Center Bios
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Nicholas Cull
CPD University Fellow
Director, Master of Public Diplomacy Program, USC
cull@usc.edu


Nicholas J. Cull is Professor of Public Diplomacy and Director of the Masters Program in Public Diplomacy at USC. He took both his BA and PhD at the University of Leeds. While a graduate student he studied at Princeton in the USA as a Harkness Fellow of the Commonwealth Fund of New York. From 1992 to 1997 he was lecturer in American History at the University of Birmingham. From September 1997 to August 2005 he was Professor of American Studies and Director of the Centre for American Studies in the Department of History at Leicester.

His research and teaching interests are broad and inter-disciplinary, and focus on the the role of culture, information, news and propaganda in foreign policy. He is the author of The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945-1989 (Cambridge 2008). His first book, Selling War, published by OUP New York in 1995, was a study of British information work in the United States before Pearl Harbor, and was named by Choice Magazine as one of the ten best academic books of that year. He is the co-editor (with David Culbert and David Welch) of Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500-present (2003) which was one of Booklist magazine's reference books of the year, and co-editor with David Carrasco of Alambrista and the U.S.-Mexico Border: Film, Music, and Stories of Undocumented Immigrants (University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 2004). He has published numerous articles on the theme of propaganda and media history. He is an active film historian who has been part of the movement to include film and other media within the mainstream of historical sources.

He is President of the International Association for Media and History, a member of the Public Diplomacy Council and has worked closely with the British Council's Counterpoint Think Tank.

Recent Publications by Nicholas Cull
March 8, 2010 - Restoring America’s Reputation and the Tragic Children of Fallujah CPD Blog

October 9, 2009 - Obama's Nobel Prize CPD Blog

October 6, 2009 - Obama's America Conquers The World CPD Blog

October 2009 - USIA: Gone But Not Forgotten Layalina's Perspectives

September 16, 2009 - Australia's Public Diplomacy Crisis CPD Blog

September 8, 2009 - South Korea's Other Problem CPD Blog

Projecting Empire by James Chapman & Nicholas J. Cull. New York: Macmillan, 2009.

June 12, 2009 - Jefferson on Soft Power: Behind Obama's Cairo Quote CPD Blog

May 5, 2009 - Lugar to the Rescue: Senate Committee Backs 'Science Envoy' Plan CPD Blog

March 20, 2009 - My Culture + Your Culture = ? CPD Blog

Public Diplomacy, Cultural Interventions & the Peace Process in Northern Ireland. Track Two to Peace? Los Angeles, CA: Figueroa Press, 2009.

February 21, 2009 - Mexico at the Cross Roads CPD Blog

January 15, 2009 - The Future of American Cultural Diplomacy CPD Blog

The Cold War and the United States Information Agency American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–1989. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.





Nicholas Cull in the News
January 21, 2010 - A recap of CPD University Fellow Nicholas Cull's discussion of his new book (The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy 1945-1989) at the USC Washington D.C. Center USC News

October 21, 2009 - CPD University Fellow Nicholas Cull quoted on the relationship between television and democracy Times of London

October 21, 2009 - CPD University Fellow Nicholas Cull quoted in an article on domestic Pentagon 'psychological operations' The Raw Story

September 16, 2009 - CPD Director Philip Seib and Professor Nicholas Cull discuss the potential influence of Towards an New Public Diplomacy. Heritage Foundation blog The Foundry

August 13, 2009 - CPD University Fellow Nicholas Cull to Speak at Int'l Conference in Korea Full program [PDF]

July 10, 2009 - Nicholas Cull quoted in a story about America's mid-20th century "jazz ambassadors" and racial segregation in The Christian Science Monitor.

April 30, 2009 - Nicholas Cull, CPD University Fellow and Director of the USC Master of Public Diplomacy Program, participated in a US-China Economic and Security Review Commission hearing on "China’s Propaganda and Influence Operations, Its Intelligence Activities that Target the United States, and the Resulting Impacts on U.S. National Security." [PDF] To read Cull's testimony, click here.

January 9, 2009 - CPD University Fellow Nicholas Cull quoted in Los Angeles Times story entitled "War films aren't just goodies vs. baddies."

December 4, 2008 - CPD University Fellow Nicholas Cull discusses the history of public diplomacy on America Abroad Radio (Updated re-broadcast)




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