THE FUTURES OF AMERICAN STUDIES INSTITUTE
FOUNDING DIRECTOR: Professor Donald E. Pease (Dartmouth College)
CO-DIRECTORS: Professor Kimberly Juanita Brown (Dartmouth College), Professor Soyica Diggs Colbert (Georgetown University), Professor Elizabeth Maddock Dillon (Northeastern University), Professor James Dobson (Dartmouth College), Professor Winfried Fluck (Freie Universität, Berlin), Professor Donatella Izzo (Università degli studi di Napoli "L'Orientale"), Professor Cindi Katz (CUNY Graduate Center), Professor Jodi Kim (Dartmouth College), Professor Eng-Beng Lim (Dartmouth College), Professor Eric W. Lott (CUNY Graduate Center), Professor Heike Paul (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg), Professor Patricia Stuelke (Dartmouth College), and Professor Israel Reyes (Dartmouth College)
Announcing the 2026 futures of American studies Institute
We cordially invite graduate students, postdocs, and early career faculty to participate in the 26th iteration of the Futures of American Studies Institute on June 29-July 5, 2026 at Dartmouth College. This one-week program provides participants with important opportunities to take part in plenary seminars and roundtables by leading scholars in the field and share their works-in-progress in intensive workshops, each led by one of the faculty Co-Directors of the Institute.
Since its inception in 1999, the Futures Institute has been successful in attracting leading scholars in the field from universities across the world, while at the same time also adding new voices, and serving continuously as a forum for key debates in the field. The Institute was specifically designed to provide a shared space of critical inquiry that brings the participants' work-in-progress to the attention of a network of influential scholars. Indeed, over the past twenty-six years, plenary speakers have recommended participants' work to the leading journals and university presses within American Studies and have provided participants with recommendations and support in an increasingly competitive job market. The FAS has historically served as an important launching point for academic careers: Of the close to 1400 scholars from more than 40 countries who have participated in the Institute over the past 26 years, close to 800 now have tenure-track teaching positions in American Studies and related fields. The Institute is roundly cited and thanked for guidance and support in the hundreds of monographs these scholars have published. These many individual accomplishments notwithstanding, the collective work of the FAS is more than the sum of its parts, as these testimonies also foreground the humanity, creativity, and love of the people involved in creating a genuine scholarly community over that one week in what for many become pivotal intellectual moments and lifelong cherished memories.
This summer will be the very last iteration of the Futures Institute under the directorship of founder Donald E. Pease, which marks the true end of an era and a passing of the torch to the next generation of scholars to inherit, carry forward, and reinvent the work of the Institute in advancing the most crucial questions of Americanist criticism. We celebrate the Institute’s end and transition just as the United States reaches its semiquincentennial, as urgent and timely an occasion as any to critically interrogate where America’s future confronts the ghosts of what W.E.B. Du Bois calls the “present-past.” Hence, our theme is “The US at 250.” What awaits the United States in this conjunctural moment, and what crucial role could Americanist scholarship play in this transition? To this question we call our communities to engage once more in the robust and energetic intellectual exchanges for which Futures has become well and widely known.
2026 Plenary Speakers
*Anthony Barrymore Bogues, Asa Messer Professor of Humanities and Critical Theory, Director of the Center of the Study of Slavery and Justice (Brown University)
*Paul Bové, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English (University of Pittsburgh)
*Kimberly Juanita Brown, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Institute for Black Intellectual and Cultural Life (Dartmouth)
*Peter Wallace Brown, PhD student in English (UC Berkeley)
*Russ Castronovo, Tom Paine Professor of English and Dorothy Draheim Professor of American Studies (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
*Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, Distinguished Professor of English (Northeastern University)
*James Dobson, Associate Professor of English & Creative Writing and Director of Institute of Writing and Rhetoric (Dartmouth)
*Duncan Faherty, Associate Professor of English at Queens College and The Graduate Center (CUNY Graduate Center)
*Joshua Falek, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Program in Literature at Duke University
*Meredith Farmer, Assistant Teaching Professor of Core Literature and Faculty Affiliate, Energy, Environment, & Sustainability (Wake Forest University)
*Winfried Fluck, Professor Emeritus of American Culture at John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies (Freie Universität Berlin)
*Sheldon George, Professor of Africana Studies (University of Massachusetts, Boston)
*James A. Godley, Lecturer of English & Creative Writing, MALS, and the Writing Program (Dartmouth)
*Mingwei Huang, Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (Dartmouth)
*Donatella Izzo, Professor of American Literature (“L'Orientale” University of Naples) and Co-Director with Giorgio Mariani of the OASIS-Orientale American Studies International School
*R.A. Judy, Professor of Critical and Cultural Studies (University of Pittsburgh)
*Cindi Katz, Professor in Environmental Psychology, Earth and Environmental Sciences, American Studies, and Women's Studies (CUNY Graduate Center)
*Liam Kennedy, Professor of American Studies and Director of the Clinton Institute (University College Dublin)
*Jodi Kim, Professor of English & Creative Writing (Dartmouth College)
*Geoffrey Kirsch, Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College (University of Cambridge)
*Eng-Beng Lim, Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (Dartmouth College)
*Lázaro Lima, Professor and Chair of Africana, Puerto Rican and Latino Studies (Hunter College, CUNY)
*Eric Lott, Distinguished Professor of English (CUNY Graduate Center)
*Alan Nadel, William T. Bryan Professor of English, American Studies, and Film Studies (University of Kentucky)
*Heike Paul, Professor and Chair of American Studies (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg) and Director of the Bavarian American Academy.
