Paper proposals are invited for a workshop on "Research Methods in American Studies: Oral History Technique and Visual Culture Analysis" to be presented at the European Association of American Studies Conference on "The United States of / in Europe: Nationhood, Citizenship, Culture," to be held March 22-25, 2002, in Bordeaux, France.

The workshop's purpose is both practical and theoretical: to address how teachers and scholars can use the spoken word and/or the visual image most effectively as an "American Studies" method. We are especially interested to solicit papers that conduct crosscultural comparisons of how oral and pictorial sources are interpreted by American Studies scholars within the United States and elsewhere.

SUGGESTED THEORETICAL CONCERNS:

• How are oral history or iconographic materials used to negotiate cultural authority (elite versus common, educated versus "common" knowledge)?
• What role does the complex relationship between history and memory play in the creation of oral-based primary sources or the recycling of nostalgic "old time" images?
• What are the respective weaknesses and strengths of using oral history or visual materials as evidence of the American experience?
• What parts of history, culture, society are these sources best suited to illuminate?
• What do they tend to obscure or distort?
• How are oral histories or graphic images currently deployed in cyberculture, propaganda, or advertising?
• Why are oral interviews about the contemporary past so frequently conducted by American Studies scholars and historians in the United States but relatively neglected in by their counterparts in Western Europe and elsewhere?
• How can the discipline of art history inform the visual analysis of American popular culture?

PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS MIGHT INCLUDE:

For oral history:

• the mechanics of the interview process and tape transcription
• the negotiation of intellectual property rights
the creation of online access to audio collections

• pedagogical approaches to analyzing graphic images
• imputing cultural stratification along the spectrum of "highbrow" and "lowbrow" artistic productions
• conducting archival research in iconographic collections

Please send proposals not to exceed 250 words by October 15th, 2001 via e-mail, fax, or postal mail to both: Professor John Dean and Professor Michael Doyle at the address below.

Participation in this workshop is open to all EAAS members as well as members of the French American Studies Association (Association Française d'Etudes Américaines [AFEA]) and the Great Lakes American Studies Association (GLASA). It continues the collaboration which began with the jointly sponsored AFEA-GLASA conference on "Community, Family, and Youth" held at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, March 16-18, 2001.