Academic programme

The RAI’s academic programme falls into three categories:

First, the Institute facilitates the research of colleagues working on the academic study of the United States in various continental, regional and international contexts across different disciplines, and promotes collaboration with others within and beyond Oxford whose interests are overlapping or contiguous.

Second, the Institute draws policy-makers and public figures into the RAI’s academic orbit in order to promote the greater public understanding of American history, culture, and politics and to raise its academic and public profile; it energises students by enabling them to hear, question, and meet people in public life; it elevates the Institute’s reputation as a place where academics and public figures can discuss matters of common interest with candour and rigour, and thereby enhances the RAI’s impact upon the academy and the public. Among its public outreach activities, the RAI is a key host to the Annual Congress to Campus event by which former Members of Congress meet students from local schools for discussion about the place of Congress in American political life.

Third, the Institute builds an active community of history, American literature and politics graduates in the RAI through formal graduate seminars and workshops and informal conversations with senior academics at social occasions.

The RAI supports its academic programme through its:

Commissioning of major RAI academic and public conferences and workshops through collaboration with colleagues and by means of joint funding initiatives;

Facilitating graduate students’ participation in the RAI’s academic life through regular doctoral workshops and by means of an annual RAI Graduate Conference, the first one of which was held in May 2009;

Establishing a joint research workshop for doctoral students with a weekly programme throughout the academic year;

Building strong and energetic working relationships with academic partners within the United Kingdom and beyond;

Founding two postdoctoral Fellowships from October 2009 – one in American history, and one in American culture and literature.