Menu Expand

Projecting American Studies

Essays on Theory, Method, and Practice

Herausgeber: Kelleter, Frank | Starre, Alexander

American Studies – A Monograph Series, Bd. 285

2018

Zusätzliche Informationen

Bibliografische Daten

Abstract

How do theories, methods, and scholarly practices shape major research projects currently underway in American Studies? In twenty original essays, the contributors to ‘Projecting American Studies’ interrogate their ongoing work in various interdisciplinary contexts, shedding light on contemporary Americanist practices, styles, and publics. In keeping with the original meaning of the French term ‘essai’, each contribution is a try, an attempt, an experiment: Several chapters employ a personal tone, others distill their arguments into condensed prose, some use non-linear formats. All contributors openly reflect on the future of American Studies in its interchange with Literary, Cultural, and Media Studies as well as with History and Political Science. Avoiding the rhetoric of “turns” and paradigm shifts, ‘Projecting American Studies’ aims to replace perennial appeals to do things differently with sustainable ideas for how to do things better.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Zwischenüberschrift Seite Aktion Preis
Cover Cover
Titel 3
Imprint 4
Contents 5
FRANK KELLETER & ALEXANDER STARRE: Preface 9
Prologue: Opening Moves: CHRISTOPH RIBBAT: Scenes from the American Studies Locker Room 17
Section I: Reading Narrative, Narrative Readings: American Studies and the Methods of Text 25
JAMES DORSON: Seeing Double: Reading Naturalism after the New Historicism 25
KLAUS BENESCH: A Matter of Scale: Is Close Reading to American Studies. What Place Is to Space? 39
WINFRIED FLUCK: Narratives About the American South: From Cavalier Myth to New Southern Studies 51
Section II: Fields and Spaces of Cultural Exchange 81
FLORIAN SEDLMEIER: On the Conditions of the Field Imagination: Realism and William Dean Howells 81
ALEKSANDRA BOSS & MARTIN KLEPPER: Toward a Poetics of Practice: Self-Improvement, "Nancy Drew", and the "Chicago Defender" 95
MARTIN LÜTHE: Travelling Cultures in the Here, There, and Now of a New Black Atlantic 109
Section III: New Urbanisms 121
JULIA SATTLER: Finding Words: American Studies in Dialogue with Urban Planning 121
BARBARA BUCHENAU & JENS GURR: On the Textuality of American Cities and Their Others: A Disputation 135
Section IV: Affective Resonances 155
RITA FELSKI: Identification and Critique 155
HEIKE PAUL: Public Feeling, Tacit Knowledge, and Civil Sentimentalism in Contemporary US Culture 165
Section V: The Uses of Interdisciplinarity 183
BORIS VORMANN: Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts: American Studies as Interdisciplinary Area Studies 183
SIMON WENDT: American Studies as a Multi/Inter/Transdisciplinary Endeavor? Problems, Challenges, and the Potential of Heroism for Collaborative Research 197
SABINE SIELKE: Ecotoning Inter- and Transdisciplinarity 207
Section VI: Literary Actions 225
BABETTE B. TISCHLEDER: Thinking Objects, Building Worlds: Why the New Materialisms Deserve Literary Imagination 225
LAURA BIEGER: Belonging as Critical Method — 13 Propositions 241
JOHANNES VOELZ: Transvaluations of Security 247
Section VII: Where Are We Now? 259
DANIEL STEIN: Can Superhero Comics Studies Develop a Method? And What Does American Studies Have to Do with It? 259
RUTH MAYER & ALEXANDER STARRE: Media/Knowledge: American(ist) Epistemic Formats 1900/2000 273
FRANK KELLETER: DISCIPLINE COOL. Notes, Quotes, Tweets, and Facebook Postings on the Study of American Self-Studies (LookingForward Remix) 287
Contributors 309
Backcover 315