Joe Street on the British Assocation of American Studies 2015 Meeting

Randall Stephens

In the short interview below I speak with Joe Street (Senior Lecturer in History) about the April 9-12, 2015 BAAS annual conference.  Hosted by Northumbria University, it will mark the 60th anniversary of the organization and will draw together historians, literary studies scholars, political scientists, and others who work on American subjects.

In a letter to BAAS members Joe notes that Northumbria is a good fit for the 2015 meeting:

In 2013 Northumbria launched the biggest initiative in American Studies in the UK for more than a generation. Amongst numerous new academic posts was the University’s first Professor in American Studies. The University’s innovative and exciting BA programme in American Studies accepted its first students in September 2013. The research interests of staff include religion, race, ethnicity, presidential studies, horror film, poetry, the South, the San Francisco Bay Area, music, modernist fiction, immigration and urban studies, the Atlantic world and expansionism. The University holds numerous major resources that are of interest to American Studies scholars, including the papers of the Black Panther Party and the Records of Students for a Democratic Society.

(For more on the launch of the programme, see this feature, "Made in America," in the Journal, October 4, 2012.)

The conference promises a variety of excellent panels, roundtables, as well as a great lineup of speakers that Joe has put together:

• Gary Younge, author, broadcaster and award-winning columnist for the Guardian and the Nation
• Dana Nelson, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English, Vanderbilt University
• Sarah Churchwell, Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities, University of East Anglia

See more about panel and single paper proposals, as well as additional details, here on the BAAS website. And keep up with all the latest about the conference over at @BAASconf2015.