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Each year, the existing members of the HOTCUS steering committee stand down. The vacant positions are then subject to a new nomination and – if necessary, election – process.

All HOTCUS members are eligible to nominate themselves for all positions on the committee. Their nomination application form is available on the site and must be seconded by another HOTCUS member, and submitted to the committee secretary (Miguel Hernandez – [email protected]) by 5:00pm, Friday 23 May 2025. Where ballots are required, they will take place online between 30 May and 13 June 2025. The new committee will then be presented to the membership at the HOTCUS AGM at the annual conference at Lancaster University.

The eight committee positions are:

• Chair (1-year term)
• Vice-Chair (1-year term)
• Committee Secretary (1-year term)
• Treasurer (1-year term)
• Membership Secretary (1-year term)
• Events Secretary (1-year term)
• Early Career Secretary (1-year term)
• Postgraduate Secretaries x1 (2-year terms for those currently registered as PhD students)

This year we are particularly encouraging nominations for the following positions:

• Events Secretary
• One Postgraduate Secretary

Descriptions of the responsibilities of each committee position are available on our website. As well as completing their duties, committee members are expected to participate in 4 committee meetings per year over Zoom, and to help judge the annual HOTCUS prizes and other awards.

HOTCUS is dedicated to fostering a culture of inclusion and equality in our organizational structure. We seek to develop an intellectual and organizational environment built on the premise of equity in terms of gender, age, race, sexuality, disability, career stage, and employment status.

If you have any questions about the nomination and election process, please contact Miguel Hernandez at the address above.

The History Department at the University of Sussex is seeking to appoint a Lecturer in US History (Education Focused) for a fixed term position.

You will contribute to a range of modules in nineteenth- and twentieth-century History and American Studies, including delivering specialist options in twentieth-century US history and politics, and the history of the Civil Rights movement. You will deliver lectures, seminars and dissertation supervision, support students, and engage in marking and assessment. 

You will join an innovative and collegial History Department with a strong commitment to interdisciplinary study and with strong links to American Studies as a discipline. Sussex is ranked 20^th in the 2025 Complete University Guide for History, and was ranked 4^th for Impact in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework.

Please contact the Head of Department, Dr Iain McDaniel, for informal inquiries about the position.
To apply and for more information, please see:
https://jobs.sussex.ac.uk/job/a43d53b7-f9f2-46ee-ba82-9c1347a02d02

Beyond the Burger: USA Food Stories in the British Library’s Oral History and Food Industry Literature Collections
Start date: 1 October 2025
Application Deadline: 5pm on May 12

Interviews will take place online in the week of June 9

Keele University and the British Library are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded Collaborative Doctoral Studentship from 1 October 2025 under the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Scheme.

The project will examine labour and production conditions, attitudes to different foodstuffs and their novelty and/or ubiquity; it will provide a unique view of the negotiations of structure and agency in food purchasing and consumption. This project will be jointly supervised by Rebecca Bowler and David Ballantyne at Keele University and by Lola Gomes de Mattos, Polly Russell and Mary Stewart at the British Library. The student will spend time with both Keele University and the British Library and will become part of the wider cohort of AHRC CDP funded PhD students across the UK.

Keele University and the British Library are keen to encourage applications from a diverse range of people, from different backgrounds and career stages, and particularly welcome those currently underrepresented in doctoral student cohorts.

For further information, please visit USA Food Stories in the British Library’s Oral History and Food Industry Literature Collections – Keele University.  

Taking place at Lancaster University, June 18-20, the conference features a keynote lecture from Professor Andrew Preston. The full conference schedule is available here.

To register for the conference, book here. Additional extras like the conference meal and on-campus accommodation are also available to book at the same time. 

The conference meal is a 3-course meal, on-campus, on the Thursday evening. 

The on-campus accommodation offered when you register for the conference is university accommodation, i.e. private dorm rooms with single, double or twin beds, with breakfast included. They are only available for two-night bookings, i.e. Wednesday 18 June and Thursday 19 June, and offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

Please note – if you need an itemised list of what you have booked, particularly for reimbursement from your institution or funders, please click ‘Continue’ from your booking confirmation page. Then click on the little arrow near your name (which should appear in bold text halfway down the page) to reveal a more detailed outline of your booking. You can then save this page as a PDF. The email notification you will receive, does not provide any of this information. 

On Thursday May 15 the IHR North American History Seminar welcomes the winner of the 2025 Iwan Morgan Lecture Prize, Alex Riggs, from the University of Nottingham. Alex will be presenting a lecture entitled, “Making a Rainbow: How the 1970s and ‘80s made the modern American left”. 

This year’s lecture will be held at 5:30 at the London School of Economics in Parish Hall room 1.02 (marked PAR on this map). 

The Iwan Morgan Lecture Prize is a highlight of the IHR’s North American History Seminar, and all are very welcome to attend.