British Studies Lecture Series

Why Humanities Courses Are in Distress: A Modest Proposal for a Remedy

Paula Marantz Cohen DREXEL UNIVERSITY How can decline in enrollments in the humanities be explained? Nationwide in recent years estimates of the drop in liberal arts majo

Why Did Elizabethans and Jacobeans Read Shakespeare’s Plays?

Aaron Pratt HARRY RANSOM CENTER Before the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio in 1623 and the efforts of subsequent editors and critics, England’s printed playbooks

Imperial Recessional: Sir William Luce and the Creation of the United Arab Emirates

Tancred Bradshaw LONDON One of the surprises of Britain’s withdrawal from the Middle East was the successful creation of the United Arab Emirates in 1971. Tancred Bradsha

Philip Goad (Harvard) on British and American architecture

Philip Goad is the Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Visiting Professor of Australian Studies (AY2019-20) at Harvard University and Chair of Architecture and Redmond Barry

The London Review of Books

The London Review of Books was founded in 1979 during a strike at The Times that prevented the publication of the Times Literary Supplement. By the time the dispute at Th

How George Washington Defeated the British Empire

Thomas Ricks NEW YORK TIMES   If the best measure of a general is the ability to grasp the nature of the war he faces, and then to make adjustments, George Washington was

P. G. Wodehouse and Politics: What Did He Know, and When Did He Know It?

Speaker – David Leal, Nuffield College, Oxford P.G. Wodehouse was England’s greatest comic writer. His new memorial at Westminster Abbey celebrates his achievements as “H

Churchill’s Most Difficult Decisions

Speaker – Allen Packwood, Churchill College, Cambridge Allen Packwood will use his knowledge of the Churchill Papers, held at Churchill College, Cambridge, to analyze the

‘When I feel very near to God, I always feel such a need to undress’: Religion, Nakedness and the Body Divine

Speaker – Philippa Levine Diverse institutions have attempted to order and to organize, to regulate and to banish, to promote and to sell nakedness. Focusing on religion’

Jane Austen’s Lost Books

Speaker – Janine Barchas In the nineteenth century, inexpensive editions of Jane Austen’s novels were made available to Britain’s working classes. They were sold at railw

Facts, Censorship, and Spin: Covering the Pacific War from Australia, 1942

Speaker – Michael J. Birkner, Gettysburg College This lecture is about journalists based in Australia practicing their craft in 1942, when the prospect of a Japanese inva

Political Leadership in Macbeth and Coriolanus

Speaker – Gwyn Daniel OXFORD In many of his plays, Shakespeare deals with profound political questions that have continuing relevance for the contemporary world. His trag

The Novels of Benjamin Disraeli and Oscar Wilde

Speaker – Sandra Mayer Oscar Wilde once described Benjamin Disraeli’s life as ‘the most brilliant of paradoxes’. It served as a model for someone who, as an Irishman and

The Cultural Identity of American Libraries

Speaker – Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa Since 1981, conservators who work in libraries and archives to preserve cultural records have been educated typically in three-to four-y

Carnival in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

Speaker – Wayne A. Rebhorn Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night has long been associated with the festive aspects of carnival, especially in its rejection of authority and the exp

C. P. Snow and the Two Cultures of Medicine and the Humanities

Speaker – Stephen Sonnenberg While a student at Princeton in the late 1950s and early 1960s Stephen Sonnenberg was influenced by the ideas of the literary critic and poet

Walter Scott, the Stuarts, and Stewardship

Speaker – Sam Baker Often described as the inventor of the historical novel, the Scottish author Walter Scott (1771-1832) was also a poet, lawyer, pioneering editor, and

Book Launch: 150 Highly Recommended Books

Speaker – Dean Robert King This occasion celebrates the end of the five-year process, sponsored by Randy Diehl and the College of Liberal Arts, that resulted in 150 Highl

Fake News, Alternative Facts, and the Question of Truth

Speaker – David Edwards (GOVERNMENT) David Edwards has been a dedicated reader of American and British newspapers and opinion magazines since the 1950s. In fact, he still

Biographies: Research, Writing, and Reviews

Speakers – Bill Brands (HISTORY) Bat Sparrow (GOVERNMENT) Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa (HARRY RANSOM CENTER) Bill Brands and Bat Sparrow will discuss the difference between wr