The goatsite is delighted to announce that Dr. Alf Tomas Tønnessen is the new editor of the NAAS Newsletter.   He succeeds Prof. David Mauk, current ASANOR and NAAS President, who provided  full and vital editions twice a year for many years, always snapping at the heels of recalcitrant contributors from other NAAS countries.  Our thanks to him are joined to our warm and confident welcome to Alf Tomas who will publish his first edition on October 1st, 2009.  He may be reached at a.t.tonnessen@ilos.uio.no.

In response to the goatsite's request, Alf Tomas was kind enough to provide us with biographical information, and so we proudly present him here, in his own words:



Ph.D., North-American Area Studies, University of Oslo, 2008: Title: Conservatives for Change: How Richard Viguerie and Paul Weyrich Helped Organize, Fund, and Empower the American Right Wing, 1964-1981. I have a book contract with The Edwin Mellen Press, and I am almost finished redesigning the dissertation into a book with the tentative title Richard Viguerie, Paul Weyrich, and the Building of the American Conservative Movement, 1973-1981.

This spring I was a lecturer (timelærer) at the University of Oslo and at Vestfold College. This fall I will continue as a lecturer at UiO, but I have also accepted a full-time position teaching English and Norwegian at Persbråten videregående skole.

I have an article about the Christian Right in the Swedish journal Internationella Studier, and a few articles in the student journal The Americanist and in Morgenbladet and Dagsavisen. I have given papers at EAAS (06), NAAS (03, 05, 09), ASANOR (07), American Politics Group (05, 07), the British Association for American Studies (08), Historians of
the 20th Century United States (09), British Postgraduate Student conference (09), and Heidelberg Spring Academy (05).

You might add that I am married to Trine Ragnhild and have Olav August (3 years) and Liv Solveig (1 year)