Cara Rodway | The British Library (original) (raw)

Cara Rodway

I am the Deputy Head of the Eccles Centre for American Studies. Based at the British Library, the Centre has two broad aims: to increase awareness and use of the Library's North American holdings, and to promote and support the study of North America in schools and universities in the United Kingdom.

My role involves managing the Centre's programme and outreach activities for a diverse range of audiences, from the general public, to school children and the academic community.

More information on the Centre's work can be found at http://www.bl.uk/eccles-centre.

I previously worked in Cultural Affairs for the American government. From 2009-2011 I was Lecturer in American Studies at King's College London. My research centres on twentieth-century U.S. social history, popular culture, and the formation of identity. My doctoral thesis, “Roadside Romance? The American Motel in Postwar Popular Culture,” was an interdisciplinary project which examined the meaning of the conceptually and physically liminal motel space.

I am currently working on a new project on the reappropriation of vaudeville as a trope in mid-century film musicals.
Supervisors: John Howard

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Papers by Cara Rodway

Research paper thumbnail of Jonathan Auerbach, Body Shots: Early Cinema's Incarnations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, $24.95). Pp. xii+200. isbn978 0 520 25293 6

Journal of American Studies, Dec 1, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Chair's Address, BAAS 2022

Journal of American Studies

Research paper thumbnail of Managing Quasi-Domesticity at the Roadside: Postwar Female Moteliers and the Space of Reinvention

Women's Studies, 2011

... Print; Francesca Springer. The Redhead Takes a Holiday. New York: Vantage P, 1959. ... As a r... more ... Print; Francesca Springer. The Redhead Takes a Holiday. New York: Vantage P, 1959. ... As a result, Vogel is left to cope alone with the new business and the children. By contrast, Nelly Graf and her husband, Arnold, are a middle-aged couple with no children. ...

Research paper thumbnail of Gabrielle Esperdy, Modernizing Main Street: Architecture and Consumer Culture in the New Deal (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2008, £18.00). Pp. 304. isbn 978 0 226 21800 7

Journal of American Studies, 2009

Research paper thumbnail of Citizenship and the Built Environment

Journal of American Studies, 2014

Research paper thumbnail of Bernice M. Murphy, The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, £50.00). Pp. 236. isbn 978 0 2302 1810 9

Journal of American Studies, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Citizenship and the Built Environment

Journal of American Studies, 2014

Research paper thumbnail of Black Bodies, White Sheets: Civil Rights and the American Roadside

Journal of American Studies, Feb 1, 2014

Drawing on travel guides produced for African American motorists, this article provides a brief o... more Drawing on travel guides produced for African American motorists, this article provides a brief overview of the ways in which black drivers at mid-century used the contested space of the roadside motel to demand their rights as socially, and spatially, mobile Americans.

Research paper thumbnail of Managing Quasi-Domesticity at the Roadside: Postwar Female Moteliers and the Space of Reinvention

Women's Studies, Nov 1, 2011

The popularity of motels in the 1950s triggered a mini publishing boom for novel-length accounts ... more The popularity of motels in the 1950s triggered a mini publishing boom for novel-length accounts of motel life. Through a close reading of two memoirs by female moteliers, this article reveals the motel space to be a microcosm for the changes happening in the lives of American women around the country. By considering the nature of work, family relationships and the treatment of the “hot pillow trade” within the texts, this article argues that the liminal space of the motel, at once a commercial venture and a quasi-domestic “home on the road,” brought the contrasts and contradictions of women’s position in the postwar era into sharp relief, whilst also allowing new understandings of personal identity to emerge.

Research paper thumbnail of Book review: Bernice M. Murphy, The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

Journal of American Studies, Jan 1, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Book review: Gabrielle Esperdy, Modernizing Main Street: Architecture and Consumer Culture in the New Deal (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2008)

Journal of American Studies, Jan 1, 2009

Research paper thumbnail of Book review: Jonathan Auerbach, Body Shots: Early Cinema's Incarnations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007)

Journal of American Studies, Jan 1, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Jonathan Auerbach, Body Shots: Early Cinema's Incarnations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, $24.95). Pp. xii+200. isbn978 0 520 25293 6

Journal of American Studies, Dec 1, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Chair's Address, BAAS 2022

Journal of American Studies

Research paper thumbnail of Managing Quasi-Domesticity at the Roadside: Postwar Female Moteliers and the Space of Reinvention

Women's Studies, 2011

... Print; Francesca Springer. The Redhead Takes a Holiday. New York: Vantage P, 1959. ... As a r... more ... Print; Francesca Springer. The Redhead Takes a Holiday. New York: Vantage P, 1959. ... As a result, Vogel is left to cope alone with the new business and the children. By contrast, Nelly Graf and her husband, Arnold, are a middle-aged couple with no children. ...

Research paper thumbnail of Gabrielle Esperdy, Modernizing Main Street: Architecture and Consumer Culture in the New Deal (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2008, £18.00). Pp. 304. isbn 978 0 226 21800 7

Journal of American Studies, 2009

Research paper thumbnail of Citizenship and the Built Environment

Journal of American Studies, 2014

Research paper thumbnail of Bernice M. Murphy, The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, £50.00). Pp. 236. isbn 978 0 2302 1810 9

Journal of American Studies, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Citizenship and the Built Environment

Journal of American Studies, 2014

Research paper thumbnail of Black Bodies, White Sheets: Civil Rights and the American Roadside

Journal of American Studies, Feb 1, 2014

Drawing on travel guides produced for African American motorists, this article provides a brief o... more Drawing on travel guides produced for African American motorists, this article provides a brief overview of the ways in which black drivers at mid-century used the contested space of the roadside motel to demand their rights as socially, and spatially, mobile Americans.

Research paper thumbnail of Managing Quasi-Domesticity at the Roadside: Postwar Female Moteliers and the Space of Reinvention

Women's Studies, Nov 1, 2011

The popularity of motels in the 1950s triggered a mini publishing boom for novel-length accounts ... more The popularity of motels in the 1950s triggered a mini publishing boom for novel-length accounts of motel life. Through a close reading of two memoirs by female moteliers, this article reveals the motel space to be a microcosm for the changes happening in the lives of American women around the country. By considering the nature of work, family relationships and the treatment of the “hot pillow trade” within the texts, this article argues that the liminal space of the motel, at once a commercial venture and a quasi-domestic “home on the road,” brought the contrasts and contradictions of women’s position in the postwar era into sharp relief, whilst also allowing new understandings of personal identity to emerge.

Research paper thumbnail of Book review: Bernice M. Murphy, The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

Journal of American Studies, Jan 1, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Book review: Gabrielle Esperdy, Modernizing Main Street: Architecture and Consumer Culture in the New Deal (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2008)

Journal of American Studies, Jan 1, 2009

Research paper thumbnail of Book review: Jonathan Auerbach, Body Shots: Early Cinema's Incarnations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007)

Journal of American Studies, Jan 1, 2008

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