The annual NASA student conference—the Amerikanistendag—was hosted this year by our colleagues at Leiden University and held on Friday, 14 June.
The Amerikanistendag serves as a forum for students and recent graduates at the BA, (Res)MA, and PhD level to present their research to fellow students and scholars of American Studies in the Netherlands. It is also a fantastic opportunity for students and scholars working on related topics throughout the country to meet up, learn from each other’s work, and take bearing of the current state of the field. The idea is to showcase individual work and to gather current interests and methods from a new generation of American Studies scholars.
In practice, the Amerikanistendag feels like a big family reunion, and this year was no different! The event included 14 student presentations plus a keynote, and was attended by students and staff from every American Studies program in the Netherlands. We even had the pleasure of including presentations from two student researchers who are based abroad (but with Leiden links): Maria Wiegel from the University of Cologne and Ronnie Guy from Tel Aviv University.
The day started with words of welcome by NASA Board members Damian Pargas (Leiden University), Markha Valenta (Utrecht University and NASA president) and Maarten Zwiers (University of Groningen), as well as the new editor of the graduate student journal Netherlands American Studies Review, Nic Turner, and representatives from the John Adams Institute, who announced the JAI’s annual essay prize in American history.
This was followed by a fantastic keynote lecture by Katy Hull (University of Amsterdam), titled “Make America Great Again, Part 1: The First Fans of Fascism.” Departing from the current crisis of democracy in which the US finds itself, Katy employed a historical lens to shed light on American supporters of Mussolini’s fascist Italy in the 1920s and 1930s. She explained why certain groups in America (including journalists and writers) applauded the rise of fascism in Italy and viewed it as a more efficient form of government than American democracy. Katy’s talk was followed by a lively discussion with the audience about the subjects of her research, but also about other anti-democratic trends throughout American history and in contemporary America.
During the lunch break an optional roundtable was held that was attended by most participants, titled “American Studies and the War in Gaza.” The roundtable was led by Markha Valenta and entailed a plenary discussion about the ways in which universities, and American Studies scholars in particular, should respond to the ongoing humanitarian crisis. The tone of the roundtable was respectful and the discussions were fruitful.
The student presentations were held in the afternoon, after lunch. The 14 presentations were divided into 4 panels. The papers in Panel 1, chaired by Jessie Morgan-Owens (Leiden University) were loosely related, as they mostly involved 19th-century America or African Americans in some capacity, from Thoreau’s “civil disobedience” to Confederate symbols and memorial groups. Panel 2, chaired by Damian Pargas (Leiden University), included papers that all dealt in some capacity with the issue of “truth” in American culture, from alternative histories in the work of Jim Lehrer to exposing the truth of Black experiences in Vietnam in Spike Lee’s film Da 5 Bloods to the construction of conspiracy theories and falsehoods in the Trump social media landscape. Panel 3 was chaired by Mike Schmidli (Leiden University). The papers in this panel also had a common red thread, namely American politics during the Cold War. Topics ranged from American women in the postwar US occupation of Japan to the Nixon presidency to the Fulbright Program in the Soviet Union to NASA and the Space Shuttle program. Finally, Panel 4, which was chaired by Sara Polak (Leiden University), explored American literary culture through the eyes of racial and ethnic minorities. Papers included examinations of racial oppression and the construction of Jewish-American identities in various works of fiction.
The day ended with a lively drinks reception, providing everyone with an opportunity to mingle and socialize before catching their trains back home. All in all it was another successful Amerikanistendag! We’re all looking forward to the next one in 2025.
Download the day’s full program here.