Essex hosts major American studies postgraduate conference

Essex has hosted the major postgraduate conference of the British Association for American Studies (BAAS).

The annual conference is held at a different University each year and encourages postgraduate students and early career researchers to meet with peers, build networks for collaboration, and share their research.

The theme of this year’s conference was post-truth and American myths and explored how myths are created, recycled and sustained within a radically changing world order, and questioned what truths remain ‘self-evident’ in modern America.

Over sixty delegates from the UK and abroad attended the two-day event, which included sessions exploring ‘How the US Lost Its Mind’ and ‘Activism, Academia and American Studies’. The keynote speech was delivered by Patricia Malone of Queen’s University Belfast after she won the 2017 United States Study Online (USSO) Keynote Competition.

The conference was the first to be organised in collaboration with the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-East England (CHASE) and was curated by Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies PhD students, Maria-Irina Popescu and Jessica Houliham.

More information about this year’s conference can be found on the conference website.