University of Sussex
Marcus Cunliffe Centre for the
Study of the American South
Postgraduate Prospectus
Mission
The Marcus Cunliffe Centre for the Study of the American South
at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England was founded in
2007. The Cunliffe Centre facilitates high-quality research in all
aspects of the American South from the period of early English
settlement to the present. Fellows of the Cunliffe Centre are
award-winning historians of the United States with international
reputations who are active scholars, writers, and teachers; this
cohort of experts is one of the strongest concentrations of
historians of the American South outside the United States. The
Cunliffe Centre's main purpose is to build on this strength by
supporting outstanding postgraduate research on all aspects of
Southern history. The Cunliffe Centre is also committed to
enhancing research networks between scholars in the United
Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and to provide channels
for the transfer of knowledge in this important field to the broader
public.
Going to a Fourth of July Celebration, 1936, Hill House, Mississippi,
FSA-OWI Collection, Library of Congress
Teaching
As the major institution of research on the American South in Europe,
the Cunliffe Centre encourages applications for postgraduate study.
The resident historians at the Centre are leading scholars in the field
and have published a wide range of books and articles on the rich
history of the South. They offer cutting-edge expertise on key topics in
Southern history including slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction,
labour and working-class history, rural culture, segregation, the civil
rights movement, massive resistance, southern religion, Civil War
memory, and British perceptions of the American South.
The Cunliffe Centre offers a one-year MPhil and a three-year DPhil
through the faculty in American Studies. Postgraduates can use the
Cunliffe Centre’s institutional connections through the University’s
year-abroad programme to facilitate research at leading southern
universities including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
the University of Georgia, Louisiana State University and the
University of Texas. Opportunities also exist to teach on
undergraduate degrees offered in American Studies at Sussex.
Postgraduate students play an active role in the life of the Cunliffe
Centre, delivering papers at the regular research seminar (where
scholars from around the world present work in progress) and
organising their own conferences.
The University of Sussex boasts a research library with strong
holdings in both American and Southern history, as well as important
document collections detailing the history of the Civil War, slavery,
labour and work, and the southern British colonies. A list of the most
important holdings is available on the Cunliffe Centre website:
www.sussex.ac.uk/cunliffe The library is actively adding new
archival collections, as well as hundreds of titles in the field, every
year. Recent acquisitions include the papers of the Southern Tenant
Farmers’ Union, the Chicago Defender, and the Pierce Butler
Plantation Papers.
Postgraduate Degree Programmes
The Cunliffe Centre invites applications for one of two degrees:
MPhil in American History: This degree allows students to carry out
an independent and original piece of research, under the supervision
of the Fellows of the Cunliffe Centre, that is examined by a 40,000word thesis. You can take an MPhil over one or two years full-time or
up to four years part-time. While there is no coursework requirement,
students are offered one or more research training courses. Your
MPhil can also form part of a larger, doctoral-level work; candidates
interested in this kind of research can apply for an upgrade to move
from the MPhil to a DPhil programme.
DPhil in American History: This degree prepares you to enter a
range of professional careers, including higher education. Examined
on a 100,000-word thesis supervised by the Fellows of the Cunliffe
Centre, DPhil students aim to make a substantial original contribution
to knowledge or understanding in the field. Full-time students are
expected to complete the degree in three to four years; part-time
students in three to six years.
Application procedures: Research students are admitted at the
beginning of either the autumn, spring or summer terms. In order to
apply, you should begin by submitting a developed research proposal,
identifying the particular member(s) of the Cunliffe Centre with whom
you would like to work. Once the research proposal is approved, you
should submit an application form. For more information about
postgraduate research admissions, please visit
www.sussex.ac.uk/pgapplication Those interested in submitting a
research proposal or learning more about the Cunliffe Centre should
contact Dr. Jarod Roll: [email protected], or visit our website:
www.sussex.ac.uk/cunliffe
For more information on postgraduate admissions, including fees,
external funding, and studying at Sussex more generally, please
download the 2009 postgraduate prospectus at:
www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/publications/pgrad2009/
Research at the Cunliffe Centre
The Cunliffe Centre aims to nurture a vibrant research culture. It
hosts the prestigious annual Cunliffe Lecture Series, which is
published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This series is
designed to bring together the very best scholars in the field to
stimulate debate on critical issues in the southern past. Contributors
to the Cunliffe Lectures include: Eric Foner, Columbia University;
Walter Johnson, Harvard University; Steven Hahn, University of
Pennsylvania; and Patricia Sullivan, University of South Carolina.
The first volume of the Cunliffe Lectures, Latitudes of Freedom: The
Problems of Slave Emancipation in the American South, will be
published in 2010 with essays by Eric Foner, Walter Johnson, and
Richard Follett. While all historians now accept the fundamental
role of black slaves in shaping their own freedom and
emancipation, this short volume explores the fundamental
structural, psychological, and theoretical limitations they
experienced from three interlocking trajectories— the federal level,
the conceptual, and the experiential viewpoint. The volume begins
by examining the compromised nature of emancipatory thought of
President Abraham Lincoln, before engaging theoretically and
critically with scholarship on agency and freedom. The final essay
closes the volume by shifting the focus of analysis to African
Americans and examining the psychological burden of slavery on
black action in the years after 1863. These essays necessarily
illuminate the history of emancipation and freedom.
The second volume, Between Race and Nation: African American
Politics in the Age of Jim Crow, will explore the political activities of
African Americans in the Jim Crow era with pieces by Pulitzer-prize
winning historian Steven Hahn and prize-winning scholars Patricia
Sullivan and Jarod Roll. Subsequent lectures in the series will
explore the secession crisis of 1860-61 and the civil rights
movement.
People
Robert Cook is Professor of American History and a Fellow of
the Royal Historical Society. He specialises in the history of the
United States in the Civil War era, the modern civil rights
movement, and Civil War memory. His articles have been
published in the Journal of Southern History, Civil War History
and other leading academic journals. His latest book, Troubled
Commemoration: The American Civil War Centennial, 1961-1965
(LSU, 2007), was a finalist for the 2008 Lincoln Prize.
Richard Follett is Reader in American History. He has published
widely on the relationship between masters and slaves in the
plantation South, as well as slave demography, including The
Sugar Masters: Planters and Slaves in Louisiana's Cane World,
1820-1860 (LSU, 2005), an award-winning monograph and a
finalist for the 2007 Douglass Prize. He has recently completed
an extensive database that tracks the American sugar economy:
www.sussex.ac.uk/louisianasugar
Jarod Roll is Lecturer in American History and the Director of the
Cunliffe Centre. His research and writing focuses on the
intersection of race, work, and protest in the political economy of
the rural South after the Civil War. His articles have been
published in the Journal of Southern History, Labor History, and
the Radical History Review. His first book, Rural Rebellion and
Prophetic Religion in the New Cotton South, is forthcoming
(Illinois, 2010).
Clive Webb is Reader in American History. He is the author of
the prize-winning Fight Against Fear: Southern Jews and Black
Civil Rights (Georgia, 2001), editor of Massive Resistance:
Southern Opposition to the Second Reconstruction (Oxford,
2005), and co-author of Race and the American South: From
Slavery to Civil Rights (Edinburgh, 2007). His latest book, RabbleRousers: Militant Segregationists in the Postwar South, is
forthcoming (Georgia).
Place
The University of Sussex, one of the top universities in the United
Kingdom and a principal centre for the study of the United States,
has an international reputation for its innovative styles of teaching
and for the high quality and diversity of its research work.
The University is based on the outskirts of Brighton, a lively,
progressive seaside city. The prevailing atmosphere is
cosmopolitan and creative. London is only an hour away; Gatwick
International Airport can be reached in thirty minutes by train.
Eurostar services to France and Belgium are also located nearby.
For enquiries please contact:
The Marcus Cunliffe Centre for the Study of the American South
University of Sussex
Arts B348
Falmer, Brighton
BN1 9QN
UK
T +44 (0)1273 877 055
E [email protected]
www.sussex.ac.uk/cunliffe
Cover Image: Chemical Worker, Tennessee Valley Authority smelting furnace,
Muscle Shoals, Alabama, 1942, FSA-OWI Collection, Library of Congress