News & Events

2027 marks the 50th anniversary of the film now generally known as Episode IV: A New Hope, the first instalment in the hugely successful Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas. As beloved as it is divisive, Star Wars now straddles multiple decades and generations while proliferating across narrative media (novels, comics, games, animation, TV). It provides a series of compelling case studies in the relationship between creativity and commerce, from the foundation of Lucasfilm during the New Hollywood period to the 21st century Disney-era.

Talk by Sheheryar B. Sheikh (Dalhousie University): The long shadow of 9/11’s falling towers looms still over world events. The War on Terror rhetoric is now built into the framework of how the U.S. approaches Muslims and Islam across the world. Policy and literary discourse are not separate entities, and in this talk, Dr Sheheryar B. Sheikh will show the ramifications of early and contemporary post-9/11 literature’s contribution to the perpetuation of White American trauma and Islamophobia in the psyche of a nation that has become drunk on its power and belligerence. Hosted by Ruth Maxey.

In this episode, we’re joined by Gary Younge — an award-winning journalist, author, and academic whose work has long challenged the way we think about power, race, democracy, and justice. Join us for a thoughtful and compelling conversation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DX7y1odV7g

Please join us for our ESO Summer Seminar where Dr. Ahmed Honeini will discuss his new book, Tennessee Williams’s America (Routledge 2025), the first full-length study of homes, families, and familial exile in the plays of Tennessee Williams. This talk, drawn from the book’s introduction, examines Williams’s most famous plays: his first masterwork, the autobiographical The Glass Menagerie, and his magnum opus, the tragic A Streetcar Named Desire.

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding, join History Lab on 7th May at 5:30pm for this special online roundtable event discussing the significance of the Founding Era (1763–1801) in American history today.

"Get It While It's Hot is the rare book that is at once both a monumental intellectual intervention and one of the greatest books on food and community I've read in decades. As a Black southern writer who was fed by the communities explored here, I'm thankful the editors made this offering possible." - Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy: An American Memoir