A view of singleton campus including singleton park and the beach, with the sea stretching into the horizon.

Dr David Anderson

Senior Lecturer

History

+44 (0) 1792 604292

d.j.anderson@swansea.ac.uk

Academic Office - 206
Second Floor
James Callaghan
Singleton Campus

Available For Postgraduate Supervision

Research Links

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3568-9330

About

Dr David Anderson is a Senior Lecturer in American Studies in the Department of Political and Cultural Studies. David read American Studies and History MA (Hons) at the University of Dundee, where he also completed his AHRB-funded PhD in History. In 2015, David gained professional recognition of his teaching practice as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

David’s primary research interests focus on the socio-political history and culture of the American South, especially the Civil War and its aftermath. He is completing a monograph on the Lost Cause and American Civil War memory and has published a number of book chapters and articles in a wide range of academic journals, including the Journal of Southern History and Civil War History. He has published on homesickness during the Civil War, Confederate defeat, post-war biography and autobiography, and southern Christmas and culinary memories. David’s most recent research examines the connection between nostalgia and memories of childhood.

David has presented conference papers across the UK and US and has contributed to BBC History Magazine, History Today, The Conversation, and BBC Radio Wales. His work has also been featured by news organisations in the UK and overseas. In 2017, David was an Eccles Centre Visiting Fellow at the British Library and in 2019 he was awarded the inaugural Scholarship for the Study of Historical and Contemporary Slavery at Gladstone’s Library.

Areas Of Expertise

American South
American Civil War
Memory and Nostalgia
Autobiography and Memoir
Christmas in 19th-Century America
British Humour Comics and Artists

Career Highlights

Teaching Interests

At undergraduate level, David teaches research-led honours modules on the American Civil War and historical memory and the post-Civil War history, literature, and culture of the American South. In addition, he has taught modules on early American history, the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, and America during the 1960s.

At postgraduate level, David offers teaching on the history of Confederate memory and memorialisation, which draws upon Swansea University's Milne Collection, an extensive library of primary and secondary material pertaining to the American Civil War. David has also contributed to modules on American military strategy and policy in Revolutionary War, Civil War, and World War. He has supervised and examined a number of postgraduate dissertations and theses on topics including smuggling in American history, the historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, and the American Wilderness.

Research Award Highlights

Publications

Research Highlights

Anderson, D. (2024). Old South Plantation Nostalgia. The Routledge Handbook of Nostalgia (pp. 415-426). Routledge
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003364924-38, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa67450
Anderson, D. (2021). "No more than a dream remembered": Gone with Wind, Nostalgia and the Old South Plantation Imaginary. In Susan Flynn and Antonia Mackay (Ed.), Screening American Nostalgia: Essays on Pop Culture Constructions of Past Times (pp. 13-29). McFarland
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa67435
https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/screening-american-nostalgia/
Anderson, D. (2019). Familiarity breeds content: shaping the nostalgic drift in postbellum plantation life-writing. In Jane Lovell, Sam Hitchmough (Ed.), Authenticity in North America: Place, Tourism, Heritage, Culture and the Popular Imagination Routledge
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429440212, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa50663
http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780429440212
Anderson, D. (2017). Cooking up the Past: Food Nostalgia in Postbellum Plantation Life Writing. Applied Food Science Journal, 1(1), 3-3.
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa36102
https://www.pulsus.com/scholarly-articles/cooking-up-the-past-food-nostalgia-in-post-bellum-plantation-life-writing-3732.html
Anderson, D. (2017). Senses and Sensibility: The Civil War as Lived Experience. Journal of American Studies, 51(04)
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875817000974, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa36101

