Newsroom University of ��Թϱ��

The US Election result - expert reaction

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 16:38:28 +0000

In the end it seems that the endorsement of Hulk Hogan mattered more than the backing of Taylor Swift. If the 2024 presidential election wasn’t confusing enough before the polls delivered their verdict, then Donald Trump’s decisive victory on Tuesday proved that you could turn any sort of popularity – or infamy – on its head.

In The Guardian, Rebecca Solnit suggested that the nation’s problem in the wake of this result was that too many of its citizens believed that they lived in a better country than they really did. Solnit laid the root of the problem at the doors of toxic masculinity, the power of Silicon Valley – and for the benefit of this election cycle and era, that may as well be shorthand for Elon Musk – and “the failure of the news media”.

Solnit may well be right about the first two elements, but I’m not so sure about the third. Political incompetence, misogyny, criminal conviction, a litany of cases filed against him, two attempts at impeachment and a riot in the US Capitol building that was as good an endorsement of insurrection in America as anything since the Civil War. It’s true that this list - which would be a death knell for any other politician - barely scratches the surface of Trump’s crimes and misdemeanours, but were these and much else besides given scant coverage by the media, at home or abroad?

If the media were at all culpable in the second coming of Donald Trump, it is perhaps in writing his obituary just one too many times, as well as boosting the popularity of Harris just a touch further than was translated into ballots cast for her. At its height, in late August, Harris’s bump in the polls on the back of her taking over the Democratic nomination from Joe Biden and securing that endorsement at a very successful party convention, still amounted to no more than a four-point advantage over Trump.

It’s also a striking indictment of some polling that post-election analysis has started picking up on crypto betting markets in the US like Polymarket offering much more accurate odds on a Trump victory weeks ago, and that set against accusations the site was being manipulated at the time by pro-Trump supporters trying to inflate his chances.

If tracking polls can’t be trusted anymore, and if gamblers know the inside story more than political analysts, then we might as well just listen to the celebrity endorsements and track where popular reaction goes from there.

At the Republican National Convention in July former wrestler Hogan ripped his shirt open and declared, “Let Trumpmania run wild, brother! Let Trumpmania make America great again!” In September, best-selling artist Swift endorsed Harris just after the one and only presidential debate had taken place between the two candidates. “I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos," she said in an Instagram post that was signed off with the phrase, ‘childless cat lady’ a reference to vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance’s comment in a 2021 Fox News interview about the kind of people he thought were running the country. Swift’s post got as many as 340,000 Americans registering to vote within hours. In interview, meanwhile, Hogan thought he’d make a good vice-president one day.

On Tuesday, over 72 million Americans decided that the country’s future was in safer hands with Trumpmania and wrestling celebrities who thought they had a shot at public office, than calm and sober judgement as practiced by the biggest pop star on the planet. In four years’ time, one of them is likely to have the last laugh.

Ian Scott, Professor of American Film and History

��Թϱ�� Professor honours his father in new book on World Alzheimer’s Day

Wed, 18 Sep 2024 14:47:08 +0100

To mark World Alzheimer’s Day, Saturday 21 September, Professor Douglas Field is announcing the release of a new book, Walking in the dark: James Baldwin, my father and me, a moving literary exploration of the disease.

Douglas Field was introduced to Baldwin's essays and novels by his father, who witnessed the writer's debate with William F. Buckley Jr. at Cambridge University in 1965. Professor Field rediscovered Baldwin’s works when his father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and turning to Baldwin for answers about his father’s condition inspired Field to write his book.

Set for publication by in November 2024, Walking in the dark blends biography with memoir. By interweaving his personal experiences with Baldwin’s iconic works, Field demonstrates the power of literature to inspire and illuminate new understandings of both our personal experiences, and the universal mysteries of everyday life.

Douglas Field is a writer, academic and Professor of American Literature. He has published two books on James Baldwin, the most recent of which is All Those Strangers: The Art and Lives of James Baldwin (2015). His work has been published in Beat Scene, The Big Issue, the Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement, where he has been a regular contributor for twenty years. He is a founding editor of James Baldwin Review.

Led by , World Alzheimer’s Day takes place on 21 September, during World Alzheimer’s Month. The 2024 campaign and World Alzheimer Report, which will be launched on 20 September, will centre on challenging why people still wrongly believe that dementia is a part of normal ageing.

Leading up to 21 September, Alzheimer’s organisations and individuals affected by the condition share stories to raise awareness and address the stigma that exists around Alzheimer’s and dementia. Public awareness campaigns, like World Alzheimer's Day, are of great importance for changing perceptions and increasing existing public knowledge around Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

This year’s campaign will centre around the tagline: ‘Time to act on dementia, Time to act on Alzheimer’s’, focusing on changing attitudes towards the condition, while highlighting the positive steps being undertaken by organisations and governments globally to develop a more dementia friendly society.

