-Reconstruction era, Brahmin capitalism in the Gilded Age and the emergence of the modern U.S. Army at the conclusion of the First World War, before wrapping up with a look at the Black Panthers in the Cold War, the origins of modern evangelicalism and the tragedy of the most recent war in Afghanistan.

 

Where international research networks are concerned, our blog featured Jesús Bolaño Quintero’s  (Cadiz University) research on ‘Overcoming Postmodernism. David Foster Wallace and a new Writing of Honesty.’ Upcoming posts include an article by Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera (Puerto Rico) on Transnational (Dis)obedience, as well as a piece by Mariya Nikolova (Potsdam University) discussing Mobility and the Avantgarde. Primarily, Katharina focused on putting together a USSO panel proposal for EBAAS 2018. Under the title ‘Materiality, Embodiment, Protest – Interdisciplinary Perspectives,’ USSO editors Katharina Donn, Ruth Lawlor and Jade Tullett propose to explore the relation between materiality, embodiment and protest. Inspired by cross-disciplinary dialogues, three papers demonstrate how material objects and wounded bodies can become sites of disobedience against ideological structures. From a historical perspective, Ruth Lawlor unearths the uneasy complicity of anti-racism protests with misogynist bias in rape trials during World War II. Here, resistance to stereotypical discourses emerges from the sexuality of the female body, while Katharina Donn explores how the materiality of city -and landscapes disrupts processes of reading and infuses them with epistemological ruptures. Jenny Holzer’s projections, which form the core of this literary approach, respond to a different global conflict, the war on terror of the 21st century, but share the same potential to re-charge vulnerability with cultural energy. Jade Tullett’s work on punk in the art gallery demonstrates how such material objects, once inserted in the art gallery, can become detached from popular music’s material culture through art-historical curation. It is this tension between materiality and the (im)possibility of cultural, political and discursive resistance that connects these three interdisciplinary approaches. Above all this panel aims to bring U.S. Studies Online from its online presence into the non-virtual world of international conferences.

 

This quarter also saw the running of this year’s USSO Keynote competition, which saw a 33% increase in entries, with all building on the high quality of last year. Reflecting the quality, the competition was tough, with all managing to cover an extraordinary breadth of topics and texts whilst staying connected to 2017’s BAAS/CHASE Postgraduate conference theme, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: Post-Truth & American Myths’. Patricia Malone’s entry ‘“We Hold These Truths to Feel Self Evident: Post-Truth and American Myths, or “The Tyranny of Intimacy”’ is this year’s winner of the USSO Keynote competition.

 

This year’s Keynote will be the last for the current team, whose term finishes in April next year.  Initial calls for applications in January, with a team changeover occurring by mid-April. But we’ve got a lot planned before then, including a special series engaging with perceptions of Muslim women, guest-edited by Hasnul Djohar (University of Exeter).  Also publishing a state of the discipline book review series to mark the end of the year.

 

USSO have achieved average quarterly unique visits of 10,100, meaning that so far this year over 42,600 yearly unique visits, with an average of 59,600 yearly page views.   This a testament not only the calibre of the assistant editors, who are invaluable, but to the work of the postgraduates and ECRs in the field.

 

  1. e) British Records Related to America on Microfilm

Joe Street and Dave Sarsfield are meeting this week to discuss progression of the project, in advance of its formal launch later this year. Stipends for interns and royalties will be on the agenda.

 

  1. f) MAP

JS reported that MAP wants to reserve the right to explore other opportunities in American Studies and use the BAAS logo as part of their advertising.  The Exec agreed to both requests.

 

Action:  KM will send JS the logo

 

  1. f) Equality and Diversity:

JS confirmed he had received policies from our partner institutions, including MAP, EUP and CUP.    JS also reported on the proportion of JAS submissions outside the UK (46.5% UK; rest of the world the remainder).

 

 

  1. Development and Education Subcommittee (KD reporting)

E&D

 

See ALM’s report above.