All Research

Journal Articles

Anderson, D. (2017). Cooking up the Past: Food Nostalgia in Postbellum Plantation Life Writing. Applied Food Science Journal, 1(1), 3-3.
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa36102
https://www.pulsus.com/scholarly-articles/cooking-up-the-past-food-nostalgia-in-post-bellum-plantation-life-writing-3732.html
Anderson, D. (2017). Senses and Sensibility: The Civil War as Lived Experience. Journal of American Studies, 51(04)
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875817000974, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa36101
Anderson, D. & Anderson, D. (2017). Consuming Memories: Food and Childhood in Postbellum Plantation Memoirs and Reminiscences. Food, Culture & Society, 20(3), 443-461.
https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2017.1288800, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa28297
Anderson, D. (2016). Slave Narratives Review Article. Reviews in History
https://doi.org/10.14296/RiH/2014/1934, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa27865
Anderson, D. (2014). Nostalgia for Christmas in Postbellum Plantation Reminiscences. Southern Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the South, 21(2)
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa16521
Anderson, D. (2010). Dying of Nostalgia: Homesickness in the Union Army during the Civil War. Civil War History, 56(September), 247-282.
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa11475

Book Chapters

Anderson, D. (2024). Old South Plantation Nostalgia. The Routledge Handbook of Nostalgia (pp. 415-426). Routledge
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003364924-38, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa67450
Anderson, D. (2021). "No more than a dream remembered": Gone with Wind, Nostalgia and the Old South Plantation Imaginary. In Susan Flynn and Antonia Mackay (Ed.), Screening American Nostalgia: Essays on Pop Culture Constructions of Past Times (pp. 13-29). McFarland
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa67435
https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/screening-american-nostalgia/
Anderson, D. (2019). Familiarity breeds content: shaping the nostalgic drift in postbellum plantation life-writing. In Jane Lovell, Sam Hitchmough (Ed.), Authenticity in North America: Place, Tourism, Heritage, Culture and the Popular Imagination Routledge
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429440212, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa50663
http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780429440212
Anderson, D. (2017). Telling Stories, Making Selves: Nostalgia, the Lost Cause, and Postbellum Plantation Memoirs and Reminiscences. Civil War and Narrative (pp. 21-38). Palgrave
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61179-2_2, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa34968
https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783319611785
Anderson, D. (2015). Civil War Diaries and Reminiscences. A History of Virginia Literature -251). Cambridge University Press
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415164.018, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa16522
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415164
Anderson, D. (2013). The Lost Cause and the Politics of Nostalgia: Reconstructing White Male Southern Identity after the American Civil War. Men After War Routledge
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa11954

Other Research Outputs

Anderson, D. (2015). Reading Between the Lines: Exploring Postbellum Plantation Memoirists through Digitized Newspaper Collections
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa24609
Anderson, D. (2013). When War Came Calling
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa18606

Supervision

“Born across the water but reared under the flag”: The Americanization of Welsh cultural and national identity in the Union Army during the American Civil War, 1861-1865 (awarded 2024)

PhD

Other supervisor: Dr Gerard Oram
The Resilient Workforce of Oklahoma’s Archivists (current)

PhD

Other supervisor: Dr Sarah Crook

Other supervisor: Dr Sarah Crook
The evil that men do lives after them, the good....? The American Indian Agent 1791-1861. Perceptions and Realities Chapter 1 A Golden Age Perhaps Chapter 2 Gold, God, Texas, Manifest Destiny and &amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;Bleeding Kansas&amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;: The Brave New World of the Second Generation of the American Indian Agent, 1837-1861 Conclusion (awarded 2023)

PhD

Other supervisor: Prof Stephen Mcveigh
A History of Queer Representation in Professional Wrestling (awarded 2023)

MA

Other supervisor: Dr Rachel Farebrother

Other supervisor: Dr Bryn Willcock

Taught Modules

AM-117 Introduction to American Studies

This module provides an introduction to the discipline of American Studies, with a particular focus on the interdisciplinary scope of the subject. In addition to encouraging students¿ critical engagement with music, film, literature, visual culture, and history, it establishes a theoretical framework that will form the basis for more specialised study of the United States at levels 5 and 6. The module focuses on significant spaces in U.S. culture and history, from the ship and the plantation to the suburbs and the shopping mall, which are explored using various disciplinary lens and theoretical approaches.
AM-217 The Making of Transatlantic America

This multidisciplinary module seeks to offer a re-appraisal of early American history from the period c. 1607 through c. 1783 as well as understand other elements ¿ geography, economics, philosophy, literature, and politics ¿ that helped determine the shape of early American society. Students will examine some of the most dynamic topics of current early American scholarship and issues as they developed in an emerging world: the roles of race and gender; the changing nature of the colonial family; the sexual practices of early colonists; emigration and the `peopling¿ of empire; the role of the `frontier;¿ backcountry violence; crime; the formation of provincial elites; and uneasy international rivalries.
AM-218 Re-Thinking the South: Southern Culture and History, 1865-1955

