Past events 2020-25

February 2025

Sand Rush: The Revival of the Beach in Twentieth Century Los Angeles: a readers-meet-author conversation by Elsa Devienne (Northumbria) in dialogue with Michell Chresfield, Katharina Motyl, Oussema Othmeni, and Myka Tucker-Abramson. Co-Chaired with Yosra Amraoui (Carthage University and the Tunisian Association for American Cultural Studies)

January 2025

Indigenous-Palestinian Solidarity and the Political Economy of Oil: a guest lecture by Glen Coulthard (University of British Columbia)

November 2024

À Bas Le Sommelier’: Stewards, Drinkers, and the Jokes They Told: a guest lecture by Daniel Bender (University of Toronto)

Wiitkaamaaganak: Adoption and the Resurgence of Anishinaabe Citizenship Orders: a guest lecture by Damiel Lee (Toronto Metropolitan University) 

October 2024

Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons: a guest lecture and musical performance by Benjamin Barson (Bucknell University) and Gizelxanath Rodriguez (Independent Artist)

June 2024

Arise! Internationalism from the Mexican Revolution to the Midlands: a readers-meet-author conversation by Christina Heatherton (Trinity College) in dialogue with Aminah Elahi, Rita Gayle, Amahra Spence, and John Narayan

May 2024

Merze Tate, Africa, and the Future of Black Studies: a guest lecture by Barbara Savage (Pennsylvania)

March 2024

Bleu, Blanc, Rouge & Brown: French Histories, Colonial Spaces: a guest lecture by Roxanne Panchasi (Simon Fraser)

October 2023

Indigenous Sovereignty on the High Steel: a guest lecture by Allan Downey (McMaster). In collaboration with the Birmingham Research Institute for History and Cultures.

June 2023

Disability in Poetry and Performance, poetry evening featuring award-winning poets Sarah James, Beth O'Brien, and Jamie Hale.

Disaffected: the Cultural Politics of Unfeeling in Nineteenth Century America: a guest lecture by Dr Xine Yao (UCL)

Marx for Cats: A Radical Bestiary: a guest lecture by Leigh Claire La Berge (CUNY)

May 2023

PGR Roundtable Discussion: the Arts and Humanities PhD Beyond Academia: Michelle Green: Impact and Evaluation Manager, Alexandra Rose Charity (PhD in English Literature); Will Carroll: English teacher (PhD in English Literature); and Alice Lilly: Senior Researcher, Institute for Government (PhD American Studies).

March 2023

The Legacy of Terrorism: The 1985 Air India Bombing and its Victims: a guest lecture by Susheel Gupta, with Steve Hewitt and Katharina Karcher.

November 2022

Book Launch: Region Out of Place: the Brazilian Northeast and the World, 1924-1968, by Courtney J. Campbell (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022)

October 2022

Poetry Reading: Peter Gizzi (in collaboration with the Department of Creative Writing)

Car Culture Today: taking up an urgent question in light of the relationship between cars and other modes of mobility, this event puts historians and other experts in urbanism in conversation with auto-industry marketing expert Tom Flood (in collaboration with the Birmingham Research Institute for History and Cultures)

September 2022

Book Launch: Get the Money! The Collected Prose of Ted Berrigan, 1961-1983 (City Lights Books, 2022), with editors Alice Notley, Nick Sturm, Anselm Berrigan and Edmund Berrigan (in association with the Network for New York School Studies)

May 2022

Unpublished America: two symposia. Organised by John Fagg (Birmingham) and Gordon Hutner (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), funded by the Birmingham-Illinois BRIDGE seed fund, and building on a 2016 symposium where these initial ideas were generated and explored, organised by Rona Cran and Dr John Fagg, this symposium presented papers on the theme of 'Unpublished America'. Speakers included John Fagg, Francesca Bratton (Uppsala), Jenn Soong (Oxford), Mike Kalisch (Oxford), Kiron Ward (Essex), Adam Rounce (Nottingham) and Sara Wood (Birmingham). Rona Cran and Gordon Hutner acted as respondents. A second symposium took place at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, in September 2022, featuring Anita Huizar-Hernández (Arizona State University), Joshua Kotin (Princeton University), in addition to Rona Cran, John Fagg, and Gordon Hutner.

April 2022

The Commonwealth Games: a roundtable discussion, featuring Juanita Cox (Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London), Michael Dawson (St Thomas University), Kate Nichols (Birmingham), Verity Postlethwaite (Hartpury University), and Nathan Cardon (Birmingham). In collaboration with the Birmingham Research Institute for History and Cultures.

March 2022

Building Dogopolis: Dogs and Humans in Modern London, New York, and Paris: a guest lecture by Chris Pearson (Liverpool).

February 2022

Moonlight: Screening Black Queer Youth (in collaboration with BFilm), featuring a guest lecture by Maria Flood (Liverpool)

Counterterrorism in North America and the UK in the Past and Present. A roundtable discussion hosted by Steve Hewitt (Birmingham), with speakers including Daniel S. Chard (Western Washington), Amal Abu-Bakare (Liverpool) and Huda Mukbil.

November 2021

‘A Monument to Negro Enterprise’: The Black Press and Chicago’s Literary Landscapes in the 1920s: a guest lecture by E. James West (York)

October 2021

Book Launch: Jimmy Packham's Gothic Utterance and Hannah Murray's Liminal Whiteness in Early US Fiction

March 2021

The Profits of Slavery and the Wealth of Universities: A Transatlantic Conversation. With Afua Cooper (Dalhousie), Danni Ebanks-Ingram, Asha Rogers (Birmingham), and Michell Chresfield (Cornell).

February 2021

Queer New York, online roundtable discussion with Sarah Schulman (CUNY), Darius Bost (Utah), Fiona Anderson (Newcastle), and Gavin Butt (Northumbria). This interdisciplinary roundtable discussion explored 'Queer New York' from the perspectives of four writers whose work has collectively addressed the HIV-AIDS pandemic, gentrification and memory, the Black gay cultural renaissance, ruins, cruising and the waterfront, and queer theatre/performance, art, and seriousness.

October 2020

Health and Race: a roundtable discussion. Led by Michell Chresfield.