Projecting American Studies: Essays on Theory, Method, and Practice

Description

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