American Studies at the RAI and in Oxford

At the RAI's foundation, the University gave the new Institution the task of promoting “... a greater public and academic understanding of the history, culture and politics of the United States.” The RAI retains those purposes. Accordingly, the RAI is in service to the academic community within Oxford and beyond, and to those many members of the public for whom understanding American history, politics, and culture (including American literature) is important. Its large programme of seminars, workshops, university and public lectures, and other public occasions organized for the benefit of sixth-form school and college students testifies to the strength of its commitment: in the 2009-2010 academic year, the RAI held more than one hundred major academic events, including nine international conferences.

Building, strengthening, and extending professional working relationships with other like-minded institutes in the UK (the Institute for the Study of the Americas (ISA), and the Eccles Centre at the British Library in particular), and in continental Europe is important to the RAI and its community of scholars. So too, is the building of busy working relationships with colleagues in American History, Politics, and Literature in the UK and continental Europe through the holding of professional conferences (such as the American Politics Group of the UK, and the British Group of Early American Historians) at the RAI.

Academics and members of the public alike need to understand how and why the history, culture, and politics of the United States have changed and continue to change. That is the substance of the RAI’s activity. As a research and teaching organization within the University of Oxford, the RAI has to be active, energetic, and entrepreneurial in identifying opportunities to make its public and academic mark. Accordingly, the RAI needs to understand those changes in order that it build upon its activities and achievements to establish itself as the premier university centre for the public and academic understanding of American history, culture, and politics outside the United States. Whilst remaining true to its core academic values of disinterested and energetic pursuit of the truth, it also seeks take imaginative account of changing currents of intellectual and public thought about American history, culture, and politics.