AMST News

The Centre for American Studies and the School of History at the University of Kent are delighted to announce this year’s Bolt Lecture on Thursday 22 November at 6.30pm in Grimond Building, Lecture Theatre 3. Entitled, Our Beloved Kin; War, Captivity and Native resistance during the ‘First Indian War’ the lecture will be given by Professor Lisa Brooks of Amherst College, Massachusettes.

All are welcome at this public lecture and a drinks reception beforehand at 5.45pm in the main foyer of Grimond Building.

Abstract of the lecture
Lisa Brooks recovers a complex picture of war, captivity, and Native resistance during the “First Indian War” (later named King Philip’s War) by relaying the stories of Weetamoo, a female Wampanoag leader, and James Printer, a Nipmuc scholar, whose stories converge in the captivity of Mary Rowlandson. Through both a narrow focus on Weetamoo, Printer, and their network of relations, and a far broader scope that includes vast Indigenous geographies, Brooks leads us to a new understanding of the history of colonial New England and of American origins. Brooks’s pathbreaking scholarship is grounded not just in extensive archival research but also in the land and communities of Native New England, reading the actions of actors during the seventeenth century alongside an analysis of the landscape and interpretations informed by tribal history.

Speaker biography
Lisa is currently a Professor at Amherst College. She teaches courses in Native American studies, early American literature and comparative American Studies. Before Amherst, she was John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. As a writer, literary scholar and historian, Lisa works at the crossroads of early American literature & history, geography and Indigenous studies. In her writing and teaching, she asks questions about how we see the spaces known as “New England” and “America” when we turn the prism of our perception to divergent angles. Indigenous methodologies, including a focus on language, place, and community engagement, are crucial to her research, as is deep archival investigation.

Hosted by the Centre for American Studies, The Cartographic Imagination: Art, Literature and Mapping in the United States, 1945-1980 will take place at the University of Kent’s Paris School of Arts and Culture between the 18-19 May 2018.

The conference explores the role of mapping in post-war American art and literature. With keynote lectures by David Herd (University of Kent), Stephen Collis (Simon Frazer University), and Lize Mogel (Independent Artist), it also includes speakers from over ten countries and a variety of disciplines – all aimed at creating dialogues between art history and literary studies. The conference is funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art, the British Association for American Studies, the Centre for American Studies at the University of Kent and the Départment d’Etudes Anglophones at the University of Strasbourg. For further details, please see the conference webpage.

The narrative of the new Ubisoft video game Far Cry 5 speaks to what seems a powerful political moment, of an American nation literally at war with itself.

In an article published recently on The Conversation, The Centre for America’s Dr John Wills explores how the new video game Far Cry 5 speaks to today’s divided America:

You are a rookie law enforcement officer, on board a helicopter heading into the main compound of Project at Eden’s Gate, a religious cult operating across a huge stretch of Montana. A towering statue of the militia’s leader, Joseph Seed, rises into the sky. With a warrant for the arrest of Seed, you navigate a warren of buildings patrolled by aggressive white men and their snapping dogs, before entering a white-boarded church. A haunting rendition of Amazing Grace plays in the background as you meet Seed for the first time, in an almost dream-like sequence. From there, you are transported to an intense face-off between militia extremists and federal officials.

This is what you would experience on playing the new Ubisoft video game Far Cry 5 (2018). Its story speaks to what seems a powerful political moment, of an American nation literally at war with itself.

While already a huge financial success (with reports of nearly five million copies sold in its first week of release), Ubisoft’s title has been widely criticised for its overt lack of political message. The Montreal-based company may have promoted its game as a serious take on religious and political radicalism, but so far journalists have labelled Far Cry 5 a title unwilling to squarely take aim at Trump’s America, or speak directly to matters of contemporary racism, endemic gun culture, or right-wing extremism. Instead, reviewers have called it “totally unconvincing” (PC Gamer), “a missed opportunity” (The Outline), and a game that ultimately “says pretty much nothing about” modern America (The Guardian).

Are we being too harsh on the game? After all, most entertainment companies hype their products. Equally, would a film or novel tackling religious cults be criticised for not engaging with the wider problems of Trump’s America? In my view, video games do not need to make blatant political statements to be considered art or satire, nor do they need strong messages to have impact. Ultimately, gamers make their own readings and experiences, without the need to be constantly “billboarded”. Click to continue reading this article on ‘The Conversation’.

Dr John Wills is Reader in American History and Culture at the University of Kent’s Centre for American Studies. He will be exhibiting his latest research on videogame representations of the United States at the British Academy Summer Showcase on 22-23 June 2018.

A Public one-day symposium on Native American art will take place in Bristol on 6 June from 09.30-17.30.

The event has been organised by academics running the Beyond the Spectacle project, led by the University of Kent, which is investigating the impact of Native North American visitors to Britain over the last 400 years.

The keynote speaker at the event will be Native American artist Marla Allison (Laguna Pueblo) and the symposium will end with the official opening of her exhibition Painter from the Desert at the Rainmaker Gallery in Bristol.

Other speakers at the symposium include George Alexander (Muscogee (Creek)), Max Carocci, Stephanie Pratt (Dakota and Anglo-American), Joanne Prince, Pat Pruitt (Laguna Pueblo and Chiricahua Apache), Robbie Richardson (Mi’kmaq), Sarah Sense (Chitimacha / Choctaw), and Coll Thrush.

Tickets for the event are £40 and include lunch and refreshments. It will take place at the Lecture Theatre 1, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, Bristol University
43 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UU.

Tickets and more information are available at: https://research.kent.ac.uk/beyondthespectacle/events