Interview with Joe Street about His Recent Scholarship

Randall Stephens

The University of Florida Press has just published Senior Lecturer in History Joe Street's Dirty Harry's America: Clint Eastwood, Harry Callahan, and the Conservative Backlash.  In it Joe looks at the iconic antihero and asks what the popularity of the series reveals about modern America.  Dirty Harry's rogue conservatism, and machismo justice appealed to large sections of the American public.  The story also pointed to a powerful backlash against 1960s liberalism, the counterculture, and more.  The rise of Reagan-era conservatism, says Joe, owes something to this new, strident political reaction.

In Dirty Harry's America Joe writes of the 1971 film’s “representation of the counterculture, race, gender, and sexuality” that “must be approached within the context of recent San Francisco and national history. . .”(67)  At the same time Dirty Harry, Joe observes, “is far more complex than simple right-wing propaganda.”

I recently sat down with Joe to talk about why he wrote the book and how it fits into larger discussions about modern American culture.  Among other things, Joe comments on how the debates and skirmishes of two of America's most turbulent decades continue to shape the nation in powerful ways.

In the interview below Joe also discusses his more recent work on the Black Panther Party and the intersection of race and politics in the post-1960s United States.

 

Senior Lecturer in American History Joe Street Publishes Second Book

Congratulations to Joe Street!  The senior lecturer in American history at Northumbria University has just published his second book, Dirty Harry's America: Clint Eastwood, Harry Callahan, and the Conservative Backlash, with the University Press of Florida, 2016.

From the UPF website:

In Dirty Harry's America, Joe Street argues that the movies shed critical light on the culture and politics of the post-1960s era and locates San Francisco as the symbolic cultural battleground of the time. Across the entire series, conservative anger and moral outrage confront elitist liberalism and moral relativism. Paying particular attention to the films' representation of crime, family and community, sexuality, and race, Street maintains that through referencing real events and political struggles, the films themselves became active participants in the culture wars.

Unapologetic carrier of right and might, Harry Callahan becomes America's Ur-conservative: "unbending, moral, incorruptible, and most important, always right." Long after the series, Callahan's legacy remains strong in American political discourse, cinema, and pop culture, and he continues to shape Eastwood’s later political and cinematic career.

Here's what the critics are saying:

"Street provides a crucial critical and cultural service by not only studying Eastwood's individual films in sharp detail but also by providing a close and serious analysis of the cultural and historic times of the films." -Sam B. Girgus, author of Clint Eastwood's America

"By far the most comprehensive, sustained, and detailed discussion of the Dirty Harry phenomenon. A thorough and engaging account of how a fictitious renegade cop became an enduring icon of the angry conservative backlash that sought to halt 1960s liberalism in its tracks." -Nick Heffernan, author of Culture, Environment and Ecopolitics

Northumbria Hosts International Conference for British Association of American Studies

American studies at Northumbria University attracted an international array of delegates for the 60th Anniversary conference of the British Association for American Studies (BAAS) between April 9-12. Current BAAS chair, Sue Currell of the University of Sussex, was delighted with the conference which attracted over 250 people: “It seemed very fitting to look back on 60 years of the British Association for American Studies while being hosted by one of the newest and most ambitious American Studies programmes in the country. As we approach another US election, I think the success of the conference speaks volumes about the vitality and significance of research and teaching on American topics around the UK.” 

The opening plenary was well-attended lecture given by Guardian journalist Gary Younge that featured in the newspaper the following day. The full transcript will be published in a forthcoming collection of essays on voting rights in the United States to be edited by Dr Henry Knight Lozano and Dr Joe Street both of Northumbria University. Current political events in the US were also central to another plenary lecture delivered by Professor Dana Nelson from Vanderbilt University, who spoke about the politics of Presidential power. Professor Nelson updated the audience on the findings of her 2008 book Bad for Democracy, to include observations on the current Obama administration. American literature Professor and Guardian columnist, Sarah Churchwell, also gave a lively guided tour of the world of F. Scott Fitzgerald as it appeared in The Great Gatsby. Speakers were sponsored and supported by the Journal of American Studies and the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library. The audience and participants included members of the public as well as representatives from the cultural affairs office of the US Embassy, who generously supported postgraduate student attendance at the conference.

Alongside numerous academic panels in a wide variety of subjects of significance to American studies scholars, there were publishing workshops and representation from over 20 international publishers. Delegates also took the opportunity to visit the University’s library holdings in American materials, including the papers of the Black Panther Party and the Records of Students for a Democratic Society.  Local hotels and the local economy also benefited from such a large influx of extra guests as delegates took advantage of visiting the city, many for the first time. Sue Currell noted that “The annual conference is central to sustaining the network of scholars who are researching the history, culture and politics of America in the UK. BAAS is very grateful to the hosts at Northumbria University for creating such a welcoming and successful event to celebrate our Anniversary: there is no doubt in my mind that everyone who attended is now looking forward to the nearest opportunity to come back.”

60 Anniversary BAAS Programme

The programme is now online for the 2015 British Association of American Studies meeting, 9-12 April, 2015, Northumbria University.  Download a copy of it here.

