Brick Lane from Page to Screen: Representation, Authenticity and British Asian Cinema
06/11/2013
Screening and discussion with Dr Ruth Maxey, American & Canadian Studies: Sarah Gavron (dir.), Brick Lane (2007) Location: B7, The Hemsley, University Park Date: Wednesday 13 November 2013, 6.30pm Free Admission – All Welcome Please join me for a screening and Q&A discussion of Sarah Gavron’s 2007 film adaptation of Monica Ali’s bestselling novel, Brick …
The JFK Conspiracies: Special Event to Mark the 50th Anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination
25/10/2013
Who killed President Kennedy? Why did the Warren Commission lie? Why did Jack Ruby murder Lee Harvey Oswald? Why are there so many different theories about the assassination? November 22 1963. For decades afterwards, most Americans, and many people around the world, could respond instantly to the question: ‘Where were you when you heard the …
Alice Munro: Nobel Laureate
14/10/2013
‘It was anarchy she was up against – a devouring muddle. Sudden holes and impromptu tricks and radiant vanishing consolations.’ (Alice Munro, Open Secrets) The award of the Nobel Prize to Canadian short story writer Alice Munro (b. 1931) has been greeted with pleasure by admirers from around the globe. Munro’s artistry is appreciated equally …
Booker without Borders?
07/10/2013
The diverse 2013 Man Booker-shortlisted authors – the Zimbabwean NoViolet Bulawayo; the Canadian-born New Zealander Eleanor Catton; the Indian-American Jhumpa Lahiri; the Japanese-American-Canadian Ruth Ozeki; the Irish Colm Toíbín; and the British Jim Crace – will be the last to be celebrated under the prize’s traditional catchment area. In 2014, the prize opens to “any …
The March on Washington 1963 and the Untold Stories Behind the Dream
03/10/2013
Co-convened by three professors of American History and American Studies — Britta Waldschmidt-Nelson, Sharon Monteith and Marcia Chatelain, from Germany, Britain and the US — a September 2013 symposium reflected the global impact of the March on Washington by forging a transatlantic conversation in the city of the March. Hosted by the German Historical Institute …
Protest Memory: Black History Month for American Studies
30/09/2013
Nearly 100 years ago, an African American intellectual decided to launch what he called “Negro History Week”. The son of former slaves, Carter G. Woodson wanted to popularize interest in black history, and transform the past from a site of pain (at slavery and lynching) to one of pride (at activism and accomplishment). He believed …
Postwar American Fiction and the State of the Novel: Reflections on the Rise of Creative Writing
30/04/2013
Creative writing programmes have been part of the higher education system in the US and beyond for more than 60 years. Arguments about whether one can be taught to write are of equally longstanding. Are writers romantic figures with intuitive skills whose work thrives with exposure to worldly experience? Or can people be trained to …
Mali, Terrorism, and US Foreign Policy
12/03/2013
In January 2013, David Cameron announced that British intelligence officers, Special Forces soldiers, aircraft and surveillance drones would all be deployed to ‘dismantle’ terrorist groups based in northern Mali, and called for a generational commitment to rout terrorist groups from the Sahel region. In fact, such an effort has been ongoing for the past decade …
Research on contemporary slavery: events on campus
01/03/2013
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the US Emancipation Proclamation. Signed and issued by President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War on January 1, 1863, the order proclaimed free all those enslaved in the Confederate States. Yet President Obama marked this anniversary not with celebratory remarks or a visit to the Lincoln Memorial …
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