Jed Esty’s study of the fading of US hegemony was named one of The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Best Scholarly Books of 2023. In this seminar, Professor Esty will survey reactions to his book, and participants will have the opportunity to consider any implications its arguments may have for how Australia manages its own place in the world. The seminar will include a response to the book by Kate Fullagar.

A digital copy of The Future of Decline is available for purchase here.

Jed Esty is the Vartan Gregorian Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of A Shrinking Island (Princeton UP, 2004), Unseasonable Youth (Oxford UP, 2012), and The Future of Decline (Stanford UP, 2022). He is currently working on a new project entitled, “Cold War Victorians: The Genre System of the Angloworld”.

Kate Fullagar is Professor of History in the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at ACU. Her publications include Bennelong & Phillip (Simon & Schuster, 2023); The Warrior, The Voyager, and the Artist (Yale UP, 2020); and The Savage Visit (University of California Press, 2012). She co-edited, with Michael A. McDonnell, Facing Empire: Indigenous Experiences in a Revolutionary Age, 1760-1840 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018).

Arrival tea/coffee: 9.30am
Seminar commences: 10am
Lunch: 1pm

ACU Melbourne campus, Greg Craven Centre, level 7, St Teresa of Kolkata building (421.7.11), 115b Victoria Parade, Fitzroy VIC 3065.