 

Website

KD thanked Nick Grant for his work on the web and the e-bulletin.  Nick and Katie M will take with Clear and Creative about the glitches that several people had reported.

 

Work with Schools

KD reported that the School rep position remains unfilled.  NG will email for volunteers.  A BAAS Schools resources page and a working group on schools to be established.

 

Membership Survey

BO had provided a progress report to the subcommittee and will share this with the Exec and wider membership.  The level of sexual harassment is becoming clear and BO and the subcommittee will suggest a policy and practical steps to address this issue.

 

Action:  To share the membership survey report

 

  1. Conference Subcommittee (PW reporting)
  2. a) Equality and Diversity

 

The addition of a box to the application form for the Small Conference Grant scheme had compelled applicants to address Equality and Diversity. However, there was a widespread feeling that the commitments expressed were extremely generic, and not necessarily doing anything to bring new constituencies of scholars into BAAS-sponsored events.

Action Points: (1) Successful applicants should be encouraged to be more energetic in promoting their events beyond the existing pool of American Studies scholars (which PW has already done). (2) PW to rewrite the SCG with more specific prompts on how a more active and meaningful commitment to E&D might be manifested (e.g. accessibility, circulating CFPs)

 

 

The Subcom expressed support for the draft proposal for BAAS-funded Targeted Research Panels. LMcD noted that similar panels running at other scholarly conferences had reached out to local institutions and organized social events, productively going beyond conventional academic fora such as the three-paper panels / roundtables.

 

 

  1. b) BAAS 2017

 

Final reports had been received from the CCCU2017 organising team and PW commended them on their record keeping and thanked them for delivering, not only an intellectually rich conference, but a surplus of £5,661.22.

 

 

  1. c) EBAAS 2018

 

Acceptance and rejection letters had all been sent out to panel and paper proposers. A provisional schedule had been put together but, given the inevitable dropouts for such a large event, was likely to change. EBAAS had received 146 panel proposals and 226 individual paper proposals.

 

Members of EAAS had queried the rejection of their proposals, and Philip McGowan as EAAS President had emailed the EBAAS organizing team to request proof that no preferential bias had been given to scholars from any particular area or scholarly association. NW shared the acceptance statistics for paper proposals in the Subcom and any statistical differences were so slight as to be negligible. PW raised Philip McGowan’s correspondence in the Exec and expressed his confidence in the fairness and transparency of the selection process.

 

KWB has put together a programme of PG events for EBAAS:

    • On Wednesday, meeting in a room above a bar (possibly the Thirsty Bear), where PGs can meet reps from their respective scholarly associations.
    • Thursday: half of the tickets for the Robeson performance will be reserved for PGs
    • Friday: PG breakout lunch
    • Saturday: KWB will be conducting a gallery walk

 

Action Point:  KWB is going to ask senior academics to be present at one of the PG events

 

 

KWB is going to put together a list of tips for PGs to save money / make the most of the conference, which can be made available through USSO (for example).

 

Action:  KWB to draw up list

 

KWB raised the framing of the EBAAS acceptance email and said she had been fielding inquiries from PGs about the consequences of withdrawing from the conference on grounds of lack of funds. NW and DM clarified that they did not consider PGs in that particular situation to be in breach of professional trust, rather they wanted to underline that ‘no-shows’ were not acceptable.

 

A risk assessment had been carried out at the main conference venue (KCL). In the Exec Brian Ward (BW) was not certain he had received this document.

 

Action point: One of the EBAAS organizing team to forward the KCL risk assessment to BW.

 

This still leaves the two other venues at which EBAAS is taking place, UCL and the BL.

 

Action point:  CR to check a risk assessment was being undertaken at the BL.

 

 

BW asked in the Exec, presumably the event management people at UCL are conducting a risk assessment of the EBAAS events taking place anyway?

 

Action point:  Someone from the EBAAS organizing team to check UCL is conducting a risk assessment and, ideally, to forward it to BW.

