This website is dedicated to English Literature, Literary Criticism, Literary Theory, English Language and its teaching and learning.
American Studies and English Literature
American Studies draws on numerous academic disciplines, including history, sociology, literature, political science, and cultural studies, to create a multi-faceted examination of the United States.
Interdisciplinary Field: American Studies draws on numerous academic disciplines, including history, sociology, literature, political science, and cultural studies, to create a multi-faceted examination of the United States.
Global Perspective: Scholars examine the United States’ complex domestic issues while acknowledging its historical and ongoing interactions with the wider world.
Critical Inquiry: The field fosters critical thinking skills, promoting in-depth analysis, evidence-based interpretations, and the consideration of various viewpoints.
American Studies: Core Concepts
Historical Analysis:
Investigates the political, economic, and social development of the United States from its origins to the present day.
Emphasizes diverse experiences throughout history, exploring social movements and the perspectives of marginalized groups alongside major historical events.
Cultural Studies:
Analyzes both formal artistic expressions (like literature, film, and the visual arts) and the broader landscape of popular culture (such as music, media, and traditions).
Examines how cultural forms reflect and shape American society.
Sociological Inquiry:
Delves into the social structures, institutions, and power dynamics that shape American life.
Explores issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, religion, and other social categories as they manifest within the United States.
Politics and Governance:
Studies the American political system, its evolution, underlying ideologies, and the nation’s domestic and international policies.
Considers the exercise of power and influence within American society and on the global stage.
Contested Identities:
Explores the complex and ever-changing nature of American identity.
Examines how individuals and groups define themselves in relation to the nation, challenging and expanding traditional notions of what it means to be American.
American Studies and Literature
Literature as a Primary Source
Reflection of Society: Literary works, from novels and poetry to plays and essays, provide a window into the social, cultural, and intellectual currents of their time. They can reveal the values, anxieties, aspirations, and conflicts of different historical periods.
Voices and Perspectives: Literature offers a platform for marginalized voices and perspectives that might be overlooked in traditional historical narratives. This helps American Studies scholars understand those historical periods from a more complete and nuanced view.
Cultural Artifacts: American Studies treats literary texts not just as aesthetic objects but as cultural artifacts. They are examined to understand the ways in which they shaped and were shaped by American society.
Methods of Analysis
Interdisciplinary Approaches: American Studies scholars utilize various literary analysis tools and theories drawn from disciplines like literary criticism, cultural studies, and history.
Contextualization: Literature is placed in its historical and social context, allowing scholars to discover intersections between literary works, social movements, political events, and cultural developments.
Text and Subtext: American Studies encourages a reading of both the explicit content of literature and its implicit meanings. This allows for a deeper understanding of the underlying ideologies and power structures at play within a given period.
Key Areas of Focus
American Identities: Literature is analyzed to understand the construction and evolution of American identities – national, racial, ethnic, gendered, etc.
Power Dynamics: Literary works are examined to understand how issues of power, domination, and resistance are expressed (and sometimes challenged).
Social Change and Cultural Movements: Literature becomes a tool for tracking societal transformations, intellectual shifts, and the emergence of social movements throughout American history.
American Studies and Literary Theory
American Studies Concepts
Literary Theory Concepts
Relationship
Historical Analysis
New Historicism
Examines literature as a reflection of historical context and events.
Cultural Studies
Cultural Marxism
Analyzes how literature reflects and shapes cultural norms and values.
Sociological Inquiry
Critical Race Theory
Explores how literature represents and critiques social structures and power dynamics.
Politics and Governance
Feminist Theory
Investigates how literature engages with political ideologies and systems of governance.
Contested Identities
Postcolonial Theory
Examines how literature constructs and challenges notions of identity and belonging.
Origin of American Studies
Challenging American Exceptionalism: Early 20th-century scholars questioned the intellectual framework of American exceptionalism, seeking a more complex and nuanced understanding of the United States in relation to the broader world.
The Rise of Interdisciplinarity: The inherent complexity of the American experience prompted a shift away from traditional disciplinary approaches. Scholars from history, literature, sociology, and other fields embraced collaboration, recognizing that a more holistic perspective was essential.
