Events

Location: Chancellor’s Gallery, Chancellor’s Building
Date: Tuesday 29th & Wednesday 30th October 2024
Time: 10:00 – 17:00

Staff and students at Keele University are invited to join postgraduate researcher Franco Castro Escobar and colleagues from the David Bruce Centre for the Study of the Americas to use a virtual reality headset, loaned to the David Bruce Centre by the Hiroshima Peace Institute, and experience its unique 5-minute immersive film about the events of 6 August 1945, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The David Bruce Centre is the first research institute outside Japan to have been loaned one of these headsets, so this represents a unique and exciting opportunity.

Franco has recently returned from a research trip to Japan, where he was based at the HPI and gathered primary data for his research on post-Cold War anti-nuclear activism.

There will also be a small display of pictures, Japanese comic books, and other materials which add up to a fascinating (and in the current global context, very timely) mini pop-up exhibition on nuclear threat, and the legacy of and survival of war more generally. Please visit the exhibition and experience the VR headset any time between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on 29 and 30 October.

On Wednesday 4 December at 2 p.m, Dr Harriet Earle (Sheffield Hallam), will give a paper called "'Broken Kites': The Representation of Vets in Comics of the Vietnam War" in a seminar jointly hosted with the English programme at Keele. Harriet will be presenting on research taken from her forthcoming monograph.

On Wednesday 5 February 2025 at 2 p.m, in a seminar jointly hosted with History and Sociology, the DBC will welcome Prof. Mónica Moreno Figueroa (Cambridge). Title TBC.

Both events will be hybrid.

On 8 May 2024 the David Bruce Centre for the Study of the Americas, in collaboration with the American Politics Group (and with the support of a special award from the US Embassy) hosted "Unfolding Our Shared Future: Challenge, Possibility and Potential in the 21st Century." The event was part of a travelling festival addressing issues affecting the US and UK in domestic, trans-Atlantic and global contexts. The theme for Keele's event was "Urban Regeneration," and we were delighted to welcome two internationally-renowned researchers in the field - Professor Loretta Lees (Boston) and Professor Ray Bromley (Emeritus, Albany). We also welcomed many partners from the Potteries region for what was a fascinating and wide-reaching discussion.

Loretta Lees (left) and Ray Bromley (right)

Seminars will be held at 2.15pm in the David Bruce Centre (CBB 1.030).  Online seminars will be held on Teams.  Please follow public health advice, and do not attend in-person if you are feeling unwell or experiencing any COVID symptoms.

Please direct queries to the DBC director Dr James Peacock (j.h.peacock@keele.ac.uk).