News & Events

In this public lecture at the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, Michael Berkowitz (University College London) reveals the elusive story of Jewish Hollywood’s role in World War II. He will explore the work of Jewish writers, directors and others, including Leo Rosten, George Coker and Stanley Kramer, the movies they created and why. In doing so, he will also consider the question of antisemitism in moviemaking in the United States during the war against Nazism.

2026 marks 90 years since the publication of William Faulkner’s masterwork, Absalom, Absalom! (1936). Widely considered the greatest Southern novel of all time and among the most influential literary works of the twentieth century, the ninth Faulkner Studies in the UK colloquium celebrates Absalom, Absalom!’s incalculable influence upon global literature.

Our 27th Annual Conference will be held at University of Highlands and Islands in Inverness on 7 March 2026. Details on how to register can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sasa-27th-annual-conference-2026-tickets-1980939781211

The 2026 HOTCUS Winter Symposium will be held at the University of Liverpool on Friday, February 27, 2026 on the theme of “The American Nation in the Twentieth Century: The Declaration of Independence at 250”.

The next A19 seminar will take place on Friday 20 February from 2.00 to 4.00 PM (Central European Time) and will be dedicated to David Cusick (c. 1780-1840), the Tuscarora artist and historian, and author of Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations (1828). We are very pleased to welcome two speakers who will each present a paper on Cusick’s work: Christen Mucher (Smith College) and Sheila Byers (Oxford University). 

If you haven't followed the money, you don't know the real story of America's Revolution. Nothing reveals it more clearly than the life of Thomas Willing - early America's dominant merchant, first bank president and first central banker. Richard Vague shows how Willing bankrolled and helped save the Revolution before shaping the financial architecture of the new Republic. He was so influential that John Adams claimed Washington and Hamilton were governed by him. Yet Willing voted against independence, reflecting deep class conflict in 1776. Tension has shaped U.S politics since.