*Donald Pease, Ted & Helen Geisel Professor in the Humanities and Founding Director of the Futures of American Studies Institute (Dartmouth College)
*Christopher Pexa, Harris K. Weston Associate Professor of the Humanities (Harvard University)
*Israel Reyes, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Chair, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Director of Fellowships (Dartmouth College)
*Dylan Rodriguez, Professor and Co-Director of Center for Ideas and Society (University of California, Riverside)
*Jonathan Schroeder, Lecturer, Literary Arts and Studies (Rhode Island School of Design)
*Hortense Spillers, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor Emerita of English (Vanderbilt University)
*John Stauffer, Professor of English, American Studies, and African American Studies (Harvard University)
*Patricia Stuelke, Associate Professor of English & Creative Writing (Dartmouth College)
*Takayuki Tatsumi, Professor of American Literature (Keio University, Tokyo)
*Robyn Wiegman, Professor of Literature (Duke University)
Sessions
“Practicing American Studies in the Digital Age”
“The Psycho-Politics of Melancholia”
“The State of/and Asian American Studies in the Asian 21st Century”
“Is Post-Truth, Polarized US Political Culture Beyond Repair?”
“Transing Pedagogies of Refusal”
“Sonic Politics in the Trumpocene”
“ICE, The Social Reproduction of Disposable People”
“Is Anti-Black Violence a Requisite Supplement to US Racial Capitalism?”
"Critical Eco-Poetics"
“The Libidinal Economy of US Authoritarian Populism”
“Denarrativizing US Settler Historicity”
Roundtable American Studies at this Conjunctural Moment
How the program works:
The Institute will begin on Monday, June 29 with a panel on “Practicing American Studies in Digital” and conclude on July 4, with a roundtable symposium discussion of the 250th anniversary of the Nation’s Founding at this conjunctural moment in US History. Because it marks the final year of Don Pease’s tenure as the Institute’s Director, the 2026 Futures of American Studies Institute will also occasion a passing of the torch to the next generation of American Studies scholars.
Each day of the institute begins with a morning session (9-12am) in which plenary speakers deliver presentations of no longer than thirty-minutes that contribute to sundry perspectives on our convoking topic “The United States at 250.” These presentations are followed by questions from the participants. After a lunch break, the Institute's participants meet in intensive workshop groups (consisting of no more than 10 participants) from 1:30-5pm, each of which is led by an Institute Co-Director. These workshops offer those enrolled in the Institute – typically close to 50 scholars from a variety of disciplines and national and international colleges and universities -- the opportunity for critical conversations about the central intellectual issues in their research. After a break for dinner, the participants meet for an evening Plenary Session (7:30-11:00pm).
After Monday evening’s Inaugural plenary session on June 29, 2026, the Institute will host a reception for speakers and seminar participants. Prior to the 7:30pm -11pm sessions of the Institute, the Institute hosts a dinner at the Hanover Inn for the plenary speakers and seminar directors. Following the Wednesday afternoon seminars, the Institute invites plenary speakers and seminar participants to a picnic barbecue at the BEMA catered by Blood’s Seafood. On Saturday evening July 4, the Institute will conclude with a formal dinner in the Grand Ballroom of the Hanover Inn.
How to apply:
Applications for the 2026 Institute will be accepted until all slots have been filled, but applications received by May 17th, 2026 will be granted priority.
We are now using an electronic application:
https://www.dartmouth.edu/futures/apply.html
Please be prepared to upload a brief description of your project(s) (no more than one page), a current CV, and a writing sample (10-15 pages).
There is a $10 application fee and this will need to be collected separate from your application materials. Please make checks (or money orders) payable to "Dartmouth College" and mail with your name and email address to:
The Futures of American Studies Institute
Sanborn House
19 N. Main Street
Hanover, NH 03755
REGISTRATION FEE:
Accepted applications should send a check or money order (wire payments are also accepted, email for details). The fee for the Institute (covering registration, housing, and seminars) is $695.00. The fee to attend only the Institute plenary sessions is $500 (no housing or participation in the seminars). All checks should be made payable to "Dartmouth College.”
For queries, please contact the Futures Administrator Amanda Watson at amanda.m.watson@dartmouth.edu