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IAAS Call for Nominations – Executive Committee

Posted on by Sarah McCreedy

IAAS Call for Nominations for positions on the Executive Committee

 

The Irish Association for American Studies is calling for nominations for the following positions on the Executive Committee:

 

Postgraduate caucus co-chair

EAAS Representative

Ordinary member

 

Please note that in accordance with the ethos of the IAAS, the committee especially welcomes nominations for members from under-represented groups, backgrounds and ethnicities.

 

Ideally, we are looking for executive committee members who have experience and familiarity with our activities, ideals, and membership. There are many ways to get involved with the IAAS, and new members are very welcome at association events.

 

  • Nominations must be made by a member or members of the IAAS
  • Nominees must be members of the IAAS
  • We accept self-nominations
  • All executive committee members, aside from fulfilling duties specific to their role, will be expected to attend all IAAS committee meetings throughout the year (January, April [AGM], June, September, November [PGR conference])
  • The positions will be elected by members of the IAAS during the AGM (30th April 2022)
  • Please email your nominations or any queries to our Secretary Sarah McCreedy, at info@iaas.ie by 25th April 2022.

 

Postgraduate caucus co-chair general responsibilities

  • Attendance at all IAAS committee meetings (January, April [AGM], June, September, November [PGR conference])
  • Assistance with widening the reach of the IAAS via own networks
  • Working with their fellow Postgraduate caucus co-chair to provide a report at committee meetings on activities and feedback from the Postgraduate members of the IAAS
  • Running with their fellow co-chair the annual IAAS Postgraduate symposium (November).
  • The term of the appointment is two years, renewable.

 

EAAS Representative general responsibilities

  • Attendance at all IAAS committee meetings (January, April [AGM], June, September, November [PGR conference])
  • Attendance at EAAS Board meetings as the IAAS representative to the Board with voting rights on behalf of the IAAS. Upcoming Board meetings: 2023 Debrecen, Hungary (30 March 2023, ahead of the Women’s Symposium); 2024 Munich, Germany (c.3/4 April 2024, ahead of 70th Anniversary EAAS Conference); 2025 Karlstad, Sweden (April, ahead of the Women’s Symposium); 2026 Bologna, Italy (ahead of the 2026 EAAS Conference)
  • Each EAAS Board representative has a vote on EAAS policy issues and for candidacies for the 4 EAAS Officer positions
  • Each EAAS Board representative from a national or regional association is eligible to stand for election to an Officer position: eligibility depends solely on being a national or regional association representative at the relevant EAAS Board
  • Each EAAS Board representative receives a per diem of €100 for attending meetings
  • Representatives to the EAAS Board can serve a maximum of two consecutive terms as their national or regional association representative
  • The term of the appointment is four years, renewable.

 

Ordinary member general responsibilities

  • Attendance at all IAAS committee meetings (January, April [AGM], June, September, November [PGR conference])
  • Assistance with widening the reach of the IAAS via own networks
  • Input into the workings, activities, and events of the IAAS (including attendance at/contribution to events where appropriate)
  • The term of the appointment is two years, renewable.

 

Call for IAAS Social Media Officer

Posted on by Sarah McCreedy

IAAS Social Media Officer

The Irish Association for American Studies is expanding year by year, hosting international events and attracting members far beyond the island of Ireland. We are currently seeking a social media officer to assist with running our Social Media accounts and updating our website regularly. 

We regret that the role is unpaid, although comes with benefits. None of our committee members are paid for their work for the IAAS.

 

The IAAS is committed to promoting inclusivity and diversity, and welcomes applications from minority and under-represented groups.

 

The Social Media Officer:

  • The social media officer will ideally be a current postgraduate student and member of the IAAS. The idea behind the position is to give members an opportunity to get more involved in the Association
  • The officer will ideally have experience with running social media accounts, websites, and platforms such as WordPress and Canva

 

Responsibilities: 

(We also welcome suggestions from the officer with regard to improvements for the website, as well as feedback on their role as it progresses)

  • Liaise directly with the IAAS secretary
  • Co-design, publish and promote (using Canva) the IAAS newsletter
  • Post relevant news items on iaas.ie, Twitter, and Facebook groups (the officer will not be expected to perform any major site maintenance)
  • Check relevant job sites for American Studies vacancies and post details accordingly

 

Commitments/requirements:

  • No more than 1-2 hours of work per week
  • No travel is involved
  • The initial term for the role is 12 months, renewable. (Re-appointment cannot be guaranteed.)

