Events

Discover the latest events about our research.

Upcoming events

Spring/Summer 2025

Lift Every Voice: An American Studies Playlist. Wednesday 2 April 2026, 16:30–18:30, Arts A108. Featuring talks by academic and professional services staff, undergraduates, and postgraduates on historically and culturally important songs.

Suspended Life: An American Literature Symposium. ‘The Belief in Suspension: Genealogy of an Ecological Concept’, by Antoine Traisnel (University of Michigan). ‘ “Is there a life after death?”: Henry and William James on Posthumous Consciousness’, by Michael Jonik (University of Sussex). Wednesday, 12 March 2025. Co-hosted with the English Colloquium.

‘Women, Plantations, and Slavery in Late-Seventeenth-Century England and Barbados’. Misha Ewen (University of Sussex), “ Thursday, 27 February 2025, 16:00–17:30, Arts A108. Co-hosted with History and Early Modern and Medieval Studies.

Autumn/Winter 2025

‘ “Where Is Your Rage?”: AIDS Generations in American Culture.’ Monica Pearl (University of Manchester), moderated by Benedict Welch. Wednesday, 20 November 2024, 17:00–19:00, Arts A108. Co-hosted with the Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence.

‘The US Election 2024: A Roundtable’ with Carol Grose (University of Sussex), Katharina Rietzler (University of Sussex), Adam Smith (RAI Oxford), David Tal (University of Sussex), and Connie Thomas (University of Sussex). Thursday, 14 November 2024, 16:00–18:00, Arts A 108. Co-hosted with the Politics and History departments.

‘ “This Is America”: Reimagined Pasts and Speculative Futures’ BAAS Postgraduate Symposium, convened by Riziki Millanzi (University of Sussex). Thursday, 14 November 2024, Arts A108.

‘Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons’. Benjamin Barson (Bucknell University), with a music performance by Benjamin Barson and Gizelxanath Rodriguez. Thursday, 17 October, 2024, 16:00–17:30, Sussex Humanities Lab, Silverstone 211. Co-hosted with the Centre for Cultural Studies and the History department.

Spring/Summer 2024

‘The Bookshop of Black Queer Diaspora: On the Contents of Rotimi Fani-Kayode’s Trunk’. Professor Roderick Ferguson (Yale University), moderated by Riziki Millanzi. Tuesday, 21 May 2024, 15:00–16:30, Arts A108 and online. Co-hosted with the Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence and Art History.

‘Spatialising (anti-)fascism in the 1960s and 70s: The campus and the courthouse’. Dr Joanna Pawlik (University of Sussex), Monday 13 May 2024, 12:00–14:00, Arts A108. Co-hosted with Art History.

"The rise of right-wing populism over the past decade, and the presidency of Donald Trump in particular, have prompted renewed reflection on the question of fascism’s incarnations in the US after the Second World War. This paper speaks to such debates about the definition and operations of fascism beyond Benito Mussolini’s Italy and Adolf Hitler’s Germany by exploring visual representations of (anti-)fascism during the late 1960s and early 1970s, at the peak of protests against the escalating war in Vietnam, the violent suppression of student activism, and Black Panther organizing. It considers how the iconography of European fascism was regularly invoked by radicals, artists and activists during the 1960s and early 1970s to label and denounce what were perceived to be adjacent or equivalent regimes of white supremacy, imperialism and state violence. The paper takes a spatial approach to the constructions and contestations of (anti)-fascism in these decades, focussing on ‘the campus’ and ‘the courthouse’ as examples of what Nikhal Singh describes as potential ‘zones of internal exclusion’ – spaces in which fascism might co-exist within liberal democracies. It critically reflects on how the visual languages of artists and activists drew comparisons between Nazi Germany and state violence, focussing on the trial for conspiracy of the Chicago 8 (1969–70) and the People’s Park protest (Berkeley 1969)."

Subsurface Ecologies Symposium, Friday 10 May 2024, 9:00-18:15, Arts A108. In partnership with LARCA, with support from the British Academy.

‘Community-Driven Histories in an Age of Racial Reckonings and Backlashes in the US’. Professor Erika Lee (Harvard University and University of Cambridge), moderated by Molly Roisín Carlin, Thursday, 2 May 2024, 16:00–17:30, Arts A108 and online. Zoom registration here. Co-hosted with History Work in Progress.

"At a time when Confederate statues are being toppled in the US as symbols of white supremacy, other monuments and memorials commemorating difficult histories are being built. Historian Erika Lee explores how these institutional and community-based efforts are preserving histories of racism and xenophobia. She suggests that in this current age of racial reckonings and battles over American history, the best of these efforts reveal that monuments about the past are not just about the past. They grapple with the present and inspire our future."

‘American Elections on Film and Television’ roundtable with Charlie Jeffries, Frances Smith, Pam Thurschwell, and Lawrence Webb, Thursday, 21 March 2024, 16:00–17:30, Silverstone 302. Co-hosted with Film Studies.

‘From Havana to Hollywood: Slave Resistance in the Cinematic Imaginary’. Professor Philip Kaisary (Carleton University), Wednesday, 13 March 2024, 17:00–18:30, Jubilee 144. Co-hosted with Film Studies.

‘US Women and Diplomacy’ workshop, Friday, 8 March 2024, Women’s Library, London School of Economics (co-sponsored by SCAS).

‘The Promise and Peril of the US in the World’ AHRC Network Meeting, Thursday, 18 January 2024, 12:30–17:00, Arts A155

Autumn/Winter 2023

‘Waiting for the New Democratic Majority: The Long Crisis of the US Democratic Party, 1974-2024’. Dr Patrick Andelic (University of Northumbria), Thursday, 30 November 2023, 16:00–17:30, Arts A108. Co-hosted with History Work in Progress.

‘The Enemy at the Gate: How Victorious Northerners Lost the Battle to Remember the American Civil War’. Professor Emeritus Robert Cook (University of Sussex), Thursday, 11 September 2023, 16:00–17:30, Arts A108. Co-hosted with History Work in Progress.

Welcome back drinks, Tuesday, 3 October 2023, 16:00–18:00, IDS Bar.