The Futures of American Studies is a weeklong academic summer institute dedicated to presenting new work and critiquing the field of American Studies held at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The first Futures of American Studies Institute was held in the summer of 1997. Donald E. Pease, Professor of English at Dartmouth College, founded, organizes, and directs the annual Institute.

Founding of the Institute

After the School of Criticism and Theory left Dartmouth for Cornell University in 1995, Dartmouth faculty member Donald E. Pease started the Futures Institute as an alternative summer program for faculty and graduate students. In 2017 the Futures Institute celebrated the twentieth anniversary of its founding.

Institute Description

The Institute is divided into two daily plenary sessions, which feature current work from Institute faculty, and multiple three-hour research seminars in which all participants present and discuss their own work-in-progress. Speakers in the plenary sessions typically examine the relation between emergent and residual practices in the field of American Studies from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives. Participants come from a variety of programs and schools and represent fields as diverse as American history, social geography, American literature, gender studies, and the digital humanities. The Institute welcomes participants who are involved in a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields and who are interested in current critical debates in American Studies.

Past Institutes

2017 institute

The 2017 Institute was the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Futures of American Studies Institute. Faculty included Lisa Lowe, Dana Nelson, Cindi Katz, Branka Arsic, Christian Haines, Alan Nadel, Susan Strehle, Patricia Stuelke, Russ Castronovo, David Golumbia, James E. Dobson, Eng-Beng Lim, David Eng, Rachel Lee, Karen Shimakawa, Soyica Diggs Colbert, Ronald Judy, Donatella Izzo, Heike Paul, Liam Kennedy, Winfried Fluck, Hortense Spillers, John Carlos Rowe, Tim Melley, Heike Paul, Liam Kennedy, Eric Lott, Hamilton Carroll, Annie McClanahan, Colleen Boggs, and Dana Luciano.

2016 institute

Along with Institute Director Donald E. Pease, the institute co-directors were 2016 are:

2014 institute

Along with Institute Director Donald E. Pease, the institute co-directors were 2014 are:

2012 institute

Along with Institute Director Donald E. Pease, the institute co-directors were 2012 are:

Notable Plenary Lecturers

Each year the Futures Institute brings practicing Americanists and well-known critics and theorists working outside American studies. Notable plenary speakers from the Institute's history include:

Recent books written by Institute plenary faculty or students