 

NW/DM asked for the Exec to comment on a mooted plan to create a panel on threats to academic freedom in the current political climate. Specifically, they were contemplating waiving the cost of day registration for participants on this panel. Feedback was requested from the BAAS Exec on this proposal given, that this would imply some kind of backing of those speakers by BAAS/EAAS.   No-one in the Exec had any objections to such a panel being convoked and thought it would make an interesting addition to the programme. However, neither was there passionate support for waiving the registration fee for the participants.

 

In was reported in the Exec that the US Embassy would be reprising, for one year only, its arrangement with BAAS regarding the distribution of funds for the promotion of American Studies in the UK.

 

Action point:  PW to submit application for £6,800 to subsidize PG attendance and publicity materials for EBAAS2018 (10 Jan. 2018 deadline).

 

  1. d) BAAS 2019

 

TW reported that dates for BAAS2019 were now finalized and rooms had been booked. The organizing team were trying to persuade the U of Sussex to waive the room hire fees; this was not yet confirmed.

 

The Metropole Hotel (as featured in The Waste Land) banquet was provisionally costed at £50pp, with the room holding 250 people but the opportunity to go up to 350 if there was sufficient demand. The presence of the banquet within the overall full weekend registration fee was debated in the Exec, with no real decision made about the best way forward, nor the extent to which BAAS should subsidize attendance at the banquet for PGs It was agreed that when TW and TD were closer to having full costings worked up for the conference to look at the available options.

 

TW thought one of the conference themes could be the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots and transatlantic networks of LGBTQ+ activism.

 

TW and TD have tentatively approached some speakers but nothing has been finalized, partly due to slowness in establishing what kind of fee might be commanded. TW is keen to ascertain what kind of speaker will be approached to be the JAS keynote (and the Eccles Centre keynote) so as to ensure a diverse range.

 

Action point: Joe Street (on behalf of JAS) agreed to email TW to push these conversations on further.

 

 

TW reported that various extracurricular events were being explored, such as visiting Tom Paine’s house in Lewes on the Saturday (the house is a 90-minute walk away) or holding a special session in the Paine-associated Headstrong Club.

 

 

  1. e) BAAS 2021

 

Bids still expected to be submitted for the 2021 conference.

 

 

  1. f) BAAS Postgraduate Conference

 

KWB noted that an excellent programme had been put together by Jessica Houlihan and Maria-Irina Popescu for the BAAS PG Conference being held at the University of Essex (25-26 Nov. 2017) and encouraged members of the Subcom to attend.

 

KWB informed the Subcom that a speaker had withdrawn from the PG Conference and indicated his discontent at being asked to pay the £10 registration fee to attend the event. It was agreed that future PG conferences should include the cost of attendance for invited speakers within the budget.

 

Action point: PW and KWB should collaborate on a set of briefing notes for PG conference organizers along the same lines as the protocols produced for the BAAS Annual Conference.

 

IAAS has declined, for a second time, to move forward on a joint PG conference with BAAS. KWB had opened discussions with HOTCUS to hold a joint BAAS-HOTCUS PG Conference in Nottingham in 2018. This was brought to the Exec and it was agreed that the opportunity to host the PG Conference should be made available to all BAAS PGs.

 

Action point:  KWB to circulate a call for bids to host the 2018 BAAS PG Conference; Nottingham would be welcome to submit a bid, whether for a joint conference with HOTCUS or otherwise.

 

 

  1. g) Small Conference Support Grant

 

There were five applications to this scheme and the total amount requested was exactly the same as the amount left to distribute (£1350). It was agreed that all applicants made a decent case and deserved funding, so no ranking or decisions on how much to award each applicant needed to take place. However, one of the applications was for travel grants for US-based PGRs to deliver papers at The Body and World War Two conference in the UK, and PW agreed to check with CR whether this was allowable. The Subcom did want to provide financial support to this event, especially because there was a more concrete commitment to E&D than some of the other applications.

