Dear scholars, educators, artists, creators, activists, and friends,
As the co-founders of the newly-created research network of the EAAS—”West of the Rest”—we would like to extend a heartfelt invitation to join our corral of scholars.
Aiming to cross-fertilize local and regional subjectivities with hemispheric and transnational critical appreciation, our network seeks to attract not only scholars of the West who are based in Europe (through the EAAS and partner organizations), but also—thanks to the network’s US-based partners—American colleagues with a view to growing an exchange ecology which is predicated on close, interdisciplinary collaboration.
You may check out the full mission statement of our network here: https://www.eaas.eu/eaas-networks/west-if-the-rest
Please also give us a “like” on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/west.oftherest.eaas
At this point, we actively solicit ideas and suggestions for collaboration, outreach, and knowledge transfer activities which are geared toward helping the network grow.
Recent and upcoming activities of network members include:
1) Agnieszka Kotwasínska introduced and led a discussion on the 2021 documentary film Bitterbrush as part of the Państwowe Muzeum Etnograficzne’s HER Docs initiative.
2) John Wills’ and Heather Wright’s highly anticipated collection Red Dead Redemption: History, Myth, and Violence in the Video Game West has recently been published by the University of Oklahoma Press.
4) Stefan Rabitsch gave a public talk titled “West of the Rest: Cowboy hats, the Sheridan-verse, and (Western) American Studies” as part of the University of Olso’s ILOS Academy.
5) Network members have organized a thematic panel—“West of the Rest: (Dis)continuities in very old, old, new, and digital Wests”—at the upcoming Biennial Conference of the Nordic Association for American Studies (NAAS) in Uppsala at the end of May. If you happen to be on-site and would like to learn more about the network, please talk to us.
Anyone who is interested in joining our “corral” of scholars of the West should contact us at west.oftherest.eaas@gmail.com. Membership is free and entirely based on voluntary participation. Please provide us with your full name, email address, institutional affiliation (if applicable), and your research interests in the American West (e.g. a few descriptive keywords/phrases).
We aim to hold our inaugural network meeting at the 2024 EAAS conference in Munich next year.
We look forward to hearing from you and having you join us on Western trails, headed in all directions.
West wishes,
The West of the Rest co-founders
Stephen Aron ⏐ The Autry Museum of the American West
Alex Hunt ⏐ West Texas A&M University
Agnieszka Kotwasínska ⏐ University of Warsaw
Patricia N. Limerick ⏐ University of Colorado Boulder
Stefan Rabitsch ⏐ University of Oslo
John Wills ⏐ University of Kent
Esther Wright ⏐ Cardiff University
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