Cambridge American History Seminar For further details, pre-circulated papers and other seminars see the CAHS webpage. 17 October: Pekka Hämäläinen, Rhodes Professor of American History, University of Oxford Iktómi’s Children: The Rise and Fall of the Lakota Empire Discussion will be based on a pre-circulated paper
Marisa Futernick - In the run-up to the U.S. Presidential election, Professor Iwan Morgan and artist Marisa J. Futernick discuss the role of personal narrative, biography, and place in the American Presidency. This event coincides with the publication of Futernick’s new book of short stories and photographs, 13 Presidents, which features each President from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush as a protagonist. Weaving together fact and fiction, Futernick forms a vision of America that is both invented and true. Futernick is a London-based American artist who recently drove across the U.S. to visit all thirteen of the nation’s Presidential libraries as research for 13 Presidents. A screening of photographs from the publication will accompany the talk. 13 Presidents is published in September 2016 by Slimvolume, London.www.slimvolume.org Attendance is free of charge but registration is required. IMPORTANT NOTE on access to 51 Gordon Square: in order to secure the smooth […]
20 October 2016, 5:30pm-7:00pm ON THE ROAD WITH THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTS Marissa Futernick, a London-based American artist will be in conversation with Iwan Morgan about her book 13 Presidents. More information.
Jacob Rees-Mogg to deliver the Sir Winston Churchill Memorial Lecture at the American Museum in Britain Thursday 20 October, 2016 6 – 8pm (drinks at 6pm, lecture starts at 6.45pm) £7 The fourth Churchill Memorial Lecture at the American Museum in Britain is entitled ‘The UK’s Role in the World post-Brexit’ and will be delivered by local MP Jacob Rees-Mogg. In his lecture, pro-Brexit Jacob Rees-Mogg will explore the advantages and challenges of Great Britain being independent from the bureaucracy of the European Union. He will cover the various implications leaving the European Union will have on Great Britain’s economy and governance, and its relationships with countries still in the European Union, as well as America and the rest of the world. Director Richard Wendorf says: ‘This lecture offers the American Museum in Britain the opportunity to host a stimulating speaker whose financial and political experience promise a lively talk […]
Cambridge American History Seminar For further details, pre-circulated papers and other seminars see the CAHS webpage. Thursday 20 October (Trinity Hall, Room TBC), 6:00pm: Manisha Sinha, Draper Chair in American History, University of Connecticut Book Launch: The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition (Yale University Press, 2016) Hosted by the Trinity Hall History Society
Homeland Insecurities 2016 Canadian Association for American Studies Conference Fredericton, New Brunswick, October 21-23 2016 Neoliberalism has ushered in new forms of global insecurity, which instill in American citizens the desire for enforced security. Through tightened border controls, antiterrorism laws, the expansion of the prison system, the war on drugs, and other measures, the U.S. government both provokes and assuages American insecurities about imagined and real terrors, both foreign and domestic. Often, these measures erode welfare institutions that actually provide a degree of safety against economic and social uncertainty, thereby perpetuating a vicious cycle intrinsic to neoliberalism’s creative destruction. What are the origins of the insecurity state, and how has it shaped American culture? More broadly, what does it mean to imagine the United States as a secure homeland? Can non-indigenous Americans ever feel at home in North America without inventing abject social categories meant to contain their insecurities? Further […]
aspeers is the first and currently only peer-reviewed print journal for MA-level American studies scholars in Europe. It is a platform for the best work done by American studies graduate students below the PhD level. It aims to foster academic exchange among young Americanists across Europe, and to thereby advance the field as well as its genuine European perspective on ‘America’ and its presences and effects around the world. aspeers features a general section in addition to a topical one that brings academic works into a dialogue on one common theme. For the upcoming issue, this topical section will be organized around different notions of "American Monsters." Please feel free to send in work to have it considered for publication in aspeers if you are an American studies student at a European university and are looking to publish a paper without a topical restriction. or you are an American studies student at a European […]
Cambridge American History Seminar For further details, pre-circulated papers and other seminars see the CAHS webpage. 24 October: Nick Witham, Lecturer in US Political History, University College London Remembering 1968: Life Writing, Politics and Protest
BrANCA Panel at BAAS Conference 2017 The British Association of American Studies (BrANCA) invites proposals for a special panel at the British Association for American Studies Conference, 6-8 April 2017 at Canterbury Christchurch University. Each year BrANCA hosts a special panel at BAAS showcasing progressive, interdisciplinary work on the United States in the long nineteenth century. We invite proposals for papers for this year’s panel from all researchers working in the field. We are particularly interested in global, hemispheric and transatlantic approaches to key themes in nineteenth century literary studies, and papers that propose new ways of conceiving the field. Researchers at all stages are welcomed, and papers from postgraduates are particularly encouraged. 250 word proposals for 20-minute presentations, with a provisional title and brief CV, should be sent to Dr. Tom F. Wright, University of Sussex at tom.wright@sussex.ac.uk by Tuesday 25 October. Queries should also be directed to this address.
Tuesday 25 October, 18.30-20.00 The British Library Conference Centre £8/£6/£5 http://www.bl.uk/events/migrant-landscapes Explore the role of geography in the migration crises witnessed this year So far in 2016, from the Mediterranean Sea to the deserts of the US–Mexico border, thousands of migrants and refugees have died while trying to reach their destinations. As never before, the natural barriers that lie between people fleeing poverty and violence, and their objectives, have become graveyards. In this event, two specialists with experience of the US–Mexico deserts and the Mediterranean Sea respectively, discuss their work and the role of geography in the current migration crises. Dr Robin Reineke is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Colibrí Center for Human Rights, based in Tucson, Arizona. Colibrí is a non-profit organisation working to end migrant death and related suffering along the US–Mexico border through forensic science, advocacy, and research. Patrick Kingsley is the Guardian’s inaugural migration […]
26 October 2016, 6:00pm-8:00pm BLACK HISTORY MONTH FILM SCREENING AND DISCUSSION: TANGERINE To mark Black History Month, the UCL Americas Research Network is collaborating with UCL's LGBTQ Research Network, qUCL, to host a screening of Tangerine followed by a discussion around themes of intersectionality raised in the film. More information.
Forging the American Century: World War II and the Transformation of U.S. Internationalism Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, October 27-28, 2016 The intersection of contemporary debates about the future of American power and recent developments in the field of diplomatic history compel us to reconsider the foundations and contours of the American Century. "Forging the American Century", seeks to combine the current concern for America's changing role in the world with new and developing insights into the nature of international relations to revisit the origins of the American Century: World War II and its aftermath. The conference is not about the high diplomacy of the war, nor is it necessarily about the start of the Cold War. Instead, it will address the ways in which the World War and America's rise to global power drove Americans in different fields, both inside and outside the sphere of formal diplomacy, to forge […]