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 […]
Fright at the Museum Friday 28 October 2016, 6 – 9 pm The American Museum in Britain is participating in the national Museums at Night initiative with a special late-night opening in celebration of Halloween. The Museum is the perfect venue for such an event. Visitors will be led around the Manor House by a guide, and told stories along the way. Tales of the Museum’s own sinister past as well as interesting and peculiar happenings experienced in more recent years will feature in this fascinating tour. Anecdotes from staff members who have been working — or live — in the Manor House will be shared along with ghostly American folklore tales such as Bloody Mary from Pennsylvania and The Birth of the Jersey Devil. This tour is a unique and thrilling event for those who enjoy experiencing a spooky atmosphere in a historical setting. The stories featured aren’t suitable […]
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 […]
Speaker: Emily Gee (Historic England) & Dr Stephen Tuffnell (University of Oxford) Lecture and film screening: 28 October 18:30-20:00 ‘Little America’: a screening of the documentary, ‘Little America’ (2016), exploring the history of the US Embassy at Grosvenor Square, examining its role as a physical representation of the Special Relationship and a site of protest. Commissioned to mark the Embassy’s departure from the Square as it moves to Nine Elms, it features oral histories from numerous British and American diplomats, journalists, politicians and activists, including Tony Blair, William Hague, Jack Straw, Jon Snow, Justin Webb, and the current ambassador, Matthew Barzun . The historical and architectural importance of the building, the only example of Eero Saarinen work in the UK, will be explored in a short introductory talk by Emily Gee (Historic England). The event is free to attend, but you must register in advance. https://littleamerica.eventbrite.co.uk For additional information please contact IHR.Events@sas.ac.uk.
Friday 28 October, 18.30-20.00 The British Library Conference Centre £10/£8/£7 http://www.bl.uk/events/democrats-v-republicans-us-elections-debate We discuss how the US presidential race stands just days before the election result. This year’s election campaigns for the US Presidency and Congress have surprised all the experts. Insurgent campaigns by Donald Trump on the Republican side and Bernie Sanders among the Democrats attracted unexpected support, and shifted the centre point of the ongoing political debate. For the first time in US history a major party chose a woman, Hillary Clinton, as its presidential nominee. The Presidency, the US Senate and the US House are all being vigorously contested, and all results matter. As these events approach their climax this debate, moderated by pioneering pollster and Founder of MORI (Market and Opinion Research International) Sir Robert Worcester, and featuring speakers from Republicans Overseas and Democrats Abroad will shed light on the situation just a few days before the […]
The School of Histories, Languages and Cultures at the University of Hull seeks to appoint a Lecturer in American History who will contribute to the strong reputation for teaching and research in the American Studies programme at the University. The post commences January 2017. The appointment will complement our existing provision in American history, literature and culture. The successful candidate will be able to work in a team-based and interdisciplinary context. We are seeking an enthusiastic and proactive early-career scholar with a passionate commitment to teaching and learning who can also demonstrate an emerging track record of excellent research. The post-holder must have expertise in American history suitable for delivering a new module on the history and culture of the American Civil War, as well as designing their own courses on other regional and/or racial aspects of US histories. In your covering letter please refer directly to the criteria, given […]
Call for Papers: HOTCUS Winter Symposium Eccles Centre for American Studies, British Library, London Saturday 18 February 2017 War and Conflict in Twentieth Century US Society and Culture Keynote Speaker: Professor Joanna Bourke (Birkbeck, University of London) 2017 marks the hundredth anniversary of US entry into the First World War. That conflict saw the emergence of the US as a global military power, but also had a profound impact on American society and culture. In subsequent years, war and conflict of various sorts have shaped the way that Americans think about their place in the world and their relationships with each other, and has molded the way that the US is viewed in international and transnational contexts. This one-day symposium seeks to explore and re-assess the impact of war and conflict on US society and culture during the twentieth century. Panel and paper proposals are encouraged on […]
American Politics Group of the Political Studies Association Annual Conference 2017 ‘Change and Continuity in U.S. Politics’ Call for Papers The forty-third annual conference of the American Politics Group of the Political Studies Association will be held at the University of Leicester (UK) from Thursday 5 to Saturday 7 January 2017. The keynote speaker will be Dr Lara Brown, Associate Professor at George Washington University (https://gspm.gwu.edu/dr-lara-brown) There is a broad conference theme: ‘Change and Continuity in U.S. Politics’. This theme can be approached in various ways; papers might, for example, take a long term historical perspective when thinking about political development or might reflect on the more immediate consequences of the 2016 election results. We will also be happy to receive proposals considering subjects and material beyond this particular theme. For example, papers or panel proposals examining contemporary US political institutions or processes, foreign policy issues or political history are […]
CFP Special Issue: The Literature of the Anthropocene The concept of the Anthropocene, deemed by Bruno Latour “the best alternative we have to usher us out of the notion of modernization”, blurs the distinction between human and geological history (Dipesh Chakrabarty). It speaks, too, to contemporary fiction’s concern with the place of humans on the planet, the ways in which they shape - and are shaped by - the natural and technological environments through which they move, and the broader relation between the early twenty-first century moment and ‘deep’ time. Although the value of the Anthropocene as an official geological epoch is still being considered by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the term is already widely in use to denote the era in which human beings have become a major geological force with significant socio-political implications. Indeed, “In the Anthropocene, social, cultural and political orders are woven into and co-evolve […]