Professor Douglas Field is holding a free public book launch for Walking in the dark, taking place at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation and hosted by Professor David Olusoga OBE.

Details of the book launch are available .
For more information about Walking in the dark, visit ��Թϱ�� University Press .
Find out more about World Alzheimer’s day .

Prof Peter Knight celebrates double publication

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 16:43:50 +0000

Professor of American Studies Peter Knight is celebrating not one, but two published volumes in December 2022.

Both books have come about as part of large collaborative projects funded by the AHRC.

, published by Routledge, was co-authored by Prof Knight and Clare Birchall, reader in contemporary culture at King’s College London.

The book analyses ‘the emergence and development of conspiracy theories’ that bubbled up in the pandemic, with particular focus on those theories that were rife in the UK and US in particular.

The second publication Prof Knight has co-authored is Chicago-published , which is an examination of how investment advice as a genre grew in the UK and US and how it manifested across various media.

American Studies students receive BAAS recognition for outstanding essays

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 10:35:18 +0100

Each year, the British Association of American Studies (BAAS) seeks essays that explore an aspect of the American experience, researched and written by UK-based undergraduate students.

Essays engaging with current issues like racial and environmental justice are of particular interest to the judging panel. Last year’s winner, a student from University College London (UCL), approached the subject of Black Lives Matter and the nature of protest, and this year, Samantha’s winning essay similarly tackled racial themes.

In response to whether the gentrification of Harlem after 1980 was led by external forces and whether this led to a white takeover, Samantha concluded: “[T]he effects of gentrification are now clear. If there had not yet been a white ‘take-over’ in population by the early 2000s, Harlem is surely on its way there today […] Despite the work of internal forces and community organisation groups to see improvements in Harlem for its long-term residents, the ‘pockets’ of black history were being, and continue to be, overwritten by larger, external forces.”

Samantha takes home a prize of £250, and will have the chance to participate in workshops with the editors of the Journal of American Studiesand the European Journal of American Culture, as well as other opportunities.

In addition to Samantha, congratulations are in order for Anya, who received one of two honourable mentions for her essay, ‘To what extent were Native American activists recognized and embraced as allies of US Civil Rights and Black Power groups?’

Anya found that Native American activists were recognised and embraced. “In recognising the Black embrace of Native Americans, and, by extension, ‘all poor and oppressed people,’ as allies in a global movement for freedom, intersectionality goes beyond a shared experience of oppression, and becomes in fact a tool of liberation,” she said.

This is a fantastic achievement for Samantha and Anya, and for the American Studies programme as a whole.

Dr Andrew Fearnley, Lecturer in US History, praised the achievement.

“We're delighted that our students have received this recognition for their excellent work—on Native activism in the civil rights period, and on the transformation of Harlem at the turn of the twenty-first century. These essays demonstrate the wide range of topics that we address in American Studies, and both show the balance we try to find between historical study and contemporary, political intervention.”

Professor Thomas Schmidt appointed as Head of School for the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 14:10:48 +0100

Thomas returns to ��Թϱ��, where he spent five years as Professor of Musicology and Head of the Division of Art History, Drama and Music. He has also held posts at Bangor University, the University of Frankfurt and the University of Huddersfield.

The role formally began on 1 July and is dedicated to developing and driving strategic decision-making across the School.

Professor Keith Brown, Vice-President and Dean of Humanities has said on the appointment: “I look forward to working with Thomas as he returns to ��Թϱ�� in this new role. I am confident he will build on Alessandro’s many achievements and will lead the School from strength to strength."

Prior to joining the University for his appointment as Head of School, Schmidt was Visiting Professor at the University of Frankfurt, before moving to the UK in 2005 as Professor and Chair of Music at Bangor University. From 2012, he was Professor of Music at The University of ��Թϱ�� (later also leading the Division of Art History, Drama and Music), and from 2017 he was Dean of Music, Humanities and Media at the University of Huddersfield.

Thomas studied at the University of Heidelberg and as a Fulbright Scholar in Chapel Hill. His key research interests are in music of the 15th/16th and the 18th/19th centuries.

On his appointment, Professor Schmidt said: "I am delighted to have been appointed as Vice-Dean and Head of School of Arts, Languages and Cultures. I enormously look forward to returning to the institution where I previously spent some of the most fulfilling years of my career; I am honoured and excited to be working with a dedicated team of staff in one of the leading Arts and Humanities schools in the UK, and with the outstanding students it recruits.”