Locating the hidden Diaspora

The English in the Anglo-phone World 

Context

After 1600, English emigration became one of Europe’s most significant population movements. Yet compared to what has been written about the migration of Scots and Irish from the same islands, relatively little energy has been expended on the numerically more significant English flows. Whilst the Scottish, Irish, German, Italian, Jewish and Black Diasporas are well known and much studied, there is virtual silence on the English.

Why, then, is there no English Diaspora? Why has little been said about the English other than to map their main emigration flows? Did the English simply disappear into the host population? Or were they so fundamental, and foundational, to the Anglo-phone, Protestant cultures of the evolving British World that they could not be distinguished in the way Catholic Irish or continental Europeans were? This conference will explore these and other fundamental issues about the nature and character of English identity during the creation of the cultures of the British World.

The conference will be held at Northumbria University, 8 July to 10 July 2010.

Themes 

Papers may examine:

• Patterns of English Emigration
• The formation of English communities
• Protestantism and Englishness
• The relationship between Englishness and colonial values
• The relationship between English and non-English cultures in North America
• Colonial Identity and Imperial Identity
• Canadian and American Loyalisms
• English Sports in North America
• English Culture and Pastimes
• Englishness, Ethnicity and Civic Identity

Those wishing to offer a paper should send a title, a 200 word abstract and a brief CV by 26 February 2010 to: az.englishdiaspora@northumbria.ac.uk 

Keynotes

Professor William E. Van Vugt, Calvin College

English Immigrant Voices in American History, 1770-1915 

William E. Van Vugt is Professor of History at Calvin College, Michigan. His research focuses on the English in America, especially the continuity of English culture, the ‘invisibility’ of the English in America, and their special roles in religion, agriculture, and industry during the period 1770-1920. He is the author of Britain to America: The Mid-Nineteenth-Century Immigrants to the United States and British Buckeyes: The English, Scots, and Welsh in Ohio, 1700–1900. His most recent publication is British Immigration to the United States, 1776–1914 (Pickering & Chatto, 2009). Bringing together a diverse range of primary sources, including immigrants’ letters, immigration guides, newspaper articles, and promotional and advisory pamphlets published by immigrants and travellers, land and railroad companies, this four-volume edition offers unique information about the immigrants’ experiences and the American way of life in the pioneer age.

Dr Glyn Parry, Victoria University of Wellington

The First English Diaspora: the Lure of Arthur in the Americas

Glyn Parry teaches history at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He previously taught in Britain and Australia. A student of Sir Geoffrey Elton, his research focuses on sixteenth-century England, including Elizabethan perceptions of the overseas world and early visions of empire.  His major study, William Harrison and the Reformation of Elizabethan England (Cambridge University Press, 1987), was re-printed in 2002. He has just completed a major study of the life, times and influences of John Dee, who coined the term 'British Empire', entitled The Arch-Conjuror of England: John Dee and Magic at the Courts of Renaissance Europe (Yale University Press, forthcoming 2010). His publications also include articles in The Historical Journal, The English Historical Review, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Shakespeare Yearbook and The Huntington Library Quarterly. He is currently completing a book provisionally entitled 'In the Absence of Shakespeare', which draws upon new archival sources to critically assess recent claims about Shakespeare's attitude towards Catholicism.

Professor Robert J.C. Young, New York University

Robert J.C. Young is Julius Silver Professor of English and Comparative Literature at New York University. He was formerly Professor of English and Critical Theory at Oxford University. He has published White Mythologies: Writing History and the West (Routledge, 1990, new edition 2004), Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Culture, Theory and Race (Routledge, 1995), Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (Blackwell, 2001), Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2003) and The Idea of English Ethnicity (Blackwell, 2007). His edited books include Untying the Text (Routledge, 1981), and, with Derek Attridge and Geoffrey Bennington, Poststructuralism and the Question of History (Cambridge, 1987). He is also General Editor of Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies (Routledge), and was a founding editor of the Oxford Literary Review.