Jan Olsson and Kingsley Bolton – American Studies Speakers Series

Departments of Film and English Go West in Joint Venture

 

 

With its focus on popular American culture, the Speakers Series sees two of the largest departments within the Faculty of Humanities collaborating. 

“It seems natural to work together on American popular culture given the way Americana has permeated both fields for many years”, says Professor Jan Olsson, whose latest study Los Angeles Before Hollywood (Wallflower) will be published next month. 

Professor Kingsley Bolton, head of the English Department, agrees: “It’s hard to escape the influence of America. American popular culture has had a phenomenal effect on the English-speaking world both culturally and linguistically. It’s important that we as scholars explore this.”

The first series of lectures has brought such luminaries as Professor Lynn Spigel (Northwestern University),  Professor Gregory B Lee (Lyon), Professor Dennis Preston (Michigan State University / Oklahoma State ), Professor Alison Griffiths (Baruch College), Professor William Broddy (CUNY) and Professor Tara McPherson (University of Southern California) to speak in Stockholm.

“Over the years we’ve built up a lot of connections with top-notch scholars in the USA,” explains Professor Jan Olsson from the Department of Cinema Studies. “We wanted to start a lecture series that would draw on those connections, and act as a spring board for English and Film scholars and students to examine popular American culture in more depth.”

With the study of media and popular culture already a regular feature of Anglo-Saxon English departments, the launch of the American Studies Speakers Series is very much a statement of Stockholm University’s intent to be involved in the major issues affecting English and Cultural Studies.

Kingsley Bolton sees this as an opportunity to examine the question of English and American cultural hegemony from a linguistic viewpoint.

“It’s important that scholars at Stockholm are involved in the debates concerning World Englishes,” says Bolton, who since his arrival at Stockholm University in 2004 has striven to promote and explore the creative potential of the World Englishes perspective for the teaching of English Studies. “Hopefully this lecture series will be a launch pad for future research initiatives.”

Jan Olsson agrees: “This is an exciting interdisciplinary venture. We’re keen to explore the cultural significance of popular American culture through the adjacent academic disciplines like English, Cultural and Literary Studies, Film, Sociology and Applied Linguistics.” 

For Professor Dennis Preston (Michigan State University and Oklahoma State) the launch of the American Speakers Series is a significant indication of Stockholm University’s growing ambitions within the humanities. 

“I was delighted to be invited to speak,” says Professor Preston, who gave a talk to a packed audience of researchers and students in November entitled: ‘How People Don’t Talk: The General American Scam’.

“As far as I’m concerned this kind of scholarly initiative is helping to put Stockholm on the map,” says Preston, a leading dialectologist. “Although American graduate students have traditionally stayed in the US to study, I can see the attraction of Stockholm University’s graduate programmes to international students with a research climate like this. What’s more, it’s exciting to see the departments of English and Film collaborating so closely with American scholars.”

With humanities departments in Sweden not currently attracting the same kind of massive grants that go to the sciences, a proactive venture like the American Studies Speakers Series demonstrates the commitment of the departments of Film and English to raising Stockholm University’s profile.

“Hopefully this is just the beginning,” says Professor Olsson. “We’re hopeful it will lead to new initiatives at Stockholm.”

An international conference –Rethinking American Studies: Media, Language and Geographies– will be held at the University in 2009.

For more information about the American Studies Speakers Series go to www.english.su.se

Text and interview: Jon Buscall