This is the last e-bulletin of the academic year 2009-10. It contains 10 items.
Please send items for inclusion in the next e-bulletin - September 2010 - to Tony McCulloch, Secretary of the TSA (tony.mcculloch@canterbury.ac.uk) by Friday 17 September 2010.
2. TSA ANNOUNCEMENTS
Elections for the TSA Management Committee, 2010-2011, were held at the AGM on Wednesday 14 July during the annual conference in Durham. All of the members of the existing committee were re-elected and one new member - Deepak Gopinath , Dundee University - was also elected.
Please note the call for contributions to the next TSA Newslatter under item 4.
3. TSA WEBSITE AND DATABASE
The TSA website can be found at www.transatlanticstudies.com http://www.transatlanticstudies.com/> and is maintained by Michael Cullinane of University College Cork.
The website also contains the TSA database. This provides basic information - name, affiliation, main publications and research interests - and is invaluable for colleagues seeking project partners, referees for journal articles and manuscripts, authors for book reviews, or simply looking to see what is happening at the cutting edge of research in our field. If you have not yet added your details to the database please contact Michael Cullinane via the TSA website.
4. TSA NEWSLETTER
Another TSA Newsletter will be circulated early next term/semester - hopefully in October 2010.
The deadline for contributions is 1 September 2010. The Newsletter will focus on the recent annual conference in Durham but will also include other items of interest to members.
In particular, chairs of panels at the Durham conference are requested to send brief reports of their panels to Sylvia Ellis or Carl Hodge by 1 September so that a comprehensive report of the conference can be included in the Newsletter. The chair's brief report might consist of a short paragraph on each paper and a paragraph on the ensuing discussion. Presenters can also send a brief summary of their paper to Sylvia and Carl if they wish, but they should inform their chair that they are doing so in order to avoid duplication of time and effort.
Carl Hodge (University of British Columbia) and Sylvia Ellis (University of Northumbria) are the co-editors of the TSA Newsletter. Any announcements, members' news, notices of forthcoming events, etc should be sent to Sylvia.ellis@unn.ac.uk . If you would like to write a small article for inclusion in the next newsletter please contact Carl Hodge at chodge@shaw.ca.
5. TSA ANNUAL CONFERENCE, DURHAM, 12-15 JULY 2010
The 2010 Transatlantic Studies Association Annual Conference was held at Durham University 12 - 15 July 2010, with well over 100 delegates in attendance despite the current financial situation of universities, etc. Our thanks go to John Dumbrell, the local organiser of the conference, and to Alan Dobson, the Chair of the TSA, for their work in making the conference such a success.
6. SPECIAL ISSUE OF JTS ON ANGLO-AMERICAN SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP, 2012
Steve Marsh and Charlie Whitham will be editing a special edition of the Journal of Transatlantic Studies on the Anglo-American special relationship for publication in 2012. It is anticipated that at least some of the contributions therein will originate from papers presented at the Anglo-American special relationship panel at the TSA conference in Durham in July 2010. If you would like further information please contact either Steve Marsh (MarshSI@Cardiff.ac.uk) or Charlie Whitham (cwhitham@uwic.ac.uk)
7. NEXT TSA ANNUAL CONFERENCE, DUNDEE, 11-14 JULY 2011
The next annual conference will take place at the University of Dundee in July 2011 and will mark the 10th anniversary of the founding of the TSA. Further details about registration nand the call for papers will follow in due course.
8. DONALD CAMERON WATT PRIZE
The Donald Cameron Watt prize for 2010 was awarded to Frederic Heurtebize, of the University of Angers who is a PhD candidate at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris. His paper was entitled "Washington's Assessment of the Union of the Left in France (1971-1981): A Threat to NATO?"
Our congratulations go to Frederic for his excellent paper and commiserations to the other candidates who submitted papers for the award in what was a very competitive field. Thanks also to the panel of judges - Fiona Venn (Chair, Essex University); John Dumbrell (Durham University) and David Haglund (Queen's University, Kingston).
The DC Watt prize is awarded annually by the Transatlantic Studies Association for the best paper at its annual conference by an early career scholar.
Judging is based solely on the written versions of the papers submitted, which may not necessarily be the delivery versions. Entries are due by 30 April, preceding the annual conference in July. The delivery of the paper is not part of the assessment but candidates for the award must attend and deliver the paper at the conference.
The prize for the best paper is awarded at the conference dinner. In addition, the paper is automatically sent out for refereeing for publication in the Journal of Transatlantic Studies providing that it has not been submitted elsewhere.
Sum £250
Early career scholar is defined as:
a PhD student; anyone within 3 years of having been awarded a PhD; anyone who has a full-time appointment at a recognised higher education institution, but has not held the post for more than 3 years and does not fall into the doctoral category.
