CFP: William Birch and the Complexities of American Visual Culture: A Symposium Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of the Visual Culture Program at the Library Company of Philadelphia

America in the 'Asian Century' Nottingham University Tue, 14 March 2017 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM GMT The future of North America's relations with Asia is uncertain. A recent upsurge in political nationalism on both sides of the Pacific has called into question the capacity, and will, of the United States and Canada to sustain their influence across the region. President Obama’s “pivot” towards Asia polarised opinion at home and abroad, garnering support and suspicion in equal measure. In Canada, Prime Minster Trudeau’s emphasis on “cross-Pacific profit” has been criticised for subordinating issues of security. A one-day symposium convened by the University of Nottingham’s Department of American & Canadian Studies, in association with the Institute of Asia & Pacific Studies, brings together leading scholars from across the globe to historicise and debate, through an array of regional and thematic prisms, North America’s increasingly tumultuous relationship with Asia. Tickets can be […]

"Angela Carter and the Americas" - Dr Heidi Yeandle (Swansea University) Transatlantic Literary Women Series - University of Glasgow The series will explore the lives and writings of transatlantic women in all genres from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Themes may include: female writers’ involvement in the transatlantic anti-slavery network, campaigning for (and against) suffrage, famous “others”, transatlanticism in a digital age, transatlantic modernisms, Edith Wharton: adaptations of transatlanticism, race and class, transatlantic poetics. Room TBC, more information available here: https://transatlanticladies.wordpress.com/events/

Anxiety, Fear and National Identity: Anti-Immigration Politics and the Rise of Latino Power in the US Neil Foley explores how the surge in immigration since the 1970s has led to increasing levels of xenophobia resulting in anti-immigrant politics and policies, including militarization of the border, state laws curtailing rights of undocumented immigrants, mass detention and deportation, the building of a 700-mile border fence in 2006, and Donald Trump’s recent promise to build a wall along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico.  With over a million U.S.-born Latinos turning 18 years of age every year and therefore eligible to vote, many aging whites wonder if American can ever be ‘great again.’ Foley is the Robert and Nancy Dedman Endowed Chair in History at Southern Methodist University.  He the author of Quest for Equality: The Failed Promise of Black-Brown Solidarity and Mexicans and the Making of America, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in History in 2015. […]

Pocahontas and after: historical culture and transatlantic encounters, 1617-2017 The British Library and the Institute of Historical Research, London March 16-18, 2017 A major international conference to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Pocahontas’ death. Cohosted by the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library and the Institute of Historical Research. Additional support has been provided by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and The University of Warwick. In 2017 the Anglo-American world will mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Pocahontas. Numerous commemorative activities, from walking tours to talking monuments, have been planned on both sides of the Atlantic. Intense, closely focused interest in her life is, of course, not a new phenomenon. Her story has been romanticised at many points over the centuries, and multiple representations of Pocahontas (as Noble Savage, Mother of a Nation, propaganda icon, seductive temptress) have materialised in historical […]

Date of Event 18th March 2017 Last Booking Date for this Event 17th March 2017 Description Historical fiction in English constitutes its own enduring tradition but in recent years, it has enjoyed a surge of critical acclaim and commercial popularity, as such scholars as Kate Mitchell and Nicola Parsons have argued. This one-day symposium at the University of Nottingham will explore how recent writers in the United States have engaged with the form. In what sense are American writers reinterpreting the past to produce what Elodie Rousselot has termed “neo-historical fiction”? Which periods are they examining? And why do US writers favor particular historical eras and episodes over others? Event webpage

Do American Universities Promote Income Inequality? Affluent Americans support more conservative economic policies than the non-affluent and government responds disproportionately to these views. Yet little is known about the emergence of these consequential views which are partly traceable to socialization that occurs on predominately affluent college campuses, especially those with norms of financial gain and especially among socially embedded students. Tali Mendelberg explores how ‘the affluent campus effect’ of college socialization partly explains why affluent Americans support economically conservative policies. Mendelberg is a professor at Princeton University and author of several award-winning books including The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality and The Silent Sex: Gender, Deliberation and Institutions. Date: 21 March 2017
 Time: 6:30pm – 8pm
 Venue:  Wolfson Theatre, NAB Speaker: Tali Mendelberg, Professor of Politics at Princeton University Event Chair: Peter Trubowitz, Professor of International Relations and Director of the US Centre