Following recent scholarship (Erin G. Carlston, William J. Maxwell, Timothy Melley) that renews questions of state power, national security, and cultural production, this conference critically appraised, from a range of disciplinary perspectives, the contemporary and historical interrelations between the state and the culture industries in the United States.
Topics explored included:
- the relationship between government agencies (such as the CIA, FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Pentagon) and media formats (such as novels, film, video games, social media, news, and television series);
- the history of representations of the state and government agencies in various cultural forms;
- the historiography of critical theory (Frankfurt School, Birmingham School) and the US nation-state;
- the US state as cultural critic;
- how culture industries shape, support, or criticise US foreign policy;
- debates around cybersecurity, diplomacy, and media.
Outstanding papers were invited to appear in a special journal issue.
Assistant Professor Jade Miller
Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University
Jade L. Miller was a visitor at the US Studies Centre in June 2015. Miller is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. Before joining Wilfrid Laurier University, she held a two-year Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Tulane University. Her research focuses primarily on media industries, global media and urban studies.
Associate Professor Tricia Jenkins
Associate Professor of Film, TV and Digital Media, Bob Schieffer College of Communication, Texas Christian University
Tricia Jenkins was a visitor at the US Studies Centre in June 2015. Jenkins is Associate Professor of Film, TV and Digital Media at Bob Schieffer College of Communication, Texas Christian University. Her latest research focuses on the ways that the CIA works with Hollywood in order to boost its public image. She is the author of The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film and Television (University of Texas Press, 2012).
Professor Erin Carlston
Professor of English, University of Auckland
Erin G. Carlston visited the US Studies Centre in June 2015. She is Professor of English at the University of Auckland.
Her most recent book is Double Agents: Espionage, Literature and Liminal Citizens (Columbia University Press, 2013), on literary responses to espionage trials involving Jews, homosexual men, and communists.
She...
Professor William J. Maxwell
Professor in the Department of English and African and African American Studies, Washington University in St. Louis
William J. Maxwell is Professor in the Department of English and African and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. His scholarship addresses the ties among African American writing, political history, and transatlantic culture. He has published over forty articles and reviews, and three books.