 

Benefits:

  • Free access to all IAAS events, including conferences and symposia
  • Build a research network of Americanists and work with a friendly and dedicated team
  • Enhance your professional development and CV

 

To express your interest, please send a one-page cover letter and brief C.V. to the IAAS Secretary, Sarah McCreedy, at info@iaas.ie.

Online Symposium: Reading Shirley Jackson in the Twenty-First Century

Posted on by Sarah McCreedy

 

The School of English, Trinity College Dublin, in conjunction with the Trinity Long Room Hub, are delighted to be hosting a live online symposium on the twentieth-century American writer Shirley Jackson on Tuesday 14th December, from 5-8pm (Irish time).

 

Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) is perhaps still best known for her short story “The Lottery” (1948) and her horror novel The Haunting of Hill House (1959), but her work also encompassed psychological thrillers, domestic humour, children’s writing, and a variety of short fiction, as well as cultural commentaries and advice for budding writers. After decades of relative critical neglect, Jackson’s critical and cultural standing has been transformed by a surge of academic and popular interest. This symposium explores Jackson’s current literary and cultural standing and asks, “Where next for Jackson studies, both within Ireland and globally?”

 

The symposium will consist of a mixture of live online Zoom panels as well as pre-recorded presentations, discussions, and written material, which will be uploaded to the website and made available to attendees to view in their own time. Asynchronous content will be available on the website (https://shirleyjackson21stcentury.wordpress.com) from 7th December 2021.

 

Registration for the live event is free and open to all. Undergraduate and postgraduate students are more than welcome. To register, go to: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/whats-on/details/event.php?eventid=156735347

 

To view the programme for the live event, and to access the pre-recorded/ asynchronous content, see: https://shirleyjackson21stcentury.wordpress.com/.

 

Join our Discord discussion: https://discord.gg/2UjjYrtpAQ.

Please contact

shirleycon2021@gmail.com

with any queries.

DICE Network – Mission Statement

Posted on by Sarah McCreedy

Mission Statement

22 May 2021

 

The DICE Network (Decolonial, Indigenous, and Critical Ethnic Studies Network of the European Association of American Studies [EAAS]) is committed to creating discussions amongst, and connecting, scholars working in these fields. Inherent to the network’s approach is an inclusive participation of our members in the direction of our network and critical a focus on Indigenous, Black, Latinx, non-whitestream, anti- and decolonial scholarship. We aim to create a multi-institutional platform which facilitates deliberations and exchanges on research in decolonial, Indigenous, and critical ethnic studies being undertaken in Europe, on methodological queries and considerations on working in these fields in a European context and / or as Europeans, as well as on increasing connections with our colleagues in North America who work in these and related fields.

 

We thus welcome anyone who works or is interested in:

  • Decolonial and anti-colonial studies
  • Indigenous studies
  • Critical Ethnic and anti-racist studies
  • Black, African-American and / or Africana studies
  • Latinx studies
  • Asian-American and/or Asian-European studies
  • Migration studies
  • Settler-colonial studies
  • Intersectional studies
  • Everyone who works and/ or is interested in related fields 

 

We will hold our first ever network meeting at the 2022 EAAS conference which will take place in Madrid on the 6th-8th April 2022. We will hold at least one network-sponsored panel and one roundtable for which we will circulate a CfP shortly. Future events and publications will keep our conversations and deliberations developing.

 

Anybody interested in joining this EAAS network and putting their name on our mailing list, please contact us at DICEnetworkEAAS@gmail.com by sending your name, email address, and institutional affiliation, as well as your research interests. We promise to keep the number of messages to a minimum while aiming to circulate calls for papers and/or submissions and any relevant network information.

 

All suggestions on the network’s functioning, focus, topics, or activities are welcome.

Thank you for your interest!

