University Oxford Blog

This article is devoted to the story of Daniel Howe, a person who has graduated Oxford University 35 years ago. Today he tries to remember the list of courses he had in the university which were connected with Unites States and the history of this country. According to his words, there were no courses on American culture and literature and the only course he had remembered was devoted to small fragment of the American history – Secession and Slavery, 1862 and 1850. These courses were taught in the university since 1924.

But nowadays British students know more about American culture and history. It especially refers to pop culture through television, movies and music groups. Such situation became possible because of globalization and positioning of the USA as dominant superpower in the world. Besides, nowadays Oxford University attracts more and more students from US each year. To coordinate the demand and supply the Oxford University administration established Oxford Institute for American Studies. This educational institution studies, researches and teaches the American culture, history, politics and government. The director of this institute is Mr. Howe, professor of American history.

Today the main aim of the professor is to make American history and culture interesting for British students. According to his words, there are many students nowadays who study different stages of American history in the university and some students are especially interested in this subject and they study American history in the comparison and conjunction with history of Britain. The university is very profitable, as tuition fee is quite high and demand on such knowledge is high also.

The university is well equipped and it has huge library with collection of 150.000 volumes. All the books were delivered from America. The students are especially interested in the modern history of USA and history of slavery.