Beginning in 2014, the IAAS Lecture will be an annual event, hosted at a third level institution on the island of Ireland, and presented by an invited member of the IAAS on a topic of their choosing. Broad in its remit, the IAAS Lecture appeals to both academic and non-academic communities, and promotes the long-standing interest in and connection to American culture in Ireland.

It gives us great pleasure to announce that the inaugural IAAS Lecture, ‘Argument and Experiment: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays’, will be delivered by Ron Callan at University College Cork on Friday 14 March 2014, between 5pm and 6pm (reception to follow). It is no exaggeration to say that there would be no IAAS today if it were not for Ron Callan, who was Chair of the Association from 1997 to 2003, and who also served as editor of The Irish Journal of American Studies between 1995 and 2007. An expert on the poetry of William Carlos Williams, Ron recently retired from University College Dublin, where he had a formative impact on the careers of a generation of new scholars in the varied fields of American literature and culture for nearly twenty years. Before joining UCD in 1995, Ron taught at Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA (1990-92), the University of Dublin, Trinity College (1992-94), and University College Cork (1994-95). Ron is a former Fulbright Scholar and held a Visiting Scholarship at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1986.

The School of English at UCC and the IAAS are delighted to host the esteemed Ron Callan as the ideal speaker to begin what promises to be an enriching and exciting lecture series.

Often known as the punk poet of rock ‘n’ roll, legendary musician Lou Reed has died. Reed’s death, on Sunday 27^th October at his home in Long Island, was likely due to an ailment related to his recent liver transplant. He had been in frail health for several months.

The lead singer of The Velvet Underground in 1965-70, Reed’s work with the band and subsequent solo work became an influence to generations of writers and musicians who related to his unique blend of raw, dark energy, laconic irony and attention to the street-level, seamy, transgressive side of New York life that involved hard drugs, prostitution, transgendering and sadomasochism. The songs ‘I’m Waiting for the Man’ and ‘Sweet Jane’ off the Velvets’ albums The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967) and Loaded (1970) respectively, demonstrated a commitment to testing the limits of established musical arrangement and subject matter. They led to Reed’s more crafted and most famous solo album, Transformer (1973).

The deceptive depth and beauty of Reed’s songs continually pushed the boundaries of rock lyrics, connecting rock music to the avant-garde, and inspiring writers such as Williams Burroughs and musicians such as David Bowie, Patti Smith, Roxy Music, The Sex Pistols, and a generation later, Nirvana and R.E.M. Reed’s associations with the artist Andy Warhol, who had supported the Velvets and whom Reed cited as a great inspiration for his work, stemmed from a mutual understanding of the power and necessity of popular culture to connect to the people. It was Reed, along with Warhol, who helped reset the limits of what was considered artistically valuable to include both the commercial and the marginal.

Beginning his career as an American outlaw, then, Reed ended it with popular and critical acclaim, earning a place for his hand prints on Hollywood’s Rockwalk, publishing his tour diary in The New Yorker in 1996, and performing at the White House in 1998. His later years were differently musically experimental, exemplified by Reed’s release of the concept album The Raven in 2003, featuring songs after the stories and poems of Edgar Allen Poe.

Reed saw his lifelong devotion to music as an intrinsically American project, chronicling not only the darker and more dangerous and ignored aspects of contemporary life, but encompassing the whole of modern American experience. In an interview for Rolling Stone in 1987, he said: ‘All through this, I’ve always thought that if you thought of all of it as a book then you have the Great American Novel, every record as a chapter. They’re all in chronological order. You take the whole thing, stack it and listen to it in order, there’s my Great American Novel.’

Like many oeuvres that can be similarly defined, Reed’s Great American Novel is over too soon, but will no doubt be read for generations to come.

CG

The IAAS committee is pleased to announce it is accepting entries for the 2013 WTM Riches Essay Prize, closing date 31st December 2013.

The prize-winner will receive €100 in book vouchers and the winning essay will be considered for publication in the Irish Journal of American Studies.

The prize was established in 2004 to recognise and reward high-quality work being done by younger scholars in many of the areas that are covered by the term “American Studies,” including history, politics, literature, film, geography, the visual arts, architecture, and cultural / critical theory.

The competition is open to undergraduates and students in the first year of research or taught postgraduate programmes.  The following rules apply:

• Essays must be no more than 5,000 words in length (including notes)

• Essays must be written in English and typed on A4 paper

• Essays must be formatted in accordance with the MLA style manual

• Author’s name or institutional affiliation must not appear on the essay

• Author’s details must be submitted on a separate sheet

In addition to the above, authors must be members of the IAAS.

Contact Julie Sheridan for further queries: jasherid@tcd.ie

The IAAS is currently accepting nominations for its inaugural Peggy O’Brien book prize, to be presented at the IAAS National Conference in April 2013. 

Nominations are open for books published on any aspect of American Studies over the past two years (April 2011-April 2013). Authors must be IAAS members by the time of the conference to be eligible. 

For further information please contact philip.mcgowan@qub.ac.uk

Don’t forget the deadline for submissions for this year’s WTM Riches Essay Prize is fast approaching!

All submissions must be in by 1 December. 

Further details on the prize are here.

Any questions should be directed to the Chair: philip.mcgowan@qub.ac.uk