 

Best wishes,

 

The DICE Board

Jonathan Ward, Aleksandra Izgarjan, Timothy Petete, and Cécile Hei

Irish Journal of American Studies Positions

Posted on by Sarah McCreedy

 

The Irish Journal of American Studies (IJAS Online) is seeking to fill two positions:

  • Co-Editor-in-Chief
  • Marketing & Reviews Editor

The Irish Journal of American Studies is an internationally respected, peer-reviewed, open access journal. It is the official journal of the Irish Association for American Studies (the all-Ireland scholarly association for the study of the United States and the Americas), and has published since 1992. It currently publishes issues annually at http://ijas.iaas.ie/ featuring articles, reviews and interviews on topics including history, literature, film, art, music, media, and politics. The previous Editor-in-Chief David Coughlan is stepping down, with the previous Marketing & Reviews Editor Tim Groenland moving to the position of Editor-in-Chief.

The journal is seeking a candidate to share the Editorship as well as a new Marketing & Reviews Editor. Both posts will run for three years, with the possibility of renewal. The roles are briefly outlined below, and we hope to fill both by September 2021; we anticipate a handover period, provisionally scheduled for the final weeks of August. Excellent editorial, organisational and communication skills are essential for both posts. An interest in academic publishing and research expertise in American Studies are also essential.

No salary is available for either role, as the journal is entirely volunteer-run. The nature of scholarly publishing means that the work will not be distributed evenly throughout the year, but we estimate that the Co-Editor-in Chief role will require a commitment of 2 hours per week, with the Marketing & Reviews Editor requiring 1 hour per week. The role also comes with a non-executive position on the IAAS committee, and the Editor-in-Chief is thus expected to attend the four committee meetings each year; attendance can be alternated between the Co-Editors.

The IJAS is committed to equity and inclusion, and we encourage expressions of interest from under-represented groups. Both roles will require regular consultation and coordination with the wider editorial team, but possibilities for role-sharing may be considered in the case of the Marketing & Reviews Editor position so as to accommodate varying responsibilities and workloads.

To apply, please send the following to irishjournalofamericanstudies@gmail.com by midnight on August 12th, 2021:

  • One-page cover letter outlining your interest in the role, skills, and experience
  • CV

Please direct any informal enquiries to the same address.

Outline of Roles:

Co-Editor-in-Chief

  • Working with Co-Editor-in-Chief Dr Tim Groenland to bring articles to publication;
    • identifying peer reviewers (with the assistance of the Editorial Board), liaising with reviewers, synthesising reviewer reports
    • Communicating with authors, working with authors on copy-edits, managing submission and revision deadlines
    • Publishing to the IJAS Online platform; formatting according to journal guidelines, sourcing suitable images, adapting content to WordPress requirements as needed
  • Maintaining and improving access to the journal;
    • Managing the journal’s website http://ijas.iaas.ie/ (e.g. updating menus and lists of Books for Review)
    • Preparing content for (and communicating with) JSTOR, formatting articles for print
  • Planning future issues and strategy in collaboration with Dr Groenland and the IJAS Editorial Board (a diverse supporting network of Americanist scholars in Ireland and beyond)
  • Mentoring early-career writing

Marketing & Reviews Editor 

  • Commissioning reviews, liaising with reviewers and publishers of books available for review, managing deadlines and review schedules
  • Preparing reviews for publication;
    • Editing, communicating with authors on approval for changes
    • Copy-editing and formatting reviews, liaising with the Co-Editors-in-Chief on publication
  • Marketing:
    • Liaising with IAAS Secretary to promote new articles & reviews in newsletter, and with American Studies conference organisers as well as local departments where appropriate to advertise the journal
    • Managing the journal’s social media account(s) (Twitter, at present)

 

 

W. A. Emmerson Lecture 2021

Posted on by Catherine Gander

‘Trauma and Naturalism in the Later Novels of Toni Morrison and Philip Roth’

Dr Alan Gibbs

The IAAS was honoured to host Dr Alan Gibbs for the 2021 W. A. Emmerson lecture on June 2nd. 

The lecture was delivered online, followed by a lively and illuminating Q&A. It can be watched back via our YouTube channel. 

Many thanks again to Dr Gibbs for such a fantastic lecture!

Watch the lecture