9. CANADIAN STUDIES CONFERENCE, SENATE HOUSE, LONDON, 15 JULY 2011
The annual conference of the BACS History and Politics Group took place on Friday 16 July 2010 at Senate House, London. An edited collection of the papers on the theme of "The North Atlantic Triangle - a Canadian myth?" will be published by the Institute for the Study of the Americas in 2011/2012. A majority of the papers at the conference were given by TSA members.
The 2011 conference will be held on Friday 15 July to follow on from the TSA conference in Dundee and will be on the theme of "Canada's Special Relationships". If you would like to attend or submit a paper please contact Tony McCulloch (tony.mcculloch@canterbury.ac.uk). It is hoped that some funding for travel and accommodation will be available for presenters and chairs.
10. COLD WAR CONFERENCE - UNIVERSITY OF FRIBOURG, OCTOBER 31 -NOVEMBER 1, 2011
Transnational Dimensions of Cold War Anticommunism:
Actions, Networks, Transfers
Call for Papers
Against the background of potential nuclear devastation and the confrontation between two ideologies and world powers, an unrestrained psychological war was fought by the two camps using modern means of communication (radio, cinema, covert action, etc). In the West the Cold War was marked by widespread and intense forms of anti-communism. Generally this was antitotalitarian in nature and dramatic in tone.
In response to the USSR and its Communist Party acolytes gaining power, and in reaction to important historical events (Czech Coup, Berlin Blockade, the purges, Korea War, Cuba Crisis, decolonisation, Vietnam War, etc.), various forms of anti-communist struggle, discourse and representation arose. While some anti-communist endeavours built on earlier initiatives, others took on new forms, such as the large-scale institutionalisation of clandestine operations by the United States after 1947-48. Although anti-communist partisans have spoken of the struggle against communism in terms of a "crusade" (implying the idea of collective action and a sanctified mission) in retaliation to a threat globally orchestrated from Moscow, critics have accused the U.S. of illegal intervention around the world, either militarily or subversively via the CIA. In recent years there has also been growing interest in importance and impact of propaganda and public diplomacy conducted in particular by the US and its allies.
When it comes to assessing these developments, the key question of the "transnationality" of anti-communism has rarely been raised. This conference looks to explore this field in breadth and depth through the following questions:
To what extent was "anti-communism" actually planned, coordinated, and structured at the transnational level?
What kinds of interactions and interdependences can be observed in the different types of organised anti-communism on the transatlantic and European levels?
What were some of the dynamics in the transfer of practices, ideas and methods?
What types of networks were created in the struggle against the "red peril"?
In comparison to the interwar period, to what extent were these developments new, or merely a continuation of previous activities?
What were the motivations and goals of these individuals and groups?
How did covert and overt activities link up, and how did their interests sometimes clash?
The conference will examine the transnational dimensions of Cold War anti-communism by bringing together perspectives on the various connections, involvements, exchanges, relationships and transfers between societies. This will look in detail at the notion of Western "anti-communist solidarity" and help to disclose the limits, failures and shifting phases of this solidarity across the public and private spheres ("state-private networks"). Since the dominant narrative of Cold War anti-communism is US-centric, reflecting the greater resources and leadership role of that nation, it is the aim to build a more complex picture of this phenomenon by looking at European initiatives operating separate from (or aligned with) US interests.
In order to explore these issues, the conference aims to bring together an international group of historians together with scholars from other disciplines such as sociology, political science, literature, and film studies. Paper proposals can adopt a comparative or single country approach as long as a transnational perspective is present in the analysis. The conference will be divided into three broad research areas: the "political" area (actions), the "social" area (networks), and the "cultural" area (transfers, representations, receptions, political cultures).
This two-day conference will take place at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland on October 31 and November 1, 2011. The organisers, Luc van Dongen, Claude Hauser, Stéphanie Roulin and Damir Skenderovic (with the collaboration of Giles Scott-Smith of Leiden University, The Netherlands), are affiliated with the Contemporary History Section in the Department of Historical Sciences at the University of Fribourg. Support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the Institute of Swiss Contemporary History (ISCH).
The organisers will cover accommodation costs in Fribourg during the conference. If possible, funding will be available for covering travel costs.
Paper proposals should consist of a title and an abstract of max 4,000 characters, together with a brief CV. Please send proposals to Luc van Dongen (luc.vandongen@unifr.ch) by September 1, 2010.
Since the University of Fribourg is a bilingual university (French and German), the participants are kindly invited to present their paper in one of the two languages. However, papers in English are also welcome, as far as a substantial abstract in German and/or French is available for the audience.
The Transatlantic Studies Association is a charitable body. Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator: Charity Number SC039378
