American Contagions: Epidemics and the Law from Smallpox to COVID-19

To coincide with the 2018 midterm campaigns, this colloquium seeks to analyse these elections over time. Although presidential elections are the subject of extensive scholarly interest, midterm elections are comparatively neglected. Focusing on a series of case studies, covering the period from Franklin Roosevelt to the present day, the colloquium explores how presidents interact with their parties during midterm campaigns (and how the “out-party” mobilizes support in the absence of a president as party leader), and of how midterms modify a president’s mandate. Midterms and Mandates will take place on November 1-2, 2018, at the National Library of Scotland and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK. The project is supported by the British Association for American Studies and the US Embassy in London.

America’s Urgent and Great Problems: Antecedents and Legacies of 1968 BAAS Postgraduate Conference 2018 3rd November 2018 Department of Arts and Humanities, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon-Tyne “There are three urgent and indeed great problems that we face not only in the United States of America but all over the world today. That is the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1968 was a watershed moment in American and global history. It witnessed mass social movements, student and anti-war protests, shifting racial consciousness, urban riots, and several high-profile political assassinations; a year emblematic of America’s ‘three urgent and indeed great problems’ which Martin Luther King described during his visit to Newcastle upon-Tyne a few months before his death: War, Poverty and Racism. These issues and the challenges they posed, along with other sites of conflict and inequality, including place, gender, […]

American Politics Group Colloquium 2018 Friday 9 November 2018, 10.30-17.00 Eccles Centre, British Library  What's current in US Politics? What effect will the presidency of Donald Trump have on the mid-term elections? International experts will discuss these and other questions in the American Politics Group colloquium at the British Library. This day-long event is ideal for academics, postgraduate students, researchers and teachers. Speakers include: Professor Robert Mason (University of Edinburgh) - 'The Republican party and Donald Trump: perspectives from history?' Dr Emma Long (UEA) - 'The Supreme Court and the American Political Order' Dr Jacob Parakilas (Chatham House), Ms Ashlee Goodwin (Committee Specialist for the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy), Ms Kara Owen (Director, Americas at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office), and Prof Patrick Porter (Birmingham) on US Foreign Policy Former Members of Congress Martin Lancaster (D-NC, 1987-1995) and Tim Petri (R-WI, 1979-2015) […]

IAAS Postgraduate Symposium: This is America? Shaping, Making and Recreating Trinity College Dublin, 10 November 2018 This year the Irish Association for American Studies Postgraduate Symposium invites papers that investigate the myriad ways in which American history and culture has been recorded and rerecorded, across all media. We welcome proposals for papers that consider how America is engaging continuously in a dialogue with its own history and culture. 2018 marks several important milestones in American history, such as Frederick Douglass’s 200th birthday, the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One, and fifty years since the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. With these events in mind and considering the current climate in the United States, this symposium will provide a forum to discuss the ways in which narratives – political, historical, literary – are created, sustained, interrogated, and distorted.

Thursday 15th November 2018 British Views of the United States, 1939-1984 is a symposium organised by Professors Robert Cook and Clive Webb at the University of Sussex. The symposium, supported by a grant from the British Association for American Studies and the US Embassy in London, assesses continuity and change in British attitudes towards the United States from the start of the Second World War to the late Cold War. Although there is an enormous literature on Anglo-American relations, it is usually focused on political and diplomatic elites with little insight into the thoughts and feelings of the larger public. Our focus is therefore on the ways in which notions of a ‘Special Relationship’ between Britain and the United States have been consistent with, or run counter to, popular opinion. We are also interested in intellectual, artistic and literary representations of the United States. Our keynote speaker is Professor James Cronin of Boston College, author of Global Rules: America, Britain and a Disordered […]

Music and Social Movements Symposium 2018, Northumbria University, 30th November 2018 This symposium, funded by the US Embassy and Northumbria University, will bring together academic historians, graduate students, and teachers to examine the role that music played in various oppositional social movements active in the post-World War II period in the United States. This includes (but is not limited to) religious movements, the gay rights movement, labor organizations, and the African-American and Latino activist communities. Participants will think through how we teach and write about the ways that popular music relates to minority group understanding, political protest, religious identity, and more. In particular, the symposium hopes to promote the work of graduate students and early career academics. It will facilitate this through bursaries to cover travel and accommodation. The day will include a series of academic papers and a ‘Teaching History with Music’ roundtable. The symposium will conclude with a major […]

CultCommWar Workshop Four: American Wars, American Memory Friday 30 November, Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford Thanks to a BAAS and US Embassy Small Grant, booking is now open for our next Cultures and Commemorations of War event on the theme of American Wars, American Memory, on Friday 30 November at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford. Participants include John Horne and Layla Renshaw and the keynote speaker is Sarah Wagner, who will be talking about her book Bringing Them Home: The Identification and Commemoration of Vietnam War MIAs. It is free and open to all. You can register here. Please do join us for what should be a brilliant event! CultCommWar (@CultCommWar) is an interdisciplinary seminar series which considers the practices and politics of war memory across time. You can read more about the series on the British Academy website and the Oxford Arts blog, and in this […]

Over Here: US Presidents in Britain, 1918-2018 MANCHESTER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC HISTORY AND HERITAGE, MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY SYMPOSIUM: FRIDAY 7 DECEMBER 2018, 9.45AM-5.30PM December 1918 saw the first ever visit to Britain by a serving American President: Woodrow Wilson, who led the United States throughout the First World War, made a brief tour through the country on his way to the Paris Peace Conference (which started in the new year). The trip included three key destinations: in Carlisle, to see his mother's birth-place; in London, for meetings with politicians and Royalty; and in Manchester, where he addressed a large crowd outside the Free Trade Hall. To mark the centennial of this latter event, and in order to explore the impact and legacies of subsequent Presidential visits to Britain, the Manchester Centre for Public History and Heritage is hosting a one day symposium featuring talks by several leading scholars of Anglo-American […]