Dr Kevin Yuill - Senior Lecturer in American Studies
Contact Information
Priestman Building, C35 |
University of Sunderland Green Terrace Sunderland SR1 3PZ |
Courses 2009/10
- AMS101 Intro to American Studies (S2)
- AMS304 American Studies Dissertation
- AMS311 American Studies Research Project
- AMS204 The American Century (S2)
- AMS302 Contemporary Issues in American Culture and Society (S1)
- HIS110 History in Practice (S1)
Office Hours: Wednesdays 12pm-1pm.
Current students should consult Sunderland's WebCT site for information about the American Studies course and modules.
Selected Publications
Forthcoming
Defining America in the Twentieth Century: The 1924 Immigration Act and its Implications in Historical Context (book, 2010?).
The Humanist, Libertarian Case Against Assisted Suicide: A Historical Analysis of a Twenty-First Century Problem (book, 2010).
"Liberal Segregation: Robert Ezra Park and the Immigration Act of 1924" (article submitted for publication).
Recent
"Another Take on the Nixon Presidency: The First Therapeutic President?", Journal of Policy History, Vol 21, No. 2, 2009.
"Creating an American Music: Fakery and 'Strictly American' Music", Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2008, online at http://reconstruction.eserver.org/084/yuill2.shtml.
"Creating an American Music: A Critical View of the Origins of Country: Part 1", Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture, Vol. 8, No. 4, 2008, online at http://reconstruction.eserver.org/084/yuill.shtml.
Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action: The Pursuit of Racial Equality in an Era of Limits (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006). See reviews of this book in Journal of American Studies, Journal of Policy History, Journal of Presidential Studies, Michigan Historical Review, Journal of American History and American Journal of Sociology.
"In the Wake of Terry Schiavo, the Real Slippery Slope", Journal of Cancer Pain and Symptom Palliation, Vol 1, Issue 2, 2005.
Research Interests
Race in the United States during the twentieth century, the intellectual history of the United States in the twentieth century, the destruction of liberalism and liberal institutions from the 1960s to the present, the civil rights movement in the 1960s, the Nixon presidency and the 1970s, current issues in American Society (especially the issue of assisted suicide).
Professional Memberships and Consultations
British Association for American Studies, Organization of American Historians, I have reviewed manuscript submissions for the Journal of American History, been a referee on a grant application for the Wellcome Foundation, and reviewed many books for History and Ethnic and Racial Studies.
Awards
Fulbright Travel and Maintenance Award
(1997).
Education
University of Nottingham (PhD in American Studies, 2001), University of Cambridge (MPhil in American History, 1997), University of East London (BA by Independent Study, 1994).
Biography
My somewhat eclectic interests are tied together by an underlying interest in the intellectual history of the United States and by a methodological aim: to reinterpret issues that either exist today or have proved important in the past.
My book on affirmative action noted that the term is perhaps the only link between the policies of the Kennedy and Johnson eras and those that exist today, and questioned whether the purported benefactors have gained as much as government at every level and corporations have gained in legitimizing themselves through espousing the policy.
My book on assisted suicide, tentatively called The Politics of Assisted Suicide: A humanist, libertarian argument against legalization, which is nearly completed, builds upon an observation I made both in my Nixon book and in my recently published article in the Journal of Policy History. Starting with the Nixon administration, there has been an attempt at building a therapeutic relationship between citizens and the state; the assurance of a 'good death' sought by campaigners is directed pointedly towards validation by the government. In bringing the state in to a sphere formerly administered privately, a new regulation of the end of life emerges.
My current work on the 1924 Immigration Act concerns the Act's place in racializing American identity. I am interested in how race became transformed from an elite theory into the way Americans understand themselves, how liberals came to prop up segregation just as the old justification of racial superiority was crumbling, how race supplanted potential class identities, and how cultural expressions of Americanism reflected the hardening of racial categories happening at the time.