More on the conference:

The 60th annual conference of the British Association for American Studies (BAAS) will be hosted by the Department of Humanities at Northumbria University, Newcastle, 9-12 April, 2015.

The British Association for American Studies was founded in 1955. It exists to promote, support and encourage the study of the United States in the Universities, Colleges and Schools of the United Kingdom, and by independent scholars. The 2015 conference commemorates the 60th anniversary of the founding of BAAS and promises to be a hugely stimulating and enjoyable occasion. We look forward to welcoming you to Newcastle upon Tyne, the most vibrant urban centre in the North East of England.

The conference will begin after lunch on Thursday April 9, and will close after lunch on Sunday April 12.

We are delighted to announce our plenary speakers:

• 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

More on BAAS here.  Listen to an interview with conference organizer Joe Street here.

Call for Papers: Firearms and Freedom: The Relevance of the Second Amendment in the Twenty-First Century

Herblock, “The Gunfather,” October 26,
1992.  Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Location: London, England
Date: June 11 2015
Deadline:  February 16 2015.

The Second Amendment is arguably the most controversial part of the American Constitution. Europeans discuss the issue often but the unique place of firearms to US history and culture is widely misunderstood. We hope to go beyond the usual presentation of the issue, exploring the roots of the modern discussion and placing it in the broader contexts of American history, politics and culture. We attempt to answer questions in relation to the Second Amendment. Why was it considered important enough to include in the Constitution? How was it interpreted in the nineteenth and early 20th centuries? How does it affect women and minority groups historically and today? Why do so many Americans sustain faith in the freedom to bear arms? Why does the discussion now appear as an un-bridgeable cultural divide?

Hosted at the British Library conference centre by the Eccles Centre and UCL Institute of the Americas, this one-day conference will be an interdisciplinary examination of the Amendment and its relationship with the concept of American freedom. We invite submissions of paper proposals, which should include a 300-word abstract and a brief CV.  Possible topics might include the National Rifle Association, the Black Panther Party, “gun culture”, the relationship of guns with American minorities, the role of women in relation to firearms, and the history of the Second Amendment, but we will consider papers on other related issues. We seek to explore the issue in as balanced a way as possible. All participants will be expected to make their conference contributions available to be considered for publication.

Please direct your paper proposals, confirmations of attendance, and any questions about the one-day conference to either:

Kevin.yuill@sunderland.ac.uk
joe.street@northumbria.ac.uk

British Association of American Studies PG Conference at the University of Sussex

Megan Hunt

Just a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the British Association of American Studies (BAAS) PG conference at the University of Sussex.  The November 2014 conference included a wide and varied programme, reflecting exciting and expansive doctoral research occurring across the U.K. and beyond.  The organizers must really be congratulated for their efforts, and the whole day was a great success. 

My presentation, entitled ‘A Monster of the South': Cape Fear, White Trash, and the Oppositional Region, was nestled between a paper on the appropriation and deployment of Native American stereotypes, presented by Sara Gray (Swansea University), and Hannah Murray’s (University of Nottingham) presentation on the ‘protesting corpse’ in the Edgar Allan Poe tale, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.”  The panel therefore explored the often intersecting issues of race, class, and gender, through the examination of a number of cultural products spanning from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century: notably promotional websites, Hollywood film, and literature. 

Robert G. Ingersoll speaking, dangling from
a cord at the edge of the stage is Thomas
De Witt Talmage as a marionette, with one
hand pinned to the Bible (Puck, 1882).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Other panels proved just as diverse.  The afternoon panel on Religious Dissent was of particular interest to me, and saw examinations of the ‘Great Agnostic’ of the 19th century: Robert Ingersoll, Rebecca Goldstein’s 2010 novel 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, and the Book of Mormon (the original religious text, not the musical!).

Darryl Barthe (University of Sussex) later gave an impassioned genealogy of ‘African American Avengers’, blacks throughout American history who have violently retaliated against the incessant racism and suppression that marked their lives.  In the same panel, Rosemary Pearce (University of Nottingham) presented her remarkable findings on the ‘Reverse Freedom Rides’, ‘a diabolical, inhuman game of revenge,’ in which White Citizens’ Council members offered free transport for African Americans who wanted to leave the South and experience what the Council argued were false promises about greater acceptance and racial harmony in the North.  Fascinating accounts of how the first ‘Riders’ were met off the bus in Massachusetts by Edward Kennedy only added to this already engrossing and yet almost unknown backlash to the civil rights gains of the 1960s.

The conference also benefitted from two excellent keynotes, the first from our own Dr. Joe Street, whose research into the probable effects of solitary confinement on Black Panther founding member Huey P. Newton offered fascinating insights into the last years of Newton’s life and activism.  The constant FBI surveillance Newton was under certainly exacerbated much of Newton’s existing paranoia, which was also linked to his habitual abuse of cocaine.

Following the academic rigours of the day, Will Kaufman’s wonderful keynote on the radicalization of folk legend Woody Guthrie gave us a welcome transition into the more sociable element of the conference. What could have been a more fitting end to the day than a radical, sing-along rendition of ‘This Land is Your Land’?

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.