In many ways, this election season in the US has felt like a rerun, with hateful, anti-immigrant rhetoric, the myth of rigged elections and lies "from the right". But there were also plenty of surprises – from a last-minute candidate change to an assassination attempt. Historians Nell Irvin Painter (Princeton) and Nina Mackert (Leipzig // substitute professor of North American history at the University of Erfurt this winter semester) will provide both the historical background and a contemporary analysis of the election campaign between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump as part of the semester-opening event.