Sociopolitical Crises as Catalysts: The Great Depression and World War II fostered a deep introspection into the underlying structures and principles guiding American society. This introspection fueled the desire for a comprehensive academic field dedicated to its exploration.
The Cold War and Defining American Identity: The ideological competition with the Soviet Union and other geopolitical rivals intensified the search for a clear, distinctive definition of American values and identity. Government support for American Studies programs reflected this sense of national self-examination.
Influence of Social Movements: The Civil Rights Movement, second-wave feminism, the anti-war movement, and other social uprisings of the 1960s and 1970s significantly transformed American Studies. These movements demanded a critical examination of historical narratives and emphasized the experiences of marginalized populations, leading to a more inclusive and self-aware field.
American Studies: Theorists/Pioneers, Works, and Arguments
Theorist
Influential Work
Core Argument
Henry Nash Smith
Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth (1950)
Examined the powerful myth of the American West as a symbol of opportunity, freedom, and national identity, and how this myth shaped literature, politics, and popular culture.
Leo Marx
The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (1964)
Explored the tension between America’s idyllic vision of itself as a pastoral nation and the increasing intrusion of technology and industrialization, especially as reflected in literature.
Annette Kolodny
The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters (1975)
Examined the gendered metaphors that shape American perceptions of the land and argued for a feminist re-reading of American literature and historical narratives.
Alan Trachtenberg
The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age (1982)
Explored how visual culture, including photography, architecture, and advertising, shaped American identity and reflected the social transformations of the Gilded Age.
Michael Denning
The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century (1997)
Challenged the divide between high and popular culture, arguing that working-class cultural productions (literature, music, social movements) were central to shaping American culture throughout the 20th century.
Sacvan Bercovitch
The Rites of Assent: Transformations in the Symbolic Construction of America (1993)
Argued for the central role of the Puritan tradition and its concept of the “American Jeremiad” in shaping the self-conception of the United States, across changing historical contexts.
Amy Kaplan
The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture (2002)
Analyzed how US expansionism and imperialism shaped domestic American culture, arguing for the interconnectedness of domestic and foreign spheres.
José David Saldívar
The Dialectics of Our America: Genealogy, Cultural Critique, and Literary History (1991)
Advocated for a “trans-American” approach to literary studies that considers the Americas as an interconnected hemispheric whole, with shared histories and cultural flows.
Principals of American Studies
Interdisciplinarity: American Studies transcends traditional academic boundaries by drawing upon insights and methodologies from various fields, including history, literature, sociology, cultural studies, political science, and more.
Critical Analysis: The field promotes critical thinking and encourages the examination of power structures, cultural narratives, and systems of domination that shape the American experience.
Historical and Contextual Understanding: American Studies emphasizes a deep historical understanding of the United States, including its origins, developments, and ongoing social, political, and cultural transformations.
Inclusion and Representation: American Studies seeks to tell a comprehensive story of the United States. It challenges traditional narratives by centering the voices and experiences of marginalized groups, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, indigenous peoples, and others.
Focus on Culture: American Studies recognizes the significance of culture – both elite forms of art and popular culture – as crucial sites where ideas about the nation, identity, and social relations are created, contested, and transformed.
Global Perspective: While focused primarily on the United States, the field encourages scholars to view the country within broader global contexts. It examines international influences on American society and the impact of the United States on the world.
Criticism Against American Studies
Lack of Coherence: Critics argue that the interdisciplinary nature of American Studies can sometimes lead to a lack of focus, making it difficult to define clear boundaries for the field or establish a core methodology.
Politicization: Some argue that American Studies has become overly politicized, often emphasizing a leftist critique of American society and history. This, they claim, leads to biased scholarship.
Anti-Americanism: A common criticism is that American Studies fosters a critical and sometimes negative view of the United States, promoting an anti-American or unpatriotic stance.
Neglect of Traditional Perspectives: Critics suggest that in its emphasis on diversity and marginalized perspectives, American Studies can sometimes neglect or even disparage traditional historical narratives or mainstream cultural expressions.
Jargon and Inaccessibility: Language used in some American Studies scholarship can be dense and filled with