American Studies Research Group

The American Studies Research Group brings together scholars with expertise in American history, literature, politics and culture. The group’s members share a multi-disciplinary approach that offers a rounded understanding of the United States in national, regional and global contexts.

Northumbria University has one of the largest teams in Europe dedicated to the study of the Americas. The members of this group have particular research strengths in the study of race, diplomacy, presidential and congressional politics, civil rights, music, periodical culture, American and transatlantic modernist literature, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the transnational significance of the US South, feminist and queer literary theory, the development of California, urban history, environmental history, and the history of gender, body, and sexuality.

Members of the group have published major studies on American cultural conservatism, the early US recording industry, the British diaspora in North America, the evolution of Democratic party politics, the environmental history of California’s beaches, and evangelicals and rock music.

The group hosted the 2015 conference of the British Association of American Studies (BAAS), as well as the annual postgraduate conferences of BAAS and HOTCUS (Historians of the Twentieth Century United States), and externally-funded symposia, for example on ‘Music and Social Movements’ (2018). Our postgraduate students are leading projects and networks on Irish Americans in the Civil War and American youth. We welcome students to work with our members and contribute to a growing North East community interested in American Studies.

Our strength in American Studies is also reflected in the substantial research holdings available for students and staff. Central sources include:

Records of the Antebellum Southern Plantations
Despatches from US Consuls in Ireland
American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Papers
Huey Newton Foundation Papers (Black Panther Party Files)
Civil Rights during the Johnson Administration, 1963-1969 (Parts I-V)
FBI Files on Black Extremist Organizations
The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975
19th and 20th Century US Newspapers
African American Newspapers

Dr Patrick Andelic (patrick.andelic@northumbria.ac.uk) convenes the American Studies research group. You can find out more about our activities by following us on twitter or by reading our research newsletter.

You can also learn more about our American Studies single honours programmes and joint honours programmes with History and English Literature.

PGR Students

Jack Hodgson, Transient Youths in California, 1928 – 1942 (Supervisor: Tony Badger)

Gabriel Hogg, Race and the Labour Movement in San Francisco, 1934–1955 (Supervisor: Joe Street)

Mark Holmes, Performing Elvis: A Creative and Critical Exploration of American Post-War Popular Culture and Working-Class Masculinities in the North East of England

Lewis Kimberley, Rumour and Racial Violence in the United States, 1863 to 1908 (Supervisor: David Gleeson)

Damian Shiels, Recovering the Voices of the Union Irish: Identity, Motivation & Experience in Irish-American Civil War Correspondence, 1861-65 (Supervisor: David Gleeson)