ASA Annual Meeting in Baltimore

The American Studies Association (ASA) holds a conference every year, and this October, it was in Baltimore. Students can attend fairly cheaply and since I enjoyed going to the British Association for American Studies conference this spring, I registered.

A cool little street near our hotel

Our flight out was at 6am, so after spending the night in Denver, got up at 3:15am for the flight to Baltimore and arrived in time to attend the afternoon panels. I went to ten panels over the three days and heard some great papers, including one on commemoration and the politics of the past, where they discussed a ‘mobile museum’ of Latino culture in southwest Detroit, a virtual community of Japanese-Americans and a bike ride as part of a class project looking into the experiences of ethnic groups in the now largely-homogeneous community of San Luis Obispo. It was great to see and feel a part of the larger American Studies community and everyone I spoke to was so friendly and interested. The comments that followed the papers made it very clear that the conference was about helping one another out, contributing ideas and suggesting sources. It was funny, however, to see the ways in which many of the attendees were not so different from the undergraduates they teach back at their universities – checking their phones behind their notepads, showing signs of nerves before giving presentations, falling asleep during sessions.

ASA student members were provided with a free breakfast by the students’ committee, which is always welcome. However, I saw no other MA students there, because at most places, it’s very hard for them to get funding. The American Studies program at UW has funding available for conferences, so the five grad students who applied were all provided with funds that helped cover the cost of travel, accommodation and attendance.

Nick Selby and Sarah Garland from UEA were both at the conference so we met up and chatted about the various panels. Over burritos, Nick and I discussed how American Studies was different in the UK from the US and what I have learnt about the field since coming to Wyoming. It was particularly interesting to see topics play out at the conference that we had discussed in class about the state of American Studies– issues of where its focus lies (flyers for the ‘Early American Studies Caucus’ criticized the ASA’s “way-presentist” stance), whether we need a method, what American Studies is and so on.

Occupy Baltimore was just a few blocks from the conference and I passed it a couple of times. One of the signs at the entrance to the site (much smaller than many similar sites in other parts of the country) listed all the committees that had been established to keep the site running safely and effectively, including Medical, Translation, Sanitation, Legal and Media. A sign stated that no drugs or alcohol were allowed and one poster based on Fairey’s famous Obama ‘Hope’ sign, had the face of The Wire’s Clay Davis, above his ever-famous catchphrase – a particularly appropriate poster, given its location. On Friday evening, while at the ASA reception, I saw two guys eating canapés who looked a little out of place. We exchanged a knowing look and soon after, one banged on his glass to make an announcement: “We are from Occupy Baltimore, a few blocks away. We would love it if you would come join us. Thanks for the food!”, which was met with loud applause. As they walked away, one shouted “We love you academics!” Just a couple of hours earlier, the President-elect of the ASA had announced “We are the 99%” so the men certainly had a sympathetic audience. Nick told an interesting story which illustrates well the individualistic attitudes of so many Americans (coupled with the absence of a fully thought-through argument). He saw a guy and his girlfriend passing the Occupy site and heard the guy angrily ask “Why don’t they just get jobs?” His girlfriend suggested that it may be harder for them to get jobs because of their backgrounds or other factors and his response was simply that they should work harder. It’s these kinds of attitudes that make fighting inequality that much harder.

Attending the conference got me thinking more about how I might like to (try to) use my Master’s once I’m done – about its possible practical applications, or how work in the public sector might complement research. I’m not sure yet exactly where I want to go with it, but it’s always good to start thinking. 

The Occupy Baltimore guys who came to the reception

Gorbachev in Laramie

The University of Wyoming has an impressive schedule of speakers and cultural events and on October 14^th, former head of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev came to town. He was clearly a popular speaker – a long line formed outside the Arena-Auditorium and although it was slightly chaotic when they opened several doors at once, we got in without much difficulty. When Gorbachev came into the auditorium, he cheerfully waved at everyone and began his speech, through an interpreter, and although there were sound issues at first, they were quickly remedied after the crowd started shouting(!)

It was an interesting speech and Gorbachev is quite as a funny speaker – his anecdotes made the audience laugh and some of his comments prompted big rounds of applause, including his saying that books influenced him more than any person. I admit to not knowing a great deal about him, but now am interested to learn more. He said that you can criticize Communism, but that you should not hate the people – that they’re not so different from everyone else. He remarked that he would be occupying Wall Street right now if he could and reflected upon the challenges facing the world, describing the eradication of poverty as a top priority. As I exited the arena, his convoy was leaving at the same time, so I got another look at the ever-waving Gorbachev.

