No abstract

This virtual special issue is the outcome of a project entitled Women and JAS, which was launched by the coeditors of the Journal of American Studies in October 2019 to document the involvement of women in the journal's day-to-day business from its inception in 1956 as the Bulletin of the British Association for American Studies. The project arises out of – and will hopefully contribute to – larger conversations about the progression of women scholars in academia. While the UK and US higher-education contexts (the contexts most pertinent to this discussion) differ, there are notable similarities in terms of the relationship between gender and career advancement. Both witness attrition of women from academia as they progress from undergraduate studies to PhD and beyond; both see disproportionate numbers of women scholars employed in precarious, part-time and/or teaching-only roles; both see a very low proportion of women in senior professorial roles; fewer women in both locations apply for (and are, therefore, awarded) major grants. In the UK, specifically, recent conversations around gender inequality in higher education have revolved around issues (and initiatives) such as the gender pay gap, Athena SWAN, sexual harassment and the effects of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs), caring responsibilities and affective labour.

A recent British government policy document has attempted to tackle the various guises of extremism by outlining definitions and proposed solutions for a structural approach to the threat of terror. In doing so, the command paper characterises the relationship between Britain and Islamic terrorists as one of an ideological conflict playing out between Western powers and Muslim fundamentalists. In exaggerating the apparent polarisation necessary for an ideological conflict, I will demonstrate how the text locks us into certain narratives that filter out historical contexts in favour of a binary rhetoric aimed at furthering conflicts based on ideology as natural conclusions, rather than the constructions and manipulations of policy.