HOTCUS

Delegates from the HOTCUS, 2024 Annual Conference at Southampton University

The CfP is now open for the 2026 HOTCUS Annual Conference (University of Manchester, 1-3 July 2026).

Please email all submissions to events.hotcus@gmail.com by midnight, UK time on 25 March, 2026.

Full details about submission requirements, and a link to our 'panel finder' document can be found on our website: hotcus.org.uk/events/annua...

Delegates from the HOTCUS, 2024 Annual Conference at Southampton University

The CfP is now open for the 2026 HOTCUS Annual Conference (University of Manchester, 1-3 July 2026).

Please email all submissions to events.hotcus@gmail.com by midnight, UK time on 25 March, 2026.

The application form, and other details can be found at hotcus.org.uk/hotcus-resea...

Successful applicants agree to submit a short report within two months of the research activity for publication on the HOTCUS website and to acknowledge the award in future publications.

All applications must be submitted to membershipsecretary.hotcus@gmail.com by 1 March, 2026.

Applications may be made for up to £500 for research expenses, including the cost of hiring a research assistant and/or research travel to take place within 12 months after the date of application. There are no residency restrictions and travel may be to, or within, any country.

HOTCUS welcomes applications from doctoral students and recent PhD graduates not yet in academic employment, as well as those on short-term (less than three years), fractional, or hourly paid contracts working on any area of twentieth-century United States history.

Applications for the HOTCUS 2026 Research Awards are now open! (Read on for the small print)

To enter, authors or editors should email a PDF of their article to membershipsecretary.hotcus@gmail.com by 13 February 2026.

Please do **specify** whether you are eligible for the Early Career Article Prize in your email (that way the committees don't have to guess).

The Early Career Article Prize is open to doctoral (and pre-doctoral) students and recent PhD graduates not yet in academic employment, as well as those on short-term (less than three years), fractional, or hourly paid contracts.

Animated, rotating cartoon trophy

Applications for the 2026 HOTCUS Article Prize and Early Career Article Prize are now open. Both awards recognise outstanding research on twentieth-century US history published in peer-reviewed journals during the 2025 calendar year, and each comes with a £100 prize.

Three days left to submit a proposal for our exciting Winter Symposium, The American Nation in the Twentieth Century: The Declaration of Independence at 250.

The HOTCUS Winter Symposium deadline has been extended until 10 January.

📣The Call for Papers for our 2026 Winter Symposium, The American Nation in the Twentieth Century: The Declaration of Independence at 250, is now open

University of Liverpool, 27 February 2026

The American Nation in the Twentieth Century: The Declaration of Independence at 250, will be held at the University of Liverpool on 27 February 2026.

Submit a single document with a 250-word abstract, and one page CV (panel proposals to include overview + individual abstracts and CVs) to events.hotcus@gmail.com
by Wednesday 10 December 2025 (or, better still, earlier).

Full details on our website: hotcus.org.uk

We invite individual paper and panels that consider how Americans have drawn upon the Declaration of Independence to articulate new understandings of belonging, sovereignty, and democracy, and how these debates have shaped the historical imagination in or about the twentieth-century United States.

📣The Call for Papers for our 2026 Winter Symposium, The American Nation in the Twentieth Century: The Declaration of Independence at 250, is now open

University of Liverpool, 27 February 2026

The 2025–2026 HOTCUS Mentoring Scheme is now open!

If you work in 20th C US history and would like to have an academic mentor — or serve as one — please register your interest by 3 November 2025.

More info and registration below 👇

2025 PGR/ECR Workshop — British American Nineteenth Century Historians

Calling all PGRs/ECRs 📣

In collaboration with @hotcus.bsky.social we are hosting a workshop at the Rothermere Americation Institute this November!

Participants can meet other junior scholars, get feedback on works-in-progress, and take part in academic publishing and ‘viva survivor’ sessions 💪📚

We are looking for institutions to host our Winter Symposium and Annual Conference in 2027

Things usually quiet down over the summer, but we are looking to welcome members for our future events in 2026, all of which you can see advertised on our website or here on Bluesky as they come up. hotcus.org.uk

Lastly HOTCUS members Fabian Hilfrich, @calebwoodall.bsky.social and Emma Long delivered their well-received panel Revisiting Race, Gender, and Religion in Wars during the Long 20th Century at @shafrhistorians.bsky.social's conference chaired by our membership secretary @lizingleson.bsky.social

2. @lucyekelly.bsky.social , working on ““I want to fight the fight. I want my rightful place”: Queer Worldmaking in the American South, 1970-2000”
3. @paula-murphy.bsky.social , working on “‘Whatever Happened to Unity?’ Co-Curation and Resistance in Hip-Hop’s First Decade”

HOTCUS also announced the winners of the HOTCUS Research Awards to the following 3 recipients:
1. Sophie Stanford, working on “Restorative Justice or Cold War Manipulation?: Situating Redress for Japanese Internment Within the Context of International Geopolitics During the Reagan Administration”

You can read Tom's article in the Journal of American Studies, and can consult the Article Prize committee's commendation on the HOTCUS website at hotcus.org.uk/awards/artic...

At the conference, we were pleased to announce that HOTCUS 2025 ECR article prize was awarded to@thomascryer.bsky.social for his article “‘A False Picture of Negro Progress’: John Hope Franklin, Racial Liberalism, and the Political (Mis)uses of Black History during the 1963 Emancipation Centennial.”

Professor Andrew Preston's insightful keynote on his new book Total Defense: The New Deal and the Invention of National Security was welcomed, as were his asides (and primary documents) into the founding of HOTCUS way back in 2007.

It's been an eventful month for us, so here's some news about what we have been up to.

First, our annual conference gathered scholars from across Europe and the Americas to discuss 20th century US history. A special thanks goes to our Events Sec Megan Hunt for her tireless efforts to HOTCUS!

First time presenting at @shafrhistorians.bsky.social this week. Very happy to have presented with such brilliant historians on the @hotcus.bsky.social panel: “Revisiting Race, Gender, and Religion in Wars during the Long Twentieth Century.”

Absolutely delighted to receive this award that will support my research trip to New York! Massive thanks to @hotcus.bsky.social 🙌🏼

The cover of the 19867 TTRPG The Price of Freedom, overlaid with a big yellow star containing the words 'The Price of Freedom is $19.95!', followed by the sub-title 'INVASION, APOCALYPSE, AND TABLETOP ROLEPLAYING GAMES IN RONALD REAGAN'S AMERICA'.

1) Last week was the 2025 @hotcus.bsky.social conference, and a great time was had by all! I presented a narrow slice of my ongoing research into the Cold War and RPGs, specifically and narrowly focusing on The Price of Freedom (1986). I was slightly taken aback by how positively it was received.