Portrait
What is SANAS?
A Portrait
The Swiss Association for North American Studies was founded in 1978 to provide a structure that would facilitate contact among Swiss scholars interested in American Studies and allow them to be represented institutionally in the European Association for American Studies (EAAS). Among the founding members were Max Silberschmidt (History, University of Zurich) and Heinrich Straumann (American Literature, University of Zurich), who had both been active in the founding of EAAS.
Originally called the Swiss Association for American Studies, the Association’s name was changed in 1986 to the appellation Swiss Association for North American Studies, to avoid confusion with the 'Swiss Society of Americanists' and to indicate a concern for Canadian issues on the part of some members. Although individuals with an interest in our activities may belong to university departments of History, Geography, Sociology, Politics, or Economics, most members are attached to departments of English, signalling a primary concern for culture and literature. Thus our biennial conferences have dealt with themes that extend across history and literature to other disciplines: 'Artists and Audiences in the Age of Henry James' (1992), 'Apocalypse' (1998), 'American Foundation Myths' (2002), 'Representing Realities' (2004), 'American Poetry: Whitman to the Present' (2006), 'American Aesthetics' (2008), 'Cultures in Conflict / Conflicting Cultures' (2012), 'Literature, Ethics, Morality: American Studies Perspectives' (2014), 'American Communities: Between the Popular and the Political' (2016), 'The Genres of Genre' (2018), and 'Who Tells Your Story?' (2022). In contrast, our annual in-house Reading Group seminars have concentrated on inviting U.S. scholars and writers to discuss their work and combining cultural, historical, and literary approaches to individual works of literature.
SANAS cultivates good relationships with other American Studies Associations, notably the Austrian Association for American Studies (AAAS). In the past, AAAS and SANAS have held very successful binational conferences: 'Empire' (Salzburg, 1996), 'American Foundational Myths' (Zürich, 2000), 'The Visual Culture of Modernism' (2010) and 'Cultures in Conflict / Conflicting Cultures' (2012). Furthermore, in 2013 an ongoing collaboration with the Swiss Philosophical Society (Schweizerische Philosophische Gesellschaft) was established.
Our current membership counts about eighty members. Unlike many European professional associations, SANAS makes a point of welcoming the participation of graduate students, teaching assistants, and professors of all ranks. This egalitarian emphasis results in stimulating discussions in our biannual events, where members share the program with established scholars from abroad, primarily other European countries and the United States. These occasions are also a forum for trying out innovative modes of presenting an academic paper or organizing a workshop.
Become a Member
SANAS welcomes new members with a scholarly, artistic, or journalistic interest in the study of the United States of America or Canada, their history, culture, and society. We especially invite graduate students working in the field of American Studies to join SANAS. The membership fee is currently CHF 60 per year (CHF 40 for members not holding a salaried position). Members receive the SANAS newsletter, which appears twice per year, as well as the proceedings of SANAS conferences, which are held biennially. SANAS members are automatically members of the European Association for American Studies (EAAS) and are entitled to participate in any EAAS event, notably by organizing workshops and offering papers at the biennial EAAS conferences. As members of a constituent association of EAAS, SANAS members equally have access to conferences held by the American Studies Association (ASA) in the United States. SANAS members are eligible for the SANAS Research Award and the SANAS Event Grant.
To apply for membership, e-mail a 1-page CV to the President and the Secretary. New members are elected at the Annual General Meeting.
President: Prof. Dr. Katharina Gerund (katharina.gerund@es.uzh.ch)
Secretary: Dr. Matthew Scully (matthew.scully@unil.ch)
Kontakt
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