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NEASA is … --Our annual conference, a chance for scholars and writers and artists and activists and interested folks from every discipline and profession and community to come together and discuss some of the most significant national questions and topics, stories and identities, histories and futures. This year we’ll be at Plimoth Plantation on November 4th and 5th, discussing “American Mythologies: Creating, Recreating, and Resisting National Narratives.” See the full CFP and news on some very exciting events being planned under the Conference link at the left, feel free to email me with any questions or thoughts, and please join us at Plimoth! --Relationships between American Studies teachers and programs at every educational level, as illustrated by our strong and expanding connections to secondary education schools and programs throughout the region. There will be a number of sessions at the conference connected to challenges and opportunities for educators, including one led by keynote speaker Dr. James Loewen. If you’re an educator and want to learn more or to get involved with NEASA in any way, whether at the conference or otherwise, please send me an email! --The rich and diverse body of work being produced in American Studies, as evidenced by our own Council (see Member News to the left if ye doubt the claim). To feature and share some of that work, we’re starting a new, hopefully annual tradition this year, a spring NEASA Colloquium where Council members (and other NEASA folks) will highlight some of our recently publisher and/or ongoing work, in an informal and conversational setting. It will be held on May 21st at the Mass Historical Society at 2pm; see the attached poster and write-up below for more info, and let me know if you would like to take part! --This website, which is very much an in-development space. We’re hoping to add links to American Studies programs in the region, to historic sites and museums, to other organizations and conferences; and we’re also planning to start an online newsletter or blog, among other ways to make this site more dynamic and diverse. And all of those plans can be strengthened if you let me know what you’d like to see and find here, so send me an email with any thoughts or ideas! --Finally, and most importantly, you. Whatever else we do and add, whatever our conferences and colloquia and website entail, at the end of the day NEASA is about the incredible community of scholars and writers and thinkers and readers and Americans whom we serve. So get involved—run for Council, come to the conference or colloquium, contribute to the site, add your voice and perspective to our mix in as many ways as you can and want to. Thanks, and talk to you soon, Ben PS. And if you get a chance, please check out my personal, daily blog of American Studies goodness: americanstudier.blogspot.com. Thanks! Ben Railton
2011 NEASA President
Associate Professor of American and Ethnic Literature
Coordinator of American Studies
Fitchburg State University
Advisor, American Writers Museum
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