Cambridge American History Seminar 2017-2018  We are pleased to announce the schedule of seminars and events for the academic year 2017/18. Several of the seminars will be based on pre- circulated papers that will be made available two weeks prior to the seminar date. All inquiries should be directed to Jonathan Goodwin, jmg216@cam.ac.uk, 01223 335317. 30 October (Bateman Auditorium, Gonville and Caius College), 5:00pm:  Ira Katznelson, 2017-18 Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions, University of Cambridge, and Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia University Pitt Professor Inaugural Lecture:  'As God Rules the Universe': Tocquevillean Reflections on the People and the State in Early America  (This will be a joint event with Political Thought and Intellectual History) There will be a wine reception after the lecture in the Bateman Room, Gonville and Caius College

We are pleased to announce the schedule of seminars and events for the academic year 2017/18. Seminars will be held on Mondays at 5:00 PM in the Knox Shaw Room, Sidney Sussex College, unless otherwise indicated. Several of the seminars will be based on pre- circulated papers that will be made available two weeks prior to the seminar date. All inquiries should be directed to Jonathan Goodwin, jmg216@cam.ac.uk, 01223 335317 23 October: Mae Ngai, Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and Professor of History, Columbia University The Chinese Question and Global Politics 1850-1910  Discussion will be based on a pre-circulated paper (This will be a joint seminar with World History)

PERFORMING AMERICA Institute of English, Szczecin University, 18-20 October 2017 "We are part of an ontohistorical formation which, in accordance with my geological metaphor, might be called the 'performative deposit'" — writes Tomasz Kubikowski, translator of Perform, Or Else. From Discipline to Performance in the "Foreword" to the Polish edition of Jon McKenzie's 2001 book. Introducing performance in the "rhizomatic" language of Deleuze and Guattari, Kubikowski further admits that translating a book on the idea of performativity, the idea which plays out theory as an (aesthetic/ethical) aspect rather than an explanation of the existing knowledge, was one of his most difficult professional challenges. It was neither McKenzie's writing style, Kubikowski divulges, nor the many exotic theoretical concepts that Perform, Or Else... re/constructs that turned out unruly in translation — the basic vocabulary pertaining to performance did. Apart from having about twenty Polish translational equivalents, the English term "performance" is also […]