American studies in the United Kingdom

American studies as an academic discipline is taught at some British universities and incorporated in several school subjects, such as history, politics and literature. While the United States of America is the focus of most study, American Studies can also include the study of all the Americas, including South America and Canada. The methods of study are interdisciplinary, and students and researchers come from many fields, including anthropology, cultural studies, history, literature, film studies, gender studies and economics. Because of Britain's long association with the Americas, there is also a history of comment and analysis of the geography, culture and peoples of America, from Sir Walter Raleigh and Charles Dickens to Rudyard Kipling and Alistair Cooke. American studies as an academic discipline is taught at some British universities and incorporated in several school subjects, such as history, politics and literature. While the United States of America is the focus of most study, American Studies can also include the study of all the Americas, including South America and Canada. The methods of study are interdisciplinary, and students and researchers come from many fields, including anthropology, cultural studies, history, literature, film studies, gender studies and economics. Because of Britain's long association with the Americas, there is also a history of comment and analysis of the geography, culture and peoples of America, from Sir Walter Raleigh and Charles Dickens to Rudyard Kipling and Alistair Cooke. American Studies in Britain is closely related to the discipline in America, and many degree programmes also involve a period of study in the U.S. or Canada, ranging in time from a month to an academic year. However, an 'outsider's' view of a foreign culture, a variety of intellectual trends, such as the Birmingham school of cultural studies, and institutional arrangements often lead to a different approach to that pursued in the U.S. The support of the U.S. Embassy and other official U.S. bodies and awards also shows that American Studies has also been used to promote closer ties and greater understanding between the two countries. Because of Britain's involvement in North America, American Studies has a long history as an activity in British Higher Education. This history has given American Studies in Britain a different flavour to that pursued in the U.S. The earliest accounts of the British colonisation and exploration of North America may be considered as the first contributions to this field, which now incorporates the output of the work of many university departments, scholarly journals and independent scholars. Many libraries, museums and archives in the United Kingdom also support such work. American Studies as an academic course of study is generally considered to have begun in the U.S. in the late 1930s, at a time when little research or study was undertaken in Britain. During World War II, the British government encouraged the study of America and the American government began to see the need to support American Studies abroad during the Cold War, in the belief that 'the more people knew about the United States, the more they would come to admire its political and economic values, and its foreign policy'. In the early 1950s, the Rockefeller Foundation and the United States Education Commission (USEC) organised a series of Anglo-American conferences, which became known as the 'Fulbright Conferences' after the Fulbright Act of 1946. The British Association for American Studies (BAAS) was founded at the fourth conference in 1955; many of its members were influenced by the experiences of exchange programmes with the United States, such as the Commonwealth Fellowships, and contacts with Rhodes Scholars, and realised that much American culture and literature was unknown or misunderstood. The impetus to form the Association came from the Cultural Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in London, Dick Taylor, who wrote to the members of the eventual founding committee that he knew of 'concrete interest' from an unnamed American foundation that wished to support the founding of an American Studies association. Taylor also proposed the founding of a centre for American Studies at Ditchley Park, with an American school and conference centre along the lines of the British School at Athens. The fledgling Association was unable to support this venture and, concerned with their independence from the U.S. State Department, unsuccessfully sought funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. Taylor's successor at the Embassy, Myron Koenig, offered a $20,000 grant to survey British library resources and $100,000 to establish the society. Membership fees provided a small income, and although BAAS accepted the grant for the library survey, they were able to decline the larger sum in the interests of intellectual and political independence. In 1956, the society received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. BAAS has continued to provide a focus for American Studies in Britain, organising a series of conferences and administrating various awards and funds for research. American Studies has always been influenced to some degree by contemporary politics. For example, the purported Special relationship between the two countries has contributed to a long tradition of scholarly exchange and support from U.S. organisations, such as the United States Department of State for the study of America in Britain. During World War II, The British Government also sought to 'counter the Hollywood image of America as a land of violence and corruption by a vigorous campaign to develop American studies'. As noted above, the development of the British university system and interest in the U.S. as a result of the Cold War and increasingly dominant U.S. popular culture led to the development of several American Studies courses at institutions including the universities of Keele and East Anglia. More recently, in 2004 the Guardian columnist, Polly Toynbee suggested in an article revealingly called 'A degree in bullying and self-interest? No thanks' that the Iraq war and the so-called 'War on Terror' had led to a positive resistance to American Studies. Others, such as Shelley Fisher Fishkin argued that American Studies needs more transnational perspectives and that the U.S.'s engagement with the world demands more, not less, study. University growth allowed the expansion of American Studies in Britain during the 1960s and 1970s. By the 1980s, the European Association for American Studies estimated that there were at least two thousand Americanists employed in Britain and the Continent. Most major British universities could boast a historian of the U.S. or a literature specialist. American Studies also began to extend its range, incorporating Film Studies and the newer fields of Cultural and Gender Studies. Americanists also became to seek the 'meaning of America' outside of the traditional areas of political institutions and dominant social class, but in marginalized groups. During the 1980s, as Pells comments, the canon became 'contemporary, ethnic, and feminist'. The decade also witnessed a tranche of retirements from the profession, which, because of financial constraints on universities, were not replaced. Several key figures, such as Marcus Cunliffe, left Britain for American university posts. By the early 1990s, some American Studies departments were closed. The end of the Cold War in the late 1980s marked a revival in interest in the remaining superpower, and student numbers rose, along with numbers of professors. Most notable was the Rothermere Centre at Oxford (established 2001.) This revival was generally maintained until the controversial election of Bush in 2000, then 9/11, the subsequent 'War on Terror' and the invasion of Iraq which put together encouraged a critical attitude to the United States in the public sphere which eventually had a negative effect on recruitment and caused a number of programmes to close (for instance at Reading) or amalgamate with English, History or other departments (see above reference to Polly Toynbee.) With the election of Barack Obama in 2008 sparking renewed interest in the United States and its history and culture, the British Association for American Studies reported increasing demand for American-themed modules in many undergraduate degree programmes and a steady rise in applications to American Studies courses. That trend was exemplified when, in 2012, the announcement was made by Northumbria University of the most ambitious new initiative in American Studies for more than a generation, spearheaded by Brian Ward, former professor of American Studies at the University of Manchester. The first cohort of American Studies undergraduates was admitted to Northumbria in September 2013.