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.
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.
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.
The College of Arts & Humanities and Andrew Hook Centre for American Studies at the University of Glasgow are delighted to welcome you to the 71st annual British Association for American Studies conference, to be held from Thurs 9th to Sat 11th April 2026. We look forward to welcoming the international American Studies community to our beautiful West End campus. The Andrew Hook Centre for American Studies will be running their blog throughout the conference. It will feature any real-time updates, news from around the conference, interviews and more.
To end an excellent day, we finished with a round table, asking What Trocchi Means to Me and Why He Remains Important Now.
Thank you to Calum Barnes, Dr Eleanor Bell, Dr Jonathan Evans, and to attendees, for their stimulating contributions.
Thanks also to Lucy Lauder, Dr Corey Gibson and Dr Chris Gair for organising and facilitating this symposium, celebrating 100 years of Alexander Trocchi, the notorious Scottish Beat writer.
‘Merlin, Sigma, Scotland: Alexander Trocchi and Literary Magazines’, Dr. Eleanor Bell (University of Strathclyde).
After the second panel, Dr. Bell delivered a keynote on Trocchi and Literary Magazines, covering a wide range of material and triggering conversation around Trocchi’s ‘dirty books’ and teaching Trocchi today.
DrEleanor Bell is Senior Lecturer in Scottish Literature at the University of Strathclyde. She is the author of Questioning Scotland: Literature, Nationalism, Postmodernism (2004) and co-editor of Scotland in Theory: Reflections on Culture and Literature (2004), as well as two co-edited books on the Scottish sixties (The International Writers’ Conference Revisited: Edinburgh, 1962 (2012) and The Scottish Sixties: Reading, Rebellion, Revolution? (2013). She was founding co-editor (with Scott Hames) of the International Journal of Scottish Literature from 2006-2010. Her monograph Scottish Literary Magazine Culture from 1950 to 2000: Beatniks in the Kailyard is forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press.
By this afternoon, our second panel was well underway, and began with a fascinating presentation by freelance writer, journalist, author and publisher, Mike Small. Small presented on ‘Alexander Trocchi and Scotland’s Alternative Media’, which led to interesting discussion relating, among other things, to self-publishing in Scotland today, from small and independent presses to zines and DIY publishing culture.
Following Small’s presentation was a spoken word performance by actress Sarah Collier, reading from both Trocchi’s letters and Aimée Keeble’s Erasure Poems. Keeble is a writer, with a Master of Letters in Creative Writing from Glasgow, and is the grand-niece of Alexander Trocchi.
Following Collier’s captivating performance was further discussion surrounding performance, erasure, and Trocchi’s place as a poet and as a Scottish Beat writer.
Between panels, Trocchi at 100 offered a unique opportunity to view a selection of work by, and related to, Alexander Trocchi. With thanks to the National Library of Scotland for the display. Scroll for a (small) selection of work on show.
An attractive copy of The Outsiders (1961), published by Signet, New York, which collects “Young Adam” and four short stories. [above]
Hands off Alexander Trocchi, Guy Debord. A single sheet demanding Trocchi’s release from jail in New York (Internationale situationniste, Paris, 1960).
Copies of Merlin, edited by Trocchi. In this afternoon’s keynote address, Eleanor Bell gave some useful insight into Trocchi’s involvement with Merlin, and with other editorial projects. Pictured above: issues 1, 1952; issue 3, 1952/3; and vol. 2, no.3 1954.
New Saltire, June 1963. No.8. A magazine including Trocchi’s essay ‘Invisible insurrection of a million minds’.
Also included in the display were several first editions of Trocchi’s work, other works edited by, about, and featuring Trocchi, interesting and attractive editions, and accompanying footage from the NLS moving image archive.
American Studies at Glasgow 