What is the `South¿? Where is the `South¿? What makes someone a `southerner¿? Can the South ever be regarded as a single cultural or historical entity, or are there many `Souths¿? Does the `South¿ exist any longer? Much ink has been spilled over these questions amongst both historians and professional ¿South watchers.¿ Over the years, many ¿central themes¿ have been used to define and label the region: food, climate, folkways, music, popular culture, slavery, race relations, geography and even history itself. Questions of regional identity ¿ how southerners perceive themselves and their region (how others perceive both) and how this sense of regional identity has been molded by mythical interpretations of the past ¿ are some of the key themes in this interdisciplinary module. This module shall explore the history and culture of the American South from the end of the Civil War in 1865 through to the mid-1950s and the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement. The module shall consider the emergence of the ¿New¿ South; late C19th southern politics; the `Lost Cause;¿ the rise of `Jim Crow¿ and racial segregation; lynching; the Ku Klux Klan; the Scopes Trial; the South and the New Deal; the South and World War II; and the Brown Decision. We will also have opportunity examine aspects of southern literature and the representation of the South in film.
AM-335 The American Civil War in History and Memory

This interdisciplinary module shall examine some of the key issues and incidents pertinent to the singular event in American history that continues, some 150 years after its momentous conclusion, to hold considerable appeal for scholars and the general public alike: namely, the American Civil War. The armies of the Union and the Confederacy, formidable political statesmen such as Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, and the redoubtable military figures of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee shall be examined alongside other issues that are on the vanguard of recent research in Civil War studies. Through an examination of material from a wide variety of sources ¿ soldiers¿ diaries, letters, speeches, newspaper accounts, magazines, post-Civil War memoirs and reminiscences, novels, documentaries, and film ¿ this course will showcase social, political, economic, racial, gender and military history in ways that shall encourage students to draw their own conclusions as to the true legacy of the conflict and the vast human cost of war. Moreover, a suitably broad range of secondary interpretations on the subject from leading Civil War scholars shall also be examined in lectures and seminars to highlight changing interpretations of the conflict in the years following Lee¿s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865.
AM-336 American Studies Dissertation

The American Studies dissertation is a free-standing, 40-credit module for American Studies students only, which runs across both semesters of Level Three. Candidates conduct research upon a subject of their choice, devised in consultation with a member of staff teaching on the American Studies degree. The topic must fall within staff research and teaching interests.
FY-018 History, Memory and the Creation of Identity

In most human societies, history and memory are important in the creation of identity. For example, consider how recent political debates often involve debates about the relevance of particular strands of history (such as `empire¿) to modern society. This module explores these relationships from the ancient societies of Egypt, Greece, and Rome to the modern world. It is designed to provide Foundation Year students intending to pursue degrees in Classical Studies, Ancient History, Ancient History & Egyptology, American Studies, Medieval Studies, or History with an opportunity to reflect critically on what the past means and how we go about studying it.
HI-M22 Dissertation

Students produce a dissertation of up to 20,000 words on a historical topic, chosen in conjunction with their supervisor. This represents the culmination of the History MAs, and constitutes Part Two of the programme.

Dr David Anderson

Telephone number

Email address

Research Links

About

Areas Of Expertise

Career Highlights

Publications

Research Highlights

All Research

Journal Articles

Book Chapters

Other Research Outputs

Supervision

“Born across the water but reared under the flag”: The Americanization of Welsh cultural and national identity in the Union Army during the American Civil War, 1861-1865 (awarded 2024)

The Resilient Workforce of Oklahoma’s Archivists (current)

A History of Queer Representation in Professional Wrestling (awarded 2023)

Taught Modules

AM-117 Introduction to American Studies

AM-217 The Making of Transatlantic America

AM-218 Re-Thinking the South: Southern Culture and History, 1865-1955

AM-335 The American Civil War in History and Memory

AM-336 American Studies Dissertation

FY-018 History, Memory and the Creation of Identity

HI-M22 Dissertation