Center for Anglo American Studies

About Us

The Center for British Studies at the University of California, Berkeley has, since 2003, provided a platform for one of the largest and most distinguished groups of scholars studying British culture, society and history — spread across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and professional schools — in the United States.

With a generous endowment of $2.1 million from the Robert Kirk Underhill Trust, the Center hosts or supports a wide array of scholarly, cultural, and educational activities.

The Center has three objectives:

• Strengthen Berkeley's intellectual and institutional ties to Britain

• Support graduate and undergraduate teaching and research in British Studies

• Support interdisciplinary research that recognizes Britain's relationships with America, Europe and Commonwealth countries and their effects on British economy, society, politics and culture

Anglo American Studies: In 2023, the Anglo-American Studies Program joined the Institute of European Studies and its Center for British Studies.

The underlying purpose of the Program is to widen and deepen campus interest and knowledge of British political, legal, and cultural affairs and their implications for the United States and the broader Commonwealth of Nations. The program supports faculty and graduate student research, conducts scholarly conferences, and features an annual R. Kirk Underhill lecture at UC Berkeley by a leading figure from political or scholarly circles.