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UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies

War and American Identity Conference

Department of History UCC
The Clinton Institute for American Studies UCD

The Council Room
North Wing, Quadrangle
University College Cork
24 April 2008

War and Identity Conference March 2009 – Call for Paper

2:10 – 3:40 Panel 1

Professor Marilyn B. Young, New York University,

‘Limited War Unlimited: The U.S. in Korea and Vietnam’

Professor Robert K. Brigham, Vassar College                             

‘Reading America in Saigon’

3:40 – 4:00 Coffee Break

4:00 – 5:45 Panel 2

Professor Scott Reynolds Nelson, College of William and Mary  

‘Civil War Provisioning, Branded Foods, and the Agricultural Origins of American Empire’

Professor Michaela Hoenicke-Moore, University of Iowa

‘The Other Religion: Nationalism and US Foreign Policy from the New Deal to the Cold War’

Professor Charles Gannon, St. Bonaventure University                           

‘The New American Century…Or Not?: Anticipating Tomorrow’s Political Realities Through Today’s Narrative Imagery’

5:45 – 6:00 Coffee Break

6:00 – Panel 3

Professor Lloyd Gardner, Rutgers University

‘Iraq as the “Good War”’

Professor Scott Lucas, University of Birmingham                         

‘Freedom's Dilemmas: The Illusions of the American Unipolar In and Beyond Iraq’                       

Biographical Details

Robert. K. Brigham

Robert. K. Brigham Shirley Ecker Boskey Professor of History and International Relations, has taught at Vassar since 1994. He teaches courses on the history of American foreign relations and modern America.  Brigham is author of numerous books and essays on American foreign relations, including Guerrilla Diplomacy: The NLF’s Foreign Relations and the Vietnam War (Cornell, 1998); Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (PublicAffairs, 1999) written with Robert S. McNamara and James G. Blight; ARVN: Life and Death in the South Vietnamese Army (Kansas, 2006); Is Iraq Another Vietnam? (PublicAffairs, 2006); Iraq, Vietnam, and the Limits of American Power (PublicAffairs, 2008).

Professor Charles Gannon

American Literature, St. Bonaventure University
Charles is Associate Professor of English with research interests and publications relating to American Literature, Popular literature, Film and narrative structure, science and politics.  He is the author of numerous works of fiction as well as Rumours of War and Infernal Machines: Technomilitary Agenda-setting in American and British Speculative Fiction (2005).

Professor Lloyd Gardner

Department of History, Rutgers University
One of the leading historians of US diplomacy and foreign policy, Lloyd is Charles and Mary Beard Professor in the History Department at Rutgers University and author of more than a dozen books on the history of US foreign policy including Approaching Vietnam and Pay Any Price: Lyndon Johnson and the Wars for Vietnam.  With Marilyn Young, he recently co-edited The New American Empire.

Dr. Michaela Hoenicke-Moore

Department of History, University of Iowa, USA
Dr. Hoenicke Moore is currently working on aspects relating to the construction of US nationalism. Her previous publications include: Know Your Enemy: The American Debate on Nazism, 1933-1945 (2003), which explored US popular and official interpretations of the Third Reich and The Uncertain Superpower (2003).

Professor Scott Lucas

Department of American and Canadian Studies, University of Birmingham
Professor Lucas works in the areas of US politics, international relations and diplomatic history. In recent years he has become more interested in the relationship between 'culture' ideology, and US foreign policy since 1945. His publications include : The Betrayal of Dissent: Beyond Orwell, Hitchens, and the New American Century (2004), George Orwell (2001), Freedom's War: The US Crusade Against the Soviet Union, 1945-1956 (1999), The Lion's Last War: Britain and the Suez Crisis (1996), Divided We Stand: Britain, the US, and the Suez Crisis (1991).

Scott Reynolds Nelson

Scott Reynolds Nelson is Legum Professor of History at the College of William & Mary. He has written about American culture, labor, and social history, including Iron Confederacies: Southern Railways, Klan Violence & Reconstruction (1999), Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend (2006), Ain't Nothing But a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry (2007), and (with Carol Sheriff) A People at War: Civilians and Soldiers in America's Civil War (2007). He is currently at work on the panic of 1873 and the American Commercial Invasion of Europe.

Professor Marilyn Young

Department of History, New York University
Professor in the Department of History at New York University.  She has written and researched extensively on US foreign policy and US-Asian relations and most pertinently for this project is the author of The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 and Vietnam and America (with Marvin Gettleman, Jane Franklin and Bruce Franklin), and Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism, 1959-1975, two volumes.  The Vietnam Wars was recipient of the Berkshire Women's History Prize.

Co-ordinated by:

Dr. David Ryan

Department of History, University College Cork
Current research interests involve an investigation into the impact of the ‘Vietnam syndrome’ on US intervention in regional conflict since 1975.  The study incorporates an analysis of the US executive decision making process (through primary record at the Presidential Libraries from Ford to Bush), Congressional oversight, pubic opinion polls, and the impact of the cultural influences on executive decision making processes.  This project has involved research at the Reagan and Ford Presidential Libraries, the National Archives, the National Security Archives and the Library of Congress.  The research will lead towards the publication of a monograph on Collective Memory & US Intervention since Vietnam.  David is the co-Chair of the Transatlantic Studies Association and a member of numerous other international associations of American Studies and Diplomatic History.  He is a member of the editorial board for three journals including The Journal of Transatlantic Studies.  His publications have focused on US foreign policy and history including: US-Sandinista Diplomatic Relations (1995), with Victor Pungong (eds.). The United States and Decolonization (2000), US Foreign Policy in World History (2000), The United States and Europe in the Twentieth Century (2003).  Vietnam in Iraq: Lessons, Legacies, Ghosts (2007), Collective Memory & US Intervention since Vietnam. (London and New York: forthcoming 2009).

Project site

War and American Identity research

Further details contact:
Dr. David Ryan, david.ryan@ucc.ie