Research at the Centre for Global American Studies

Our centre is one of the most dynamic in Britain. Our staff are at the forefront of research in Global American Studies. Our multi-disciplinary approach links history, literature, politics and cultural studies to produce innovative and challenging work. The projects below are just some of the recent projects our members have been involved in.

  • A view of Smallbrook Queensway in Birmingham

    A Movement on the Move

    The Big Ride for Palestine and the Politics of Convergence

    This post from John Munro on the Movements & Mobility website looks at how international solidarity with Palestine and local mobility justice activism can converge to address the overlapping threats to freedom that define our times. "A Movement on the Move" also represents a turn toward mobility studies in Dr Munro's research.

    A Movement on the Move
  • Print shows President Theodore Roosevelt as a constable standing between Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa with a truncheon labeled The New Diplomacy.

    Imperialism: a syllabus

    John Munro and Radhika Natarajan (Reed College) published this Public Books syllabus in 2021. A resource for students, teachers, activists, and academics, this project is now being prepared as a book manuscript under contract with Columbia University Press.

    Imperialism: a syllabus
  • A collage with bank notes a flower and scraps of other materials

    Make your own Brainard

    Celebrating the collages of artist and writer Joe Brainard, and the collaborative, experimental ethos of the New York School of poets more broadly, this project created a website where you can create your own unique collages using materials selected and cut out by Brainard himself.

    Make your own Brainard
  • Detail of a painting by Lina Zawati of a New York "One Way" street sign

    Network ​for New York School Studies

    In 2020, Rona Cran and Yasmine Shamma were awarded an AHRC Research Networking Grant to create and curate the Network for New York School Studies. The website that they built serves as a virtual meeting point for New York School poets, scholars, artists, and enthusiasts from across the world.

    Network for New York School Studies
  • Aerial view looking down on buildings for steel and iron furnaces in Alabama

    Industrialisation, Standardisation, and the Rise of US Industrial Music

    Chelsey Dykes' doctoral research looks at whether there is more to the relationship between the Industrial music genre, particularly the mainstream 1990s US scene and industrialisation.

    Drawing from the likes of Marx, Adorno, Nietzsche and Foucault, this research looks at the themes of alienation, cohesion, disillusion, violence and depression/self-destruction. It looks at the representation of industrialisation in popular culture, industrial power/process, the Industrial music genre, standardisation in popular music, affect theory/affective labour, muzak, and a case study which analyses the 1990s musical output of Nine Inch Nails.

Selected publications