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Join us for Simon’s Keynote, ‘Fighting for Freedom, 1776–2026’ tomorrow at 10:45 in James Watt South, Stevenson Lecture Theatre.

This afternoon at BAAS, Professor Mia Bay (University of Cambridge) gave an excellent Keynote lecture, sponsored by the Journal of American Studies: Talking Back to Thomas Jefferson: African Americans Discuss the Founding Father, 1776-1877

The content of Bay’s keynote derives from her current book project “The Ambidexter Philosopher: Thomas Jefferson in Black Thought.” In the lecture, Bay discussed African American ideas about Thomas Jefferson from the American Revolution through the post-emancipation era.

Bay’s research demonstrates that African American commentary was engaging with Jefferson from a very early stage, and she explores Jefferson’s emergence throughout history as a complicated figure and a mouthpiece for many, and to various political ends.

Drawing on sources that include African American commentary on Jefferson in speeches, letters, books, pamphlets and other available testimony, Bay investigates the relationship between ‘early black struggles for freedom and civil rights and African American claims on American nationalism and citizenship.’

This relationship was explored in its connection with a ‘racially divided new nation’ facing a period of intense transformation, and how this ‘developed in dialogue with the party politics, the national political imaginary and the ideals of American political icons such as Thomas Jefferson.’

Thank you so much to Professor Bay for a thoughtful, well-informed and engaging Keynote.

One of this morning’s sessions was a journals workshop chaired by Professor Faye Hammill, co-editor of Modernism/modernity, the official journal of the Modernist Studies Association.

Dr Will Norman and Dr Katie McGettigan, co-editors of the Journal of American Studies (official journal for BAAS), began the workshop with an extremely informative session on their work at JAS. Some of the topics they covered included the editor role and what it involves, how to select appropriate journals for article submission, writing cover letters, navigating desk rejection, approaches to the revisions process, special issues, and the peer review process.

The session then continued with an outline by Dr Helen Gibson of her work at the European Journal of American Studies, a quarterly open access journal focusing on European views on the society, culture, history, and politics of the United States. Gibson is editor of the history, social sciences, and international relations strand of EJAS. Though catering to Americanists of all generations, the journal stands out for its active encouragement of doctoral and post-doctoral students, and it was fascinating to hear the similarities and differences between ways of working and approaches to submission at both EJAS and JAS.

Dr Will Rees then spoke generously about his experience as an early-career researcher in publishing an article with EJAS. It was useful and engaging to hear an author’s perspective on the topics just introduced by the rest of the panel.

Moving on, questions were fielded by Dr Chris Gair and included a wide array of topics from the peer review process to AI policies and approaches to transforming dissertations and PhD chapters into articles for journal submission.

Thank you very much to the panel and to attendees for a very stimulating discussion.

Welcome from BAAS day 2!

We are getting ready for the first panels to begin. In the meantime, some more key events throughout the day are as follows:

The Journal of American Studies Keynote will commence at 13:00. Professor Mia Bay will present on “Talking Back to Thomas Jefferson: African Americans Discuss the Founding Father, 1776–1877” in Boyd Orr LT1.

At 16:15, the BAAS AGM & ‘Academic Freedom and American Studies in the Age of Trump’ will begin in Boyd Orr A.

From 18:00 in Hunter Halls, join us for the Drinks Reception/ banquet, buffet, and bar, with Jon Ritchie & That Swing Sensation — Scotland’s record-breaking Big Swing Band.

See you later!

After registration, BAAS attendees set off from Hunter Halls to this morning’s various panels: Counterinsurgency and US Empire; Biography, Memory, and the Cold War Transatlantic Relationship; Intersections of Care, Justice, and Sexuality; Urban Histories and Environments; Race, Violence, and Mourning in US-Scottish Relations; Federal Funding for 20th Century American Literature; The American Cultural Imagination; and Regional and National Mythmaking.

From these diverse panels, we then convened in the Boyd Orr to listen to Professor Sinéad Moynihan’s fascinating Eccles Centre Keynote Lecture: ‘Author, Editor, Agent: The “Institutional Turn” and Mid-Century Magazines.’

As the title suggests, Moynihan presented research on the “Institutional Turn” in mid-century magazines, exploring the roles of the author, the editor, and the agent respectively. Moynihan introduced the concept of ‘speculative editing,’ a practice in which an individual editor makes substantial revisions to an author’s work before showing it to colleagues in order to give the work a better chance of appeasing in-house colleagues and therefore increasing the chances of acceptance. Editors like Rachel MacKenzie (fiction editor of The New Yorker between 1956–79) engaged in this type of preliminary editing, a ‘good faith’ practice which has the potential to position the author at a disadvantage, particularly in cases where payment would depend on the approval of such revisions.

As an example of this editorial practice, Moynihan showed MacKenzie’s suggested revisions of Benedict Kiely’s “The Wild Boy”, which included an extensive array of deletions and structural edits. Most of the edits were retained, suggesting that Kiely was at least somewhat satisfied, yet some of the cuts, such as a long-winded introductory paragraph, were restored in later publications. For some authors like Ann Petry, whose story was not accepted for publication at the time, the fact that both agent and editor liked and were supportive of the story meant more than its acceptance and publication.

Moving on from discussion of the editor to that of the agent, Moynihan reflected on mid-century dismissive attitudes towards the agent role, occupied mainly by white women, as ‘administrivia’. These and other attitudes were reflected variously in metaphors at the time, some of which persisted, whether through gendered metaphors like ‘middlemen’ or the agent as ‘maternal’; the ‘romance/matchmaking’ metaphor; or through more overt derogatory metaphors like ‘bloodsuckers’, ‘parasites’, and even ‘corrupters of innocents’.

To present a simplified version of Moynihan’s concluding remarks, the often hidden labour of the editor/agent was reflected upon, as well as the role of the author in the publication of their work as one which is not isolated, but complex and collaborative.

Thank you to Professor Moynihan and to all other speakers today so far. Coach transport will leave for Reception at 17:30 from campus, and a group will be walking if you would like to join them.

Welcome from a very sunny, roadwork-free Glasgow!

This morning marks the beginning of the 71st annual British Association for American Studies conference, the first in Glasgow since 1999.

2026 also marks the 575th anniversary of the University of Glasgow , so we are delighted to be your conference hosts this year.

First panels commence at 12:45 and, along with a packed programme of papers, today’s highlights include the Eccles Institute for the Americas and Oceania Keynote lecture, ‘Author, Editor, Agent: The “Institutional Turn” and Mid-Century Magazines’ delivered by Professor Sinéad Moynihan. This will begin at 14:10 in Boyd Orr LT1. The conference reception at Glasgow City Chambers starts at 18:15. See you there.

Follow along for updates throughout the conference.