About 49th Parallel | Editorial Policy | Editorial Board
About 49th Parallel
Founded in 1999, 49th Parallel is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary e-journal devoted to American and Canadian studies. It seeks to promote innovative and challenging academic work.
The journal takes its name from the 1,270 mile border separating USA and Canada, and in this sense is keen to encourage dialogues and debates which transcend the boundaries of customary theoretical approaches to the culture, history, and politics of the North American continent.
Some of the disciplines previously covered in 49th Parallel include history, literature, film, popular culture, politics, photography, the visual arts, and their relation within an international comparative framework. This multidisciplinary approach aims to promote a broad spectrum of academic debate, and to utilise the multimedia capabilities offered to an e-based journal. In this sense 49th Parallel means to encourage traditional academic essays alongside the use of video and photo academic texts.
Editorial Policy
The Editors would like to hear from anyone willing to contribute articles and reviews to the journal. We are especially keen to encourage postgraduates to publish their work and contribute reviews and ideas.
All articles, provided they fall within the broad remit of the journal and meet academic standards, will be put into our review process. Articles will be evaluated anonymously by a relevant academic specialist. If approved for publication, authors may be required to revise their original submission.
The editors reserve the right to decide the content of each edition and may request modification and/or alteration to work submitted for publication.
We welcome those interested in joining our review teams and would like to hear from potential book, film, TV and web reviewers. We also welcome proposals for conference reports.
Further information regarding the submission of articles can be found on the submissions page. Please contact the Editors for any further questions or enquires.
Editorial Board
General Editors
Rebecca Isaacs (University of Birmingham)
Katie Barnett (University of Birmingham)
Editors
Martin Walter (University of Nottingham)Bart Verhoeven (University of Nottingham)
Mǎdǎlina Stǎlniceanu (University of Nottingham)
Galateia Demetriou (University of Birmingham)
Website Editor
John Horne (University of Birmingham)
Associate Editors
Dr Michele Aaron (University of Birmingham)
Professor William Boelhower (Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy)
Professor Richard Crockatt (University of East Anglia)
Mario Del Pero (Università di Bologna, Sede a Forlì, Italy)
Professor Dick Ellis (University of Birmingham)
Dr Ali Fisher (Mappa Mundi Consultants)
Dr Danielle Fuller (University of Birmingham)
Dr Chris Gair (University of Glasgow)
Professor Michael Heale (University of Lancaster)
Professor Sheila Hones (University of Tokyo, Japan)
Professor Matthew Jones (University of Nottingham)
Professor Liam Kennedy (University College, Dublin, Ireland)
Dr Anouk Lang (University of Birmingham)
Professor Scott Lucas (University of Birmingham)
David Ryan (University College, Cork, Ireland)
Dr Maria Ryan (University of Nottingham)
Dr Giles Scott-Smith (Roosevelt Academy, Middelburg, The Netherlands)
Dr Bevan Sewell (University of Nottingham)
Professor Antonio Varsori (Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy)
Dr Paul Woolf (University of Birmingham)
Previous Editors
Ben Offiler (University of Nottingham)Dr Hannah Durkin (University of Nottingham)
John Horne (University of Birmingham)
Ceren Sengezer (University of Birmingham)
Dr Chris Emery (London School of Economics)
Dr Euan Gallivan
Dr Kaeten Mistry (University of East Anglia)
Dr Eva Rus (Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy)
Dr Mark Straw (University of Birmingham)
Dr James Boys (Richmond, The American International University, London)
Dr Andrew Johnstone (University of Leicester)
Rebecca Isaacs is a PhD candidate studying at the University of Birmingham under the supervision of Dr Helen Laville. Her research explores the development of the American education system from 1945 to 1965, with a special emphasis on the ways in which it was shaped by foreign relations and national security concerns. Rebecca is particularly interested in the development of educational policies concerning African American students, and her thesis discusses the triangulation of democracy, communism, and the Jim Crow culture, which was prevalent in the South during this period. Whilst Rebecca's research focuses on education and Civil Rights, she also retains a special interest in American women's history, the topic of her undergraduate dissertation and MPhil thesis. She continues to explore this field in her spare time.
Katie Barnett is a doctoral student in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Birmingham. Her thesis examines representations of the non-nuclear family in 1990s Hollywood film, with a particular focus on the cinematic construction of fatherhood and the use of the figure of the American father to contest notions of gender, sexuality, queerness and identity. She holds a BA in American Studies from the University of Hull, and completed her MA at the University of East Anglia in 2008, where her thesis investigated portrayals of single fatherhood and their anti-feminist implications in Hollywood films of the 1980s. Her research interests lie in constructions of gender and sexuality in contemporary film and cinematic images of family and parenthood, with a particular interest in the socio-cultural implications of such representations. From Autumn 2011, Katie will be teaching on an introductory film studies course at Birmingham.
Martin Walter Martin has studied at the Martin-Luther-University Halle—Wittenberg, Germany, Montana State University in Bozeman, MT and the University of Leipzig where graduated with a Magister Artium in American Studies, Political Science and Ethnology in 2009. Since then he has worked as teaching assistant and programme coordinator at the American Studies Institute at the University of Leipzig. He was further active in the development of the Institute's Service Learning Initiative and served as its coordinator until 2011. In 2011 Martin was awarded a European Union Research Excellence Scholarship by the University of Nottingham, where he is currently a PhD candidate. His research interests include American political history, political theory, and intellectual history. His research project focuses on contemporary populist movements and identity politics in the US; more specifically the influence of populism on Tea Party Movement's and Occupy Wall Street's conceptions of American identity, ideology, and democracy.
Bart Verhoeven is a second-year PhD candidate within the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham. His research interests include US Cold War historiography, the rise of conservatism and the evolution of post-war party politics. His project focuses on the re-situation of the ultraconservative John Birch Society within the historical field of the American Right. Apart from his present studies at Nottingham, Bart holds a BA in English and Italian as well as an MA in English and an MA in American Studies from the University of Antwerp in Belgium. He is a fan of FC Bruges and George Carlin.
Mǎdǎlina Stǎlniceanu is a doctoral student in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham. She completed her BA in English Language and Literature at "A. I. Cuza" University in Iași. She undertook a MA in American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham; her MA thesis discussed representations of the Maher Arar case in two Canadian TV series: the sitcom "Little Mosque on the Prairie" and the drama "The Border." She is currently investigating the way in which the racial controversies which occurred during the 2008 Presidential campaign and Obama's Presidency, involving people close to Barack Obama such as Michelle Obama, Henry Louis Gates and Reverend Jeremiah Wright, puncture the framework of a postracial society.
Galateia Demetriou is a doctoral student at the University of Birmingham. Her thesis, jointly supervised by the Department of English and the Centre for Modern Greek Studies, looks at Ezra Pound's reception in Greece with a particular focus on George Seferis and contemporary poets. She holds a BA in English from the University of Athens and completed an MA in 20th century English literature at the University of Sussex, where her thesis explored Modernist poets' conceptions of time. Her research interests lie in 20th century and contemporary poetry and fiction, literary theory and film. Galateia's poetry and translations have appeared in poetry magazines in Greece.