Study of the USA

The focal point for the study of the USA at Oxford is the Rothermere American Institute. Opened in 2001 by former US President Bill Clinton, it is an international centre of excellence dedicated to the interdisciplinary and comparative study of the US. Bringing together scholars, intellectuals, policy-makers, and public figures from around the world, it seeks to promote a greater public and academic understanding of the history, culture, and politics of the US. It is considered to be one of the best places to study the United States outside America. The Director of the RAI is Professor Nigel Bowles, an expert on the American presidency and currently Balfour Fellow in Politics at St Anne’s College. 

The study of American history enjoys great vitality at Oxford thanks to its dynamic expansion in recent years. The Oxford Centre for Research in US History (OxCRUSH) is housed in the Faculty of History and brings together the substantial body of American historians who work in Oxford.

Provision in the field is now unsurpassed within the British university system. Forming one of the largest establishments of American history specialists in the country, the group of nearly 10 Faculty post holders teach and supervise most of the major areas of American history. The annual Harmsworth Professorship makes Oxford unique amongst British institutions by enabling a distinguished American scholar to spend a year in Oxford teaching, conducting seminars, and pursuing research.

As a mark of the standing of Oxford’s scholars of the US, in February 2009, Professor Richard Cawardine, Lincoln biographer, former Rhodes Professor of American History, and President of Corpus Christi College, became the only non-American to receive the Order of Lincoln from the State of Illinois.

Oxford is home to many specialists in American Politics and International Relations. Professor Yuen Foong Khong, Professor of International Relations, has authored several books and monographs on US foreign policy. Professor Alan Ryan, Warden of New College and Professor of Politics, works on the history of political theory, contemporary political philosophy, the politics of education, and American political theory.

Dr Marc Stears, University Lecturer in Political Theory, specialises in the history of radical political thought with a recent focus on US radicals. Professor Alan Ware, Professor of Politics, has published on American politics, democracy, and political strategy. Professor Desmond King, the current Andrew Mellon Professor of American Government, is a leading scholar of American political development and the author of many works on labour markets, race, immigration, and ethnicity.

American literature is one of the major research areas of Oxford’s Faculty of English Language and Literature, and the RAI also hosts a research programme in American literature. There are two permanent posts associated with this field: the Drue Heinz Professor of American Literature (currently held by Professor Ron Bush), and the Professor of American Literature (currently Professor Paul Giles). Oxford’s American literature specialists publish widely on American modernist literature, poetry and the history of American literature. The Faculty is home to specialists in the works of authors including Ezra Pound, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, TS Eliot, and Philip Roth among others.

It is common for the USA to be studied as a standalone country, but Oxford is leading the way in studying the USA in its regional context. The North American Studies programme, established in 2012 at St Antony’s College, seeks to examine the common problems and issues that transcend national boundaries in North America, the interrelationships among North American states and societies, and the relationship of the region to the wider world.

2012 saw the launch of the North American Studies programme at St Antony’s College. It is designed to create a lively and world-class multi-disciplinary programme at Oxford to study North America as a region, defined as the area from the Arctic to Panama, including the Caribbean. It is a substantial and permanent programme for the study of North America, and was designed to build on the strong base that already exists at Oxford through our wide range of North American experts in faculties such as History and Politics and in such centres as the Rothermere American Institute, International Studies, the Environmental Change Institute and Migration Studies. The North American Studies programme also brings in leading scholars and practitioners from the UK and North America.

Academics can be found working on North American issues, and in collaboration with North American colleagues, throughout the University. Academically, the study of the United States - its history, culture and politics - received a renewed focus in Oxford with the establishment of the Rothermere American Institute which was opened by former US President Bill Clinton in 2001. The RAI is an international centre of excellence dedicated to the interdisciplinary and comparative study of the United States.

Studying North America in its regional context allows the programme to focus on common issues and challenges such as migration, security, trade, environment, resources, aboriginal rights and governance, which affect the continent as a whole. The programme will initially look at three main areas: the common problems and issues which transcend national boundaries in North America; the interrelationships among the states and societies of North America; and the relationship of the continent to the external world.

It is a sign of Oxford’s strong ties with the region that one of only three international University offices is located there. The University's North American Office, based in New York, reflects and seeks to further strengthen Oxford's relationship with North America. 

Several of the University libraries and museums hold extensive collections of items relating to native and post colonial America. For instance, the Rothermere American Institute is host to the Vere Harmsworth Library (part of the Bodleian Library), the finest library of Americana to be found outside the US. Its collection focuses predominantly on the history, social, political and economic, of the United States from Colonial times to the present day.