(Posted September 17, 2012)

HUNTINGDON. Pa. -- Finn Pollard, a senior lecturer in history from the University of Lincoln in Lincoln, England, will talk at Juniata College on " 'A very potent combination': The Anglo-American Relationship On TV and Off, 1960-1971," in his lecture at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Sept. 24, in Neff Lecture Hall on the Juniata campus.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Pollard will talk on how British television shows depicted the political relationship between Great Britain and the United States. The 1960s and early '70s was a turbulent period for Anglo-American relations facing the impacts of the Vietnam War and Britain's focus toward Europe. On British television screens a series of shows, particularly "The Persuaders!," painted a rosier picture of cooperation.

Pollard's research focuses on American political independence in the 1790s. He centers his work on how John Adams and others tried to maintain political independence despite the emergence of national political parties. He also is working on courses and research focusing on the British image of America as a nation as seen through the films and literature of World War II.

He is the author of "The Literary Quest for an American National Character," published in 2009, and has written scholarly articles in such journals as the Annual Bulletin of Historical Literature and American Nineteenth Century History. He also has written about the Anglo-American relationship as portrayed in the James Bond films.

Pollard earned a master's degree and doctoral degree from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He was hired by the University of Lincoln in 2003. Prior to that he held jobs as lecturer at the University of Glasgow, in Scotland, and the University of Newcastle. As a graduate student he studied early national U.S. culture through the literature of Washington Irving, Hugh Henry Brackenridge and James Fenimore Cooper.

He is a member of the British Association for American Studies.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.