The Rothermere American Institute is an institution at the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 dedicated to the interdisciplinary and comparative study of the USA. It was opened in May 2001 by US President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 and hosts regular conferences, lectures and seminars, particularly in the fields of American history, politics, foreign relations, and literature. Guests and speakers have included Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, US President Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

, Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson

Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to...

, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O'Connor is an American jurist who was the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States. She served as an Associate Justice from 1981 until her retirement from the Court in 2006. O'Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981...

 and Lord Patten of Barnes.

The Institute offers several categories of visiting fellowship for academics from around the world and hosts three of the university's chairs and two visiting professorships. These are the Mellon Professorship in American Government, the Rhodes Professorship in American History, and the Drue Heinz

Drue Heinz

Drue Heinz, born Doreen Mary English, is a prominent patron of the literary arts in the United States.She is the publisher of the famous literary magazine The Paris Review, which was started in 1953 by Peter Matthiessen, Thomas H. Guinzburg, and Harold L. Humes, and edited until his death in 2003...

 Professorship in American Literature, and the visiting chairs: the John G. Winant Professorship of American Government and the Harmsworth Professorship of American History. Recent holders of the Harmsworth chair have included Eric Foner

Eric Foner

Eric Foner is an American historian. On the faculty of the Department of History at Columbia University since 1982, he writes extensively on political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African American biography, Reconstruction, and historiography...

, Lizabeth Cohen

Lizabeth Cohen

Lizabeth Cohen is the current Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies and Chair of the History Department at Harvard University. Currently, she teaches courses in 20th century America, material and popular culture, and gender, urban, and working-class history. She has also served as the...

, Robin Kelley and Linda Kerber, and the post is held during the 2011-12 academic year by Philip D. Morgan

Philip D. Morgan

Philip D. Morgan is a British-American historian. He has specialized in Early Modern colonial British America, and slavery in the Americas...

. Each May, Oxford University's annual Esmond Harmsworth Lecture in American Arts and Letters is held at the Institute, and this has been delivered in recent years by writers such as Richard Ford

Richard Ford

Richard Ford is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day and The Lay of the Land, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories.-Early...

, Joyce Carol Oates, Tobias Wolff

Tobias Wolff

Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff is an American author. He is known for his memoirs, particularly This Boy's Life , and his short stories. He has also written two novels.-Biography:Wolff was born in 1945 in Birmingham, Alabama...

, Lorrie Moore

Lorrie Moore

Lorrie Moore is an American fiction writer known mainly for her humorous and poignant short stories.-Biography:...

 and Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson

-Biography:Robinson was born and grew up in Sandpoint, Idaho, and did her undergraduate work at Pembroke College, the former women's college at Brown University, receiving her B.A., magna cum laude in 1966, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received her Ph.D...

. The Institute also houses the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

's library collections in American history and politics in the Vere Harmsworth Library

Vere Harmsworth Library

The Vere Harmsworth Library is a dependent library of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. It is the university's principal research library for the study of US history and politics and is housed on the upper floors of the Rothermere American Institute, located on South Parks Road in...

. The Princess Margaret Memorial Garden, situated in its grounds and dedicated in honour of Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon

Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon

Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon was the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II and the younger daughter of King George VI....

, was formally opened by Her Majesty the Queen in August 2006.

The Institute is located on South Parks Road in central Oxford, adjacent to Rhodes House

Rhodes House

Rhodes House is part of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on the south of South Parks Road in central Oxford, and was built in memory of Cecil Rhodes, an alumnus of the university and a major benefactor.- History :...

 and Mansfield College. It was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox architects and has won awards from the Royal Institute of British Architects

Royal Institute of British Architects

The Royal Institute of British Architects is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally.-History:...

 and the Civic Trust

Civic Trust

The Civic Trust of England was a charitable organisation founded in 1957. It ceased operations in 2009 and went into administration due to lack of funds/...

. It is part of Oxford's Humanities Division

Humanities Division, University of Oxford

The Humanities Division is one of the four Divisions into which the activities of the University are grouped. Each Division has a Head and an elected board. The current Head is Professor Sally Shuttleworth. It has received considerable praise for its work at the forefront of digitising the Humanities...

.

Links

• American Studies in Britain
  American Studies in Britain
  American Studies as an academic discipline is taught at some British universities and incorporated in several school subjects, such as history, politics and literature. While the United States of America is the focus of most study, American Studies can also include the study of all the Americas,...
  
  
• Rothermere American Institute Homepage