Region, Nation, Globalization: Place in American Culture

2nd Center for Transnational American Studies (CTAS) Symposium.

Thursday, April 23

9:00  Welcome and introduction

  • Prof. Ulf Hedetoft (Dean of Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen)
  • Karl Stoltz (Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy of Denmark)
  • Martyn Bone (coordinator, Center for Transnational American Studies)

9:10 - 10:40 (KUA1, 27.0.49)  Panel session #1
Location, self-representation, and transnational America(ns)

Moderator: Christa Holm Vogelius (University of Copenhagen)

  • ‘Randolph Bourne and Raphael Hawaweeny’: the observing of dis-placed Americans in the early years of the twentieth century
    Charles Lock (University of Copenhagen)
  • ‘An Expansionist at Heart’: Cuba and U.S. Imperialism in the Autobiography of W. C. Handy
    Ryan Charlton (University of Mississippi)
  • Imagining Arab America from Detroit to Beirut: Miss Lebanon America’s self-representation in 1955
    Martina Koegeler-Abdi (University of Copenhagen)

10:40 - 11:00: Coffee break (NB: Please note next session moves from KUA1 to KUA2)

11:00 - 12:15  (KUA2, 14.1.67)  Keynote #1
From the Local to the Global: Transnational Lives and the Work of Celebrity

  • Matthew Pratt Guterl (Brown University)
    Moderator: David Brown (University of Manchester)

12.15 – 13:00  Lunch break

13:00 - 14:30 (KUA1,  27.0.49)  Panel session #2
Transnational Activism

Moderator: Martina Koegeler-Abdi (University of Copenhagen)

  • Spaces of Affinity: Community, Resistance, and Place in the Borderlands, 1913-1917
    Dave Struthers (Copenhagen Business School)
  • The ‘free voice of the South’: Cuba’s Revolutionary Radio and Hemispheric Activism
    Elizabeth Rodriguez Fielder (University of Mississippi/University of Copenhagen)
  • The Viennese ‘Regenbogenparade’ as a Performance of America Abroad
    Leopold Lippert (University of Graz/University of Salzburg)

14:30 - 14:40  Break

14:40 - 16:10 (KUA, 27.0.49)  Panel session #3
Visual Representations of Places (and Anti-Places)

Moderator: Rune Graulund (University of Southern Denmark, Odense)

  • ‘A jungle for strangeness’: Jacob Epstein’s Hester Street
    Peter Leese (University of Copenhagen)
  • Captivating the Imagination: Place in Caldecott Award-Winning Children’s Picture Books, 1938-1970
    Joe Goddard, University of Copenhagen
  • A Dead End on Lærkevej: American Suburbia as Transnational Anti-place
    Michael Madsen (University of Southern Denmark, Odense)

16:10 - 16:30  Coffee break

16:30 - 18:00 (KUA1, 27.0.49)  Panel session #4
Atlantic Studies, Latino/a studies, and The Atlantic Monthly

Moderator: Martyn Bone (University of Copenhagen)

  • “Territorial Waters: The Placing of Early Modern Atlantic Studies
    Laura M. Stevens (University of Tulsa)
  • The Atlantic Monthly, Gertrude Stein, and ‘Faraway Women
    Cathryn Halverson (University of Copenhagen)
  • Latin@ Studies Abroad: Making the Transnational International
    Jennifer A. Reimer (Bilkent University)

Friday, April 24

9:00-10:15 (KUA1, 27.0.09)  Keynote #2
Women’s Liberation and Southern Migration: Bertha Harris, June Arnold, and the Southern Lesbian-Feminist Avant-Garde

  • Jaime Harker (Sarah Isom Center for Gender Studies, University of Mississippi)
    Moderator: Martyn Bone (University of Copenhagen)

10:15-10:35: Coffee break

10:35-12:05 (KUA1, 27.0.09)  Panel session #5
The South outside the South

Moderator: Cathryn Halverson (University of Copenhagen)

  • “Consuming the South Across Borders: Race, Transnational Nostalgia, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin on Stage in Canada, 1890-1920
    Felicia Bevel (Brown University)
  • “From rural Sussex folk to rural Southern folk: transatlantic geographies of race and class in Nella Larsen’s ‘Sanctuary’
    Martyn Bone (University of Copenhagen)
  • The Red Rooster in Harlem: The Contours of Contemporary Southern and Soul Foodways
    Virginia Thomas (Brown University)

12:05 - 13:00:  Lunch break

13:00 - 14:50 (KUA1, 27.0.09)  Panel session #6
Literary Geographies from Whitman to the Beats

Moderator: Maria Damkjær (University of Copenhagen)

  • ‘A perpetual journey’: The Metaphysics of Place and Destination in Whitman’s Poetry
    Kasper Rueskov Guldberg (Aalborg University)
  • Margaret Fuller’s Transatlantic Imagination
    Christa Holm Vogelius (University of Copenhagen)
  • Everything Connects: Mapping Interpretation and Representation in the Literature and Culture of 20th Century Los Angeles
    Joseph Morton (University of Manchester)
  • Who needs religion when you have the desert?
    Bent Sørensen (Aalborg University)

14:50 - 15:30  Reception to celebrate the “American Cultures of Work” special issue of American Studies in Scandinavia and CTAS publications since the first symposium (April 2013)

15:30 - 17:00  Keynote #3
Projections of America: Transatlantic Filmmakers and the Dismantling of World War II Propaganda

  • Dr. Ian Scott (University of Manchester)
    Ian Scott’s keynote will be preceded by exclusive excerpts from Projections of America, a documentary for which Ian Scott was the historical adviser and script editor. First screened in its German version in September 2014 on ARTE in Europe, a new English language version - narrated by John Lithgow - is to be shown in the UK and USA during 2015-16 under the auspices of PBS America.

    Moderator: Joe Goddard (University of Copenhagen)

The organizers would like to express their gratitude to Carlsbergfondet, the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, and the PhD School at the Faculty of the Humanities for generous financial support of this second CTAS symposium. Special thanks too to our research partners at Brown University, the University of Manchester, and the University of Mississippi.