Britain’s "special relationship" with the USA will be one of the issues under the spotlight at a four day conference on transatlantic studies at the University of Dundee’s West Park Centre from Monday June 12 to Thursday June 15.

Organised by the Dundee University-based Transatlantic Studies Association the conference brings together scholars from across the globe to discuss transatlantic issues in history, politics, international relations, security, literature and culture.

Special guests at this year’s conference include the US cultural attaché in London Michael Macy and Czech Republic Senator Josef Jarrab, who received the first Woodrow Wilson Freedom Award last year for his contribution to transatlantic understanding.

Senator Jarrab will be giving a talk on European American Studies and how they can enhance transatlantic interests and understanding in a plenary session chaired by Mr Macy on Tuesday June 13.

Professor Alan Dobson, conference convener and chair of the Transatlantic Studies Association, said this year’s conference was likely to be a "highly cosmopolitan affair" with delegates coming from the USA, Canada, all over Europe and the UK.

"We have a strong contingent from North America this year, particularly Canada, and also from east and central Europe," he said.

Key speakers include Chuck Gannon from St Bonaventure University in New York, who will give a talk on "Narraplomacy", historian David Wilks with a presentation on Winston Churchill and Canada and Professor John Dumbrell from Leicester University who will focus on the US-UK special relationship.

Other talks included in the conference will cover anti-Western propaganda, military innovation in Europe and the USA, the impact of public opinion on transatlantic cooperation and conflict, and intelligence liaison in the spy fiction of John LeCarre, Graham Greene and Ian Fleming.

The conference opens on Monday June 12 with a presentation on the lessons to be learned from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by Robin Boyle, Professor of Urban Planning at Wayne State University in Detroit.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

The Transatlantic Studies Association was established in 1999 by Professor Alan Dobson, Director of the Institute for Transatlantic, European and American Studies at the University of Dundee.

Professor Dobson, Senator Jarrab and the US Cultural Attache Michael Macy will be available for photographs on Tuesday June 13 at 10.45am in West Park Conference Centre, Perth Road, Dundee.

For more information contact:

Hilary McNally
Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: h.mcnally@dundee.ac.uk