Gorbachev and interpreter
with Senator Alan Simpson

Following the talk, there was a special dinner for guests of the Governor and university president, including state legislators, other VIPs and various student organization leaders. The Governor’s guests just had to dress smartly for the dinner, but the dress code for the president’s guests was ‘cowboy chic’ – perhaps to give Gorbachev an ‘authentic’ taste of Wyoming…? A friend of mine (who is from Wyoming) had to borrow some cowboy boots and a bolo tie to achieve this look. I can’t help but wonder what the former leader of the Soviet Union must have made of this small Western town.

Trip to Oregon

Laramie is still 1000 miles from Eugene, OR, but it’s a lot closer than Milton Keynes, so after looking at flights for weeks, I finally bought them. Flights from Denver are cheaper, but Denver is fairly difficult (and expensive) to get to by bus or car, so I decided to take the somewhat-infamous Laramie-to-Denver plane before flying on to Portland.

Laramie Regional Airport

Laramie Regional Airport is the smallest airport I’ve ever seen, with one departure gate and not much else. I got there very early, so while I graded papers, I listened to the airport’s sole TV playing FOX News. The commercials were a combination of Mike Huckabee encouraging people to sign a petition to repeal harmful ‘Obamacare’, adverts for pharmaceutical and adverts for lawyers who could represent you if a particular drug had given you cancer – it was quite an unintentionally interesting combination. 

My tiny plane

The size of the airport was quite fitting considering the plane was a 19-seater propeller plane, with no ‘facilities’, no overhead storage and no cabin crew – just two pilots seated feet away. The fact we were the only plane leaving meant we had an incredibly prompt departure. It was very noisy and since it’s such a small plane, you really feel every movement, so it was fairly bumpy, but I thought it was great. The journey was supposed to take 53 minutes, but we landed in Denver after 28!

The pilots, who seemed to
just push buttons at random

When I arrived in Portland and met up with my friends, there were tears (inevitably) and I had to remind myself not to be so surprised to see people wearing Oregon sweatshirts in the airport. As soon as we arrived in Eugene, we headed straight to Sweet Life Patisserie (going to places to eat was a common theme of the weekend, including brunch in the dorms, Sweet Basil Pad Thai, Voodoo Doughnut…) I bumped into Caitlin who is from UEA and on her year abroad at the Oregon and she seemed to be really enjoying it there. Since my friend Ally recently became a UO Student Ambassador, the next day, Caroline and I went on a campus tour, which reminded me how great Oregon is and the beautiful weather certainly helped. We went to brunch at Studio One, a great little place that I hadn’t been to before, so I got to discover somewhere new. I also got a tour of Delta Tau Delta fraternity house, complete with framed charter, ridiculous composites from the 1980s with Ray-Bans and popped collars and got to see the (slightly creepy) dark room in the basement used for chapter meetings, ceremonies and so on.

I had enough time before my flight to spend 90 minutes in downtown Portland, where I got coffee at Peet’s and reacquainted myself with PDX’s hipsters before taking the MAX to the airport. I’m a big fan of Portland’s public transit – it’s apparently the envy of its (less-cool) Pacific Northwestern cousin, Seattle and I got from downtown to the airport for $2.40. I returned to Laramie to learn that six inches of snow had fallen in my absence, but most of it had disappeared by the time I got back. It was a great, if brief, trip and I hope to return in the spring.

Jefferson-Jackson Dinner

Every year, state Democratic Party organizations across the US hold ‘Jefferson-Jackson dinners’ – fundraising events attended by local party officials and activists, or, as one attendee at this year’s Wyoming dinner put it, “a group of rejects and rabble-rousers”.

Some of Wyoming's big sky

Thanks to funding from State Representative Stan Blake, the UW College Democrats were able to get a table at the dinner and so, in two cars, we set off for Rock Springs – a town known for its history of coal mining, union organizing and for being generally more Democratic. The three-hour drive included part of the same route as we had taken on the trip to Yellowstone and I saw more Pronghorn Antelope and red rock formations. We stayed at the Outlaw Inn, which is a Best Western, but makes a bit of an effort with its Wild West theming – you can read about outlaws that came from Rock Springs, there are various cowboy paintings and cushions in the rooms and, my personal favorite, a display of different kinds of barbed wire used to fence the west.

