UK American Studies Against the Genocide!:  
A symposium on Palestine and American Studies in the UK 

Saturday 9 May 2025 / 10am-5pm / Exact venue TBD 

The genocidal war in Gaza alongside the acceleration of ethnic cleansing of the West Bank could not occur without full US support – from the funding of the genocide, to the provision of weapons and intelligence, to the provision of diplomatic cover. As the costs of this support continue to mount, the genocidal war is transforming the trajectory of domestic and imperial US politics in striking ways. It has revivified student protests that recall the anti-Vietnam war protests of the 1960s while also leading to an existential crisis of the University itself; led to the US dismantling the rules-based order, the very institutional basis of its hegemony; cost the Democrats the 2024 election; both emboldened Trump and opened up deep fractures in his MAGA base; and is rapidly leading to the redrawing of the global chessboard.

It is thus unsurprising that the question of Palestine has been central to American Studies as practiced in the US. Palestine is both a frequent topic of analysis in American Studies modules and curriculum; papers on Palestine are frequent at American Studies Association’s (ASA) annual conference and in its flagship publication, American Quarterly; and the ASA has frequently debated and taken positions on Palestine at its annual meetings. Since 2013, the ASA has vocally supported Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and more recently its executive committee issued a statement, expressing both its grief at escalating violence and called “for an immediate ceasefire and release of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and the US to end support of Israeli apartheid.”

In contrast, American Studies in the UK has been largely silent on these questions. Even though the UK has similarly provided military aid, intelligence information, weapons components, and diplomatic cover to Israel, and even though the UK government has radically curtailed civil liberties in order to defend and support Israel’s genocide,  there have been no boycott motions proposed to the British Association of American Studies (BAAS) or Historians of the Twentieth Century United States (HOTCUS), no special issues of Journal of American Studies on the genocide, and the topic of Palestine is rarely raised in conferences or taught in American Studies programs in our universities. Why? What are the historical, sociological, and political economic reasons behind this silence? And how do we change it? How can we as Americanists put Palestine at the centre of UK American Studies’ curriculum? How can we as Americanists  challenge the scholasticide and censorship in Palestine, and the censorship around Palestine in our universities? And how can we mobilise in our professional contexts (from our places of work to professional organisations like BAAS and HOTCUS) to build the BDS movement and participate in the struggle to end the genocide and free Palestine

This symposium both aims to put Palestine back at the centre of our theorisations of the history, culture, literature, and political economy of American Empire, while also theorising its current absence in UK American Studies. It is our hope that this conference acts as a catalyst for practical (and utopian) change, from the creation of collective syllabi to the building of Palestine solidarity networks, and the transformation of our professional organisations and universities. Therefore, we welcome both more traditional paper and panel proposals and more interactive workshops that respond to the following streams. 

History, Theory, and Critique 

• The genocide in Palestine as both a symptom and catalyst of the crisis of US Empire  

• The larger arc of the US’s relationship to Israel throughout the period of US Hegemony 

• The usefulness of current conceptualisations of the relationship between the US and Israel, such as the “Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier” or “the Israel Lobby”  

• Anti-colonial solidarities between North America and Palestine 

• The histories and cultures of Zionism in the Americas 

• Artists, writers, and activists’ theorisation of the relationship between liberation struggles within the US and the national liberation movement in Palestine 

• The historical role that Zionism and anticolonial struggles against Zionism have played in American Studies, both in the US and in the UK and Europe. 

• The material relationships between American Studies as it is constituted in the UK and the history of British and US Hegemony and/or Anglo-American Empire  

• The differences between the constitution, history, and contemporary formation of American Studies in the UK and Europe, and in the US 

  

  

Pedagogy and Curriculum 

• The implications of the genocidal war in Palestine for the teaching and research of American Studies in the UK 

• Experiences of teaching American Studies in the context of an ongoing US-sponsored genocide 

• Problems related to the censorship of anti-colonial and pro-Palestinian speech on university campuses, especially in American Studies 

• The relationship between scholasticide in Palestine and the crackdown on freedom of speech in the UK 

• Reflections on how Americanists can include Palestine on American Studies curriculum in the UK 

• Case studies of successes and failures in teaching about Palestine in American Studies modules in the UK
    

Activism 

• How can we as Americanists contribute to organising in the workplace – from building staff student networks, to working with our unions, to pressuring departments, faculties and the University? 

• How can we use our position to build the global BDS movement? 

• What role can professional organisations like BAAS, HOTCUS, and SHAFR play?  

Paper proposals should include a proposed title, a 250-word abstract, and a brief (100 word) biography. 

Panel proposals and proposals for alternative format activities (for example but not limited to workshops, collective researchathons, artistic events, archive and resource sharing sessions) should include a proposed title, a 400-word abstract and brief biographies for all participants. 

All proposals should be sent to americanstudiesagainstgenocide@gmail.com by 6 February 2026. You can also follow us on bluesky @uk-usstudies4pal.bsky.social

The conference will be free, and we are looking to raise funds to provide catering and to offset travel for attendees who are not currently employed, graduate students, or on precarious contracts, but this is to be confirmed. 

Organising Committee: Yasmin Dualeh (Cambridge), John Narayan (King’s College London), Richard Saich (LSE), Myka Tucker-Abramson (Warwick), Owen Walsh (Aberdeen)