CFP: Remembering Annie Hall (University of Sheffield)

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 […]

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

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 […]

Polish Association for American Studies Annual Conference American Studies Center, University of Warsaw, October 27-29, 2016 Plenary speakers: Rob Kroes, Utrecht University, Netherlands James Kyung-Jin Lee, University of California, Irvine Agnieszka Soltysik-Monnet, University of Lausanne, Switzerland Marta Figlerowicz, Yale University Debate on American Studies in Poland Ewa Łuczak, University of Warsaw; Tadeusz Rachwał, University of Social Sciences and Humanities (SWPS); Marek Wilczyński, Gdańsk University Can American studies benefit from expanding beyond its current intellectual framing by adopting a consciously transnational approach and a more determined interdisciplinary approach? What would such an evolution imply in various locations and cultural/intellectual/political contexts? How would it affect current hierarchies of knowledge production and distribution? Our aim is to provoke critical reflection on what it is we Americanists do and to expand the field of inquiry through methodological innovation. Vernon Louis Parrington wrote in Main Currents in American Thought (1927) that he has "chosen to […]

Michael Lobel to give Charles C. Eldredge Prize Lecture at SAAM, 10/27/16 The Smithsonian American Art Museum invites you to join Dr. Michael Lobel, professor of art history at Hunter College in New York City and winner of the 2016 Charles C. Eldredge Prize for distinguished scholarship, for a talk entitled “What John Sloan Can Teach Us about Illustration and American Art” on October 27, 2016, at 4:00pm at the museum.  If you are unable to attend, you can watch a live webcast at http://americanart.si.edu/research/awards/eldredge/. SAAM is also now accepting nominations for the 2017 Charles C. Eldredge Prize. Single-author books devoted to any aspect of the visual arts of the United States and published in the three previous calendar years are eligible. To nominate a book, send a letter (not to exceed one page in length) explaining the work’s significance to the field of American art history and discussing the quality […]

2016 marks the centenary of woman suffrage (with the exception of First Nations) in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. On the cold first day of March 1916 when the Equal Suffrage Bill was read for the second time, women thronged the legislature. There were prominent activists present including Nellie McClung and Emily Murphy, and there were delegates from over fifteen organizations including the Equal Franchise League, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Rebekah Lodges, Women’s Industrial Society, and the Jewish Women’s Society. An unusual sight in the chamber that day for the first time ever, were babies in arms, so eager were their mothers to witness this moment in history. The bill was passed with only one dissenting vote. The women then gathered outside to have this photo taken. This centenary provides an opportunity to reflect on women’s activism and women’s history in this region. We invite participants from […]