 

Action point:  PW to inform successful applicants, sent out expense claims forms, and update the spreadsheet in the shared folder on google drive (this has been done). AP: PW to liaise with CR over the award of £300 to The Body and World War Two conference.

 

  1. Awards Subcommittee (EL reporting)

EL thanked those who had volunteered to sit on panels for awards.  Awards have been advertised and are now on the web.  Posters have been circulated.   EL requested Exec members to encourage applications (deadlines imminent).

 

  1. EAAS

More individual papers than panels had been rejected for the EBAAS conference.  EBAAS is drafting a response in response to an issue around papers.

  1. Any Other Business

Cara Rodway announced the appointment of Philip Hatfield as the new Head of the Eccles Centre.

Ben Offiler administered the prize draw for the membership survey.

  1. Date of next meeting: Thursday, 11 January 2018

Secretary:  Professor Sylvia Ellis / Email:  Sylvia/ Phone: 01913 342570

 

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Peter Boyle – BAAS Graduate Teaching Assistantship at the University of Wyoming

November 9, 2018, 10:49 am
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Applications are invited for the Peter Boyle-BAAS Graduate Teaching Assistantship at the University of Wyoming, starting in August 2019 for two years. Candidates will normally be final-year undergraduates in American Studies and related fields and disciplines at a British university, but applications will also be accepted from recent graduates.

The Peter Boyle-BAAS Wyoming Graduate Teaching Assistantship consists of the award for two years of a Graduate Assistantship, part of which will be devoted to teaching. The Assistantship provides an income sufficient to cover living expenses, plus remission of tuition fees while the recipient of the award pursues graduate study for an MA. GTA duties take up approximately half of the working time of an Assistant. During the two years the GTA could expect to assist in the teaching of two courses (leading discussions, marking essay exams, etc.), conduct research in support of a faculty member’s project, and participate in grant-supported activities that would lead outside the university.

American Studies at the University of Wyoming

The University of Wyoming has offered the MA in American Studies since 1952, the first such degree in the western US. Specialties include environmental studies, visual culture, landscape studies, international American Studies, folklore, and public sector work.

The American Studies Program has a core faculty of five and its public sector program is supported by two staff members whose field work often includes student participation. As the only university in a large state with a small population, the University has unique access to the cultural organizations and institutions of Wyoming. In addition to offering the opportunity to teach, the Peter Boyle Assistantship can give students access to on-the-ground projects that are often the source of innovative thesis ideas.

The Program is especially eager to engage students in original research – either by using the facilities of the American Heritage Center or through engagement with field studies in folklore, material culture, and historic preservation. The goal of the Program is to allow each student to shape a portfolio of teaching recommendations, writing projects, and thesis work that will be most useful in whatever the next step for that student might be. Typically, each class of eight or nine contains two international students. Approximately one third of Program graduates continue as fully funded PhD students at other US institutions.

For further information about the Program, its faculty, and its student community, please consult www.uwyo.edu/ams.

Procedure

Applicants will be received by a BAAS panel, which will draw up a shortlist for an interview which will usually take place in late January. The recommendation of the panel needs to be ratified by the University of Wyoming. The successful candidates would begin their studies at the University of Wyoming in August 2019 for the two years, 2019-2020.

Please send your application (details below) by e-mail to awards@baas.ac.uk. Please indicate the name of the award in the subject line.

Your letter of application should include the following information:

(1) a curriculum vitae

(2) transcript of undergraduate work

(3) reason for applying in no more than 250 words

(4) two letters of recommendation (emailed by referees directly to awards@baas.ac.uk)

BAAS members are asked to encourage applications for the BAAS Graduate Assistantships from suitably qualified students.

We are now inviting applications. Deadline: 2 January 2019

Apply for the Peter Boyle-BAAS Wyoming Graduate Teaching Assistantship

Apply  here

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