The theme of the dinner was workers and unions and we heard some really good, inspirational speeches. Democrats here know we face an uphill battle, but with some hard work, we should be able to get Albany County (where Laramie is) and Sweetwater County (where Rock Springs is) to go blue again at the next election, and may be able to extend our success further. You’ve got to dream, right? I got to meet lots of people in the state party and many state officials and politicians would like the College Democrats’ help in the coming months, so that should be good. By the end of the evening, I had sore cheeks from all the smiling, but it was a really good night and a great trip.

Football and Energy Extraction

Although the Wyoming Cowboys (American) football team are perhaps not one of Division I’s finest teams, I had to go to at least a couple of games to experience it – the Cowboys’ sports traditions, the tailgating, the songs and the cannon (I’ll explain). A few weeks ago, I went to the Nebraska game – probably the biggest game of the season, partly because Lincoln, NE, is a mere 8 hours away, so many of their diehard fans came to town to watch. On the way to the stadium, I met guy named Chance (no relation to Lucky from Steamboat Springs), who is from Nebraska, but now lives in Wyoming and works in Colorado. His thoughts on people from the West Coast particularly interested me. While I was living there, I got used to people saying how they thought those from the East Coast were generally ruder, busier and much less relaxed than those on the West Coast. This guy, from the Rocky Mountain West, said the same thing about those from the West Coast. He said he thought that people in California had no manners and were too focused on getting things done quickly, while those in the Mountain West were much more polite and chilled-out. It’s interesting to see how people think of those from other regions (without even bringing the South into this) and how Californians are thought of by one group (themselves, admittedly) as laidback and by another as uptight and rude.

I met up with some friends at the tailgate and since one of them is the nephew of a state legislator, we got into the President’s Tailgate tent (the president of the university. Alas, Obama is only very rarely found out this way) and after talking to State Representative Byrd for a short while, got to meet and shake the hands of the governors of both Wyoming and Nebraska. The stadium was packed, which means, with an attendance of 32,617, there were more people there than live in Laramie. In fact, on that day, the stadium by itself would be the third biggest city in the state.

Guys in cowboy hats at a Cowboys game

Every time a point is scored by the Cowboys, a cannon is fired – a sound that can be heard across town. I’m not entirely sure where this tradition came from, but some have pointed-out the highly militarized nature of the football games, which take place in War Memorial Stadium and ROTC cadets seem to be quite heavily involved. It is also interesting to note that the football field is called Jonah Field, after the huge natural gas field in southwestern Wyoming – apparently one of the biggest in the US. Energy extraction is so important to the state’s economy and it is not at all unusual to see adverts celebrating Wyoming’s high national rankings for supplying energy to the rest of the country. Its impact is also apparent in state politics, and much of the University of Wyoming’s funding comes from the energy industries. Earlier this year, members of the coal industry were insulted when the university decided to permanently install ‘Carbon Sink: What Goes Around Comes Around’, an artistic comment on the damage that coal mining is doing to the climate and its connection to the region’s pine beetle infestation. Industry representatives saw the university as being ungrateful by having such artwork on campus, but I’m glad to see that even though UW does rely on funds from these industries, it is not entirely uncritical of them. (EDIT: the installation has been removed as of July 2012. It seems that the University was not prepared to keep this "insult" to the coal and gas industry around for very long, especially when it will be facing an 8% budget cut from the state in the 2014 fiscal year.)

Back to football – the University of Wyoming has two mascots, one of which is Cowboy Joe. He is not, perhaps surprisingly, a cowboy. He’s not even a man. Joe is a pony. Our ‘human’ mascot is Pistol Pete, complete with creepy over-sized head.. There’s also Cowboy Ken, or Barrel Man – a dedicated fan who comes to every game wearing not much more than a barrel. Although we lost to Nebraska, it was a good game and certainly an interesting insight into how they do things in the West.

Cowboy Joe

Cowboy Ken and Pistol Pete

Last weekend was homecoming, so the university decorated parts of campus in brown and gold and held a homecoming parade the morning of the game, which was against University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Many alumni came to town and although I got a sunglasses sunburn (I guess I’m still not entirely accustomed to living at high altitude, where it is much easier to get burnt!), it was a good game and we beat UNLV 41-14.

Not only was this guy chewing a cocktail stick, he was also chewing tobacco. Nasty. 

GO POKES!*

*A cowpoke is another name for a cowboy, so the team is often referred to as the Pokes.