American Studies: Stars and Gripes

ILLUSTRATION FOR TIME BY JOSHUA GORCHOV

It's registration week at the University of Nottingham and hundreds of bright-eyed first-years are filing past recruitment stations manned by groups such as the Lithuanian Club and the Sri Lankan Students' Association. Along the way, a flurry of red, white and blue draws them to a stand promoting a country that could currently do with all the p.r. help it can get: the U.S. "We wanted everything in our stall to look American," says the American Society's vice president Francesca De Feo, seated before a Boston Red Sox pennant and an image of a Thanksgiving Day turkey. Like many of her...

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