These Student Notes accompany the 2024 edition of ‘US Politics Today’, an exciting learning programme that takes place each November for students of A-level Politics.  

Former Members of the US House of Representatives – one Democrat, one Republican – share reflections from their direct experience at the heart of Washington D.C., and discuss the latest trends and events with leading academics. These conferences and events offer students the chance to hear some of the critical questions and issues in US politics come alive and leap out of the textbook, and support classroom work on key topics in A-level US Politics courses, including sessions on The Presidency, Congress, the Supreme Court, and Elections and Democracy. 

This year, former Members of Congress Cheri Bustos (D-IL, 2013-2023) and Bob Dold (R-IL, 2011-2013; 2015-2017) shared their experiences and insights of lawmaking and representing two very different congressional districts in Illinois – together with their interpretations of the Republicans’ triumph in the general election.  

Professor Andrew Moran, Rep. Bob Dold and Rep. Cheri Bustos at the British Library, 22 November 2024.

If you would like access to catch-up recordings of the conference which took place at the British Library on Friday 22 November 2024, including academic presentations and Q&As with the Former Members of Congress, please email [email protected]. Please also get in touch if you would like to register your interest in bringing a class to the live events in London in 2025. 

Student Notes 

Professor Philip Davies: The Party Political Balance in Washington

Professor Josephine Harmon: Congress

Professor Andrew Moran: The Presidency

Dr Emma Long: The Supreme Court

Other Links and Resources 

Cheri Bustos recalls the events of 6 January 2021: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/03/january-6-capitol-riot-house-democrats-525975 

CNN’s updated data on the general election: 

https://edition.cnn.com/election/2024/results/president?election-data-id=2024-PG&election-painting-mode=projection-with-lead&filter-key-races=false&filter-flipped=false&filter-remaining=false 

Congress to Campus is organized by the Eccles Institute for the Americas and Oceania, in collaboration with the USAFMC and with the support of the US Embassy, London.

Country music is certainly having a moment this year. Beyoncé surprised everyone by dropping Cowboy Carter, intentionally disrupting the racial politics of Americana. Orville Peck's interrogation of the genre's sexual and gender politics has crossed over into the mainstream. And a singer named Taylor, who started her career as a teen on Music Row in Nashville, has taken over the world. What are we to make of this country music moment? What does it tell us about the USA's understanding of itself and its culture? And is it going to last? Join us, members of the British Associate for American Studies and a panel of superfans and pop-culture experts (detailed below) to discuss more later this month. 

Why Country Music Conquered the World in 2024 takes place at the British Library, London, on Thursday 28 November 2024. Book your ticket today. 

On the panel will be:

Rachel Sykes: an Associate Professor in Contemporary Literature and Culture at the University of Birmingham, where they lead courses in gender and sexuality studies and popular culture. Their work focuses on confession in contemporary culture and recently published (separate) articles on ‘hot’ priests, Princess Diana, and confessional pop music.

Jon Ward: a Lecturer in Race and Diversity Studies at King’s College London. His research and teaching generally focuses on representations of the body in visual, literary, and popular culture. His recent work examines “misremembrance” of racialized histories and coloniality in popular culture, and the figure of the “White Saviour” in US popular film.

Robyn Shooter: a Ph.D. candidate in English and American Studies at King’s College London. Her current research examines the role of (post-)genre classifications, gender representation, and community formations in the establishment and reception of Americana music (1960 to Present).

Claire Hurley: a lecturer in American and 20th century Literature at the University of Kent. She teaches modules on race, gender and sexuality, with a special interest in Black feminism. She has a chapter in the recently published Bloomsbury collection, The Literary Taylor Swift and organised a conference on Taylor Swift entitled ‘F**k the Patriarchy’ in May this year.

Listen to our event playlist on Spotify: Cowboy Carter to Taylormania!

Beyonce Cowboy Carter Billboard on April 6, 2024 in Los Angeles, California, USA. Photo by Barry King/Alamy Stock Photo

When we hear stories of long, hot summers, decayed and grotesque settings, and flawed or troubled characters – do we think Southern Gothic literature or 21st-century country music? Themes of social climate, gender identity, and sexuality can certainly be seen in both. For those interested in exploring representations of the Southern Gothic, particularly through a lens examining contemporary racial and gender stereotypes, the Library holds Kara Walker’s Freedom: A Fable (RF.2017.a.46). Featuring Walker’s famous silhouettes, the short story tells of a woman granted emancipation from slavery but who can never escape oppression and discrimination; the book speaks directly to the persistence of negative stereotypes that emerged in performances, novels, and artworks of the 18th and 19th centuries in America.  

The artistic reinventions of Taylor Swift may have changed over the course of the last 18 years but to revisit her country era beginnings, the Library holds an early edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Gothic Romance The Scarlet Letter (12704.f.15.), published by Ticknor, Reed & Fields in Boston, Massachusetts in 1850. Telling the story of a young woman outcast from society after an illicit affair, the novel is one of the many intertextual references mentioned by the Swift in her songwriting, in this case, 2008’s Love Story. When Swift re-recorded the song in 2021, it marked her eighth number 1 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart.  

Lana Del Rey’s country album Lasso is set for release in 2025 so it seems an apt time to nod to the Americana that has inspired her creative practice. From A Streetcar Named Desire to the Beats via 150+ years of Walt Whitman; all can be found in various forms at the Library. Along with a first edition of Leaves of Grass, published anonymously in 1855 (C.58.g.4) the Library also holds this place / this hour (2019)*, an accordion-fold artists’ book commemorating the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman’s birth. Created by Brooklyn-based artist Anne Gilman, the book combines Gilman's own writings with related quotes from Whitman’s works and is a fascinating contemporary interpretation of a piece of classic Southern American literature.  

New Directions front cover for A Streetcar Named Desire, designed by Alvin Lustig, BL shelfmark: YA.1996.b.5800, and Pictures of the Gone World (Fifth Printing) by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1955) BL shelfmark 011313.t.3/1.

 

First edition of Leaves of Grass, BL shelfmark: C.58.g.4

Remember it’s free to get a Reader Pass from the British Library and access materials in London and at our Reading Room in Yorkshire.   

“America Now!” is a new series of live events exploring the current state of the USA and its place in the world. See the full events programme on See Tickets and read about the season launch in our blog from September 2024.

*Shelfmarking of this item has been delayed due to the Library’s cyber-attack in 2023; we hope to make it available to Readers as soon as possible. 

After a year’s hiatus, the Eccles Institute is delighted to announce that the Visiting Fellowship programme will be back for 2025-26. 

The lingering effects of last October’s cyber-attack on the British Library’s services mean that we are having to change elements of the programme this year, and we have developed some expedients and workarounds to support the application process.  

However, the central mission and purpose of the Visiting Fellowship programme remains the same – if you are working on any kind of fascinating and significant project about the Americas (the peoples and lands of Canada, the USA, the Caribbean, and Central and South America) that would be transformed by a few weeks of using the British Library’s collections, we urge you to apply. 

We’ve outlined a fairly comprehensive Q&A about the Fellowship programme and the application process below, but if you have any further questions please email [email protected].  

The deadline for receipt of completed applications via our online form is 17.00 GMT on Friday 20 December 2024. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application in late March, and Fellowships can be taken up after 1 April 2025. 

What is the Fellowship Programme? 

The Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship offers funding for researchers working on the Americas across the arts, humanities and social sciences, to spend some time with the British Library’s collections in London.  

Visiting Fellows will join an exciting community of writers, thinkers and makers working across academic and creative disciplines and boundaries. We expect Fellows to be largely self-directed and independent in conducting their research in the Library’s Reading Rooms, but there will be opportunities to access enhanced curatorial support where necessary, and to present ideas at workshops and events. 

What support does the Fellowship offer? 

Fellows are given financial stipends intended to support at least 3 weeks research at the British Library in London. 

The amount of funding depends on where the Fellow is travelling from.  

The current stipends levels are: 

• The UK (Within the M25): £1,000  
• The UK (Beyond the M25): £2,000  
• Europe (incl. Eire)*: £2,500  
• Rest of World: £3,000 

Fellows are expected to make their own travel and accommodation arrangements. We also cannot arrange for or guarantee any necessary travel documentation to the UK (such as visas), but we will, where possible and appropriate, provide written documentation to support Fellows’ visa applications.    

We do not currently have a distance or remote-working version of the Fellowship available, but we hope to develop this option in the coming the years.  

Who is eligible to apply? 

Anyone over the age of 18 years old, from anywhere in the world, can apply. If you are interested in the Americas, we are interested in you.

What projects are eligible? 

The Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship supports innovative and exciting use of the British Library’s collections to ask questions about the past, present and future of the Americas.  

This could be original academic research leading to a doctoral dissertation, journal article or scholarly monograph. It could also be part of the research and development for new creative work in fiction, poetry, music, dance, theatre, art, design, and everything in between. 

You can see some examples of the kinds of researchers and projects that we have supported in the past on our blog. 

There are three themes that we are particularly excited to explore through the Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship. Please note that you do not have to apply with one of these themes in mind, however, and you will not stand a greater or lesser chance of success by applying with an ‘Open Submission’. 

Americans Beyond the Americas
This theme seeks to flip the script on prevailing narratives which define the Americas by inbound migration – of invading armies, of free settlers, of bonded and enslaved workers. Not only can such narratives erase the vitality of Indigenous presences before, during and after such waves of migration, but they can also encourage insular perspectives on the Americas which ignore the significance of Americans’ movement and action in the world. This theme invites researchers to consider how various American experiences and identities have been forged through military and colonial enterprise, travel and tourism, emigration and exile, to lands beyond the Americas.

American Environments
This theme seeks to support researchers exploring the role of the environment and the natural world in the making of the Americas, and their futures. Environmental humanities has been one of the most dynamic intellectual fields to emerge over the past generation, and we are excited to support researchers asking new questions of the British Library’s collections from an eco-perspective . The Centre has recently supported researchers investigating ecological change in eighteenth-century Barbuda; the colonial origins of climate change in Canada through King George III’s topographical drawings; and an artist exploring the relationships between pigments and dyes and Jamaican identity. We also very much welcome projects that will apply eco-critical methodologies and insights to the Library’s literary collections, and which use collections such as the Library’s newspaper and government document collections to trace the development of environmental thought and policies in the Americas.

Religion and Spirituality in the Americas 
The British Library has an outstanding collection of sacred texts and objects which bear witness to religious encounters and experiences in the Americas. Many of these items - the Library’s collections of Bibles and Psalters in Indigenous American languages, for instance - are not only of historic importance but are also highly contested items. This theme invites researchers to interrogate the British Library’s collections and ask often difficult questions about the role of religion and spirituality in the making of the Americas. The Centre has supported a number of projects in American religious studies, including studies of enslaved Africans’ spirituality in North America; Muslim identity and the Nation of Islam in twentieth-century Jamaica; and Indigenous spirituality at the Guyana-Venezuela borderlands.

Although the Eccles Institute curates, researches and promotes the British Library’s Americas and Oceania collections, only projects that foreground the Americas or American experiences are currently eligible for support through the Visiting Fellowship programme. We plan to expand the scope of the programme to include Oceania over the coming years. 

How do I apply? 

Applications open on Monday 14 October 2024, and the deadline is 17.00 GMT on Friday 20 December 2024. 

Because of the impact of the cyber-attack on our catalogues and retrieval systems, we ask that applicants give detailed information about what they would like to consult if they are successful, as well as telling us about their wider project and plans for their work. 

As well as some questions about their disciplinary background and training, applicants will be asked to complete four sections about their project on the form: 

• A description of the topic or question they would like to research during their Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship at the British Library. (400 words) 
• An indication of which kinds of material they would like to focus on during your Fellowship (e.g. Newspapers, Modern and Contemporary Printed Books)
• A list of up to ten representative collection items, with Reference Numbers. Please see the answer to Question 6 for more information about searching the British Library’s collections.  
• A description of what applicants hope to learn through using these and other research resources of the British Library. (300 words) 
• An account of what you hope to do with your research. This might include plans for a publication, a performance or exhibition, or a chapter in a thesis. We are particularly interested in suggestions for how your work might inspire non-specialists or non-experts to learn more about the Americas and use the British Library. (300 words) 
• Only applications made using the online form will be accepted, and we will not look at any late submissions. We do not require references or samples of work for the application.  

How do I search the British Library’s collections? 

The majority of the Library's collection, including Printed Books, Journals, Newspapers and Magazines, and Maps, can be searched using our online interim catalogue. Applicants are strongly encouraged to look at the latest tips and advice from the British Library about how best to use the interim catalogue.  

If you wish to use Archives and Manuscript collections or Sound and Vision collections (neither of which have publicly available online catalogues currently), you can, if you wish, request a ten-minute conversation with someone from the British Library. They will then conduct a short search on your behalf and then send you, where possible, a list of relevant collection items for your consideration and potential inclusion in your application. For more information, please click here. 

Please only request a conversation with a member of the Eccles Institute team if you want support in exploring our Archives and Manuscript and Sound and Vision collections.   

The deadline to request a consultation is 17.00 GMT on Friday 6 December 2024. The deadline for consultations to take place is 17.00 GMT on Friday 13 December 2024. 

There are a range of other research guides, bibliographies and handbooks that offer insight into the British Library’s holdings (including Eccles bibliographies and the Americas and Oceania blog) that are available online, at the British Library, or in other major research libraries. 

*‘Europe’ here is taken to include Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia (formerly Macedonia), Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Vatican City (Holy See)