HOTCUS Annual Postgraduate Conference: ‘Winning minds and hearts: constructing national identity in US history'

Historians of the Twentieth Century US, Friday 9th September 2016, Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Keynote speaker: Dr Simon Hall (Senior Lecturer in American History, Leeds University)

On 1 February 1943, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asserted that ‘Americanism is a matter of the mind and the heart.’ Just a year after he approved the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans, FDR’s statement about the inclusivity of American identity highlights one of the key questions scholars face when writing the history of the United States: what do we actually mean when we talk about US national identity?

The distinction between what is and isn’t American has dominated the history of the twentieth century United States, from the Hollywood Blacklists of the 1950s and protests in the streets of Selma, Alabama in 1965, to clashes between construction workers and anti- Vietnam War protesters in New York City and debates over U.S. military strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. In these instances and many others, the process of defining national identity remains central to our understanding of U.S. history.

This conference will explore the constructions and limitations of American national identity in the twentieth century. Panels and twenty-minute paper proposals are invited from postgraduate students and early career researchers on the constructions and manifestations of Americanism in the last century.
Topics for papers or panels might include:

• Political and policy history
• Citizenship, identity and immigration
• Domesticity, home and national identity
• The cultural and intellectual history of Americanism
• ‘Un- Americanism’ in the 20th Century
• Protest history
• Gender and Sexuality
• Memorialization, commemoration and national identity
• Border Cultures in the U.S.
• Labour history, workers’ rights in U.S.
• Presidential history
• National identity in film, media, and journalism
• Local and regional history
• Foreign, military and diplomatic history

The conference will primarily be formed of traditional academic panels, with a keynote lecture from Dr Simon Hall. An interactive workshop on postgraduate and early career issues and concerns will also feature, with discussions of grant applications, teaching, and publishing.

Abstracts for papers or panels (300 words per paper) and a brief bio (100 words) should be submitted to hotcuspostgrads@gmail.com by Friday July 15th 2016. For more information/queries please contact the HOTCUS postgraduate secretary, Megan Hunt (megan.hunt@northumbria.ac.uk).
Supported by the British Association for American Studies.

Public Lecture by Richard Van Emden

“Meeting the Enemy: The Human Face of the Great War,” 28 April @ 6.15, CCE 1, Northumbria University

A British soldier walked over to the German front line to deliver newspapers; British women married to Germans became 'enemy aliens' in their own country; a high-ranking British POW discussed his own troops’ heroism with the Kaiser on the battlefield. Just three amazing stories of contact between the opposing sides in the Great War that eminent historian Richard van Emden has unearthed – incidents that show brutality, great humanity, and above all the bizarre nature of a conflict between two nations with long-standing ties of kinship and friendship. In his lecture, Richard Van Emden reveals how contact was maintained on many levels throughout the War, and its stories, sometimes funny, often moving, give us a new perspective on the lives of ordinary men and women caught up in extraordinary events.

From Richard Van Emden’s website:

Richard van Emden has been interested in the Great War since his teens. He interviewed 270 veterans of the conflict and has so far written twelve books on the subject. His latest, The Quick and the Dead: Fallen Soldiers and Their Families, is due out now. His previous books include Britain's Last Tommies, Boy Soldiers of the Great War, All Quiet on the Home Front, Prisoners of the Kaiser and the top five best-selling The Trench. He has visited the Somme and Ypres every year since 1985 and has an expert knowledge of the First World War battlefields. Richard also researches, produces and directs television programmes about both World Wars, including the award-winning Roses of No Man’s Land and Veterans. His most recent television programme Shooting the War, was broadcast on BBC4 (2010), and he has also appeared as an expert on programmes such as The Boy Soldiers of the Great War (Channel 4), and most recently The Real War Horse on the History Channel.

The Newcastle YMCA First World War Memorial at Northumbria University

James McConnel

The Newcastle YMCA war memorial.

In late 2014, the Estates Office at Northumbria University contacted me about an interesting discovery they had made in a storage area in the University’s Wynne Jones building. Following my research into the war-related features of Trinity Building (formerly Trinity Presbyterian church), they knew I was interested in information about any war memorials on campus. It turned out that staff from Estates had discovered in Wynne Jones a hitherto unknown First World War memorial. The memorial was accompanied by a brass plaque commemorating the opening of the Newcastle YMCA building on Blackett Street in 1900. This building was knocked down in the 1970s to make way for the Eldon Square shopping centre. Various architectural features of the Victorian building were salvaged when it was demolished. These included stone carvings and door surrounds, which were mounted onto one of the exterior walls on Prudhoe Chare in 1976 (the alley by the side of Marks and Spenercs). But it appears that the YMCA’s war memorial was also rescued from the old building, which was then transferred to the Association’s new premises on Ellison Place. The University acquired this building twenty years later in the 1990s and – seemingly without realising it – also inherited the YMCA’s war memorial.

The memorial is made of wood and includes the names of about 100 men who ‘Gave Their All’ in the First World War. Three Northumbria history students are now researching the names of the men as part of a work placement module all students undertake in their second year. With the help of a
Masters student who is undertaking a project on war memorials in Newcastle schools, they have been introduced to the use of digitised local newspapers, the 1911 census, CWGC records, and military archives, in order to research the lives of those named on the memorial. We have also made contact with the modern-day YMCA in Newcastle and it is interested in collaborating with Northumbria on this project, with some of the young people from the Association helping with elements of the research . Ultimately, the hope is that the biographical information collected will contribute to a permanent online resource about Newcastle YMCA’s role in the First World War.