From June 5 to 13, 2023, the 12th International Summer Academy of the Bavarian American Academy took place at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY. Focusing on "Cultural Narratives of the State in a Comparative Perspective," the program brought together 20 doctoral and postdoctoral researchers from Europe and the US as well as 12 renowned experts from the field of American Studies.

The doctoral and postdoctoral participants of the 2023 Summer Academy came from universities in Germany, the US, Austria, Italy, Poland, and Ireland. In their talks, they explored a variety of issues related to the summer school's guiding theme, focusing for instance on Black and Indigenous futurisms, the representation of military women in contemporary war stories, radical U.S. environmentalism and the cultural imaginary of terrorism, antinatalist discourses, or abortion narratives and anti-abortion discourses, to name just a few of the topics.

The program was curated by the event's directors Alan Nadel (University of Kentucky), Heike Paul (FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg and Director of the Bavarian American Academy), and Emily Naser-Hall (University of Kentucky) and included both academic project presentations and keynote lectures, along with a rich cultural program.

Learn more about the program