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What can Oregon teach Australia about dying?
19 September 2012
Societies are confronted by many intractable problems (e.g. climate change, asylum seeking, water management) that cross departmental boundaries and transcend state/national borders. Physician assisted dying is one of these issues which affects everyone, and where, in Australia, public opinion is not reflected in the legislation. Surveys regularly show overwhelming support by Australians for assisted dying legislation (typically more than 80%). What might Oregon (and six other locations where assisted dying is legally possible) teach Australia? Professor Lyn Carson has documented the history of other locations and is now convening public conversations about this topic throughout Australia, drawing on Oregon’s example. She spoke at the US Studies Centre about her research.
’You’ve got three out of three, Mr. President.’: The Nixon-Kissinger Revolution in American Foreign Policy
8 August 2012
When Henry Kissinger returned from Paris in October 1972, he told President Richard Nixon that they had now successfully completed a foreign policy “trifecta” – the trip to China, a SALT Agreement with the Soviet Union, and a peace treaty with Hanoi. Although Nixon and Kissinger’s foreign policy realism drew its origins in traditional European diplomacy, the trifecta was as much about the struggle for power within the United States as it was about a new international order. At this research seminar Professor of History at Vanderbilt University Thomas Schwartz presented his paper on the nexus between Nixon and Kissinger’s foreign policy triumphs and American domestic politics.
The Lessons of the New Deal: Did Obama Learn the Right Ones?
1 August 2012
In 2009 it looked like 1933 again: a charismatic new President had succeeded a discredited predecessor at a time of major financial crisis.The incoming administration had significant congressional majorities. There was even a world economic conference to coordinate international recovery scheduled. This paper presented by Cambridge University Professor of American History Tony Badger asks why the high hopes of 2009 disappeared. Badger examines the lessons of the New Deal and looks at the different circumstances which made it difficult for Obama to apply the right ones.
Abraham Lincoln: The View from Australia
23 July 2012
During the 1860s, white Australians and Americans living in Australia viewed the administration of Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War with “surpassing interest” as a series of events that directly affected the commerce and politics of the world. This paper, presented by Director and Editor of The Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Stowell, explores attitudes in Australia toward the election of Abraham Lincoln, his issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the general progress of the American Civil War, and Lincoln’s assassination. This sesquicentennial anniversary of the American Civil War marks an appropriate time to evaluate the connections between Australia and the American Civil War.
The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and the Native Nations Institute
17 July 2012
Over the last twenty-five years, the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at Harvard University and the Native Nations Institute at the University of Arizona have been engaged in a substantial program of research, outreach, and education with Indigenous nations in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere, including some work in Australia. The primary focus of this work has been Indigenous strategies for self-determination, governance, and development. The orienting inquiry might be expressed as “Why are some Native nations more successful than others at achieving their own objectives?” Professor Stephen Cornell has been one of the central figures in that work, co-founding the Harvard Project in 1986 and leading the development of the Native Nations Institute in 2001. His presentation at the US Studies Centre reviewed the work of these two organisations with a focus not only on the research they have carried out but also on the institutional aspects of their outreach and educational work and on how they have partnered with Indigenous nations to address the challenges those nations face.
2012 Agriculture and Environment Research Symposium: Soil Security
17 July 2012
Throughout the epochs, civilisations that have failed to secure their soil have fallen by the wayside of history. With globalisation, securing soil is crucial for the whole of humanity’s future wellbeing.
The 2012 Agriculture and Environment Research Symposium – jointly hosted by the Faculty of Agriculture and Environment and the United States Studies Centre – brought together experts from across the globe to discuss the different dimensions and approaches that must be considered in the development and establishment of international research and policy agreements on Soil Security.
The Savage South: Reflections on an Image
24 May 2012
This talk by University of North Carolina Professor of English, Fred Hobson, examined the prevailing image of the US South from colonial days of the 17th and 18th centuries forward, as the backward, violent, uncivilized and generally benighted part of the United States.
Foreign policy and the US presidential election: Why it matters
11 May 2012
Many pundits contend that with the economy such an important issue in the US presidential election, foreign policy does not matter. It actually does, politically as well as for the US role in the world. In this seminar, Bruce Jentleson, Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Duke University, examined the dynamics of the campaign thus far and the likely terms of foreign policy debate as we move towards election day.
Contesting “America”: Research presentations by the Postdoctoral Fellows of the US Studies Centre
3 May 2012 - 4 May 2012
The 2011-2012 cohort of postdoctoral fellows presented their research at this mini-conference run over two days.
Rethinking America’s Great War
18 April 2012
Douglas Craig is a Reader in History at the Australian National University. At this research seminar he spoke about "Rethinking America’s Great War".
It has long been a commonplace (more often repeated than explored) that the United States’ experience of the First World War was so different from the rest of the Western world’s that it established a twentieth century version of American exceptionalism that deeply affected not only Americans’ national self-image but also how outsiders saw the United States for the next century.
VIDEOS & INTERVIEWS
Lobbyists are often blamed when legislation fails but Centre visitor Burdett A. Loomis says their negative impact is often overstated and that lobbying forms an important part of our modern democracy.
An armed attack during a Mother's Day parade in New Orleans has left 19 injured, but lecturer Adam Lockyer says it looks unlikely to progress the debate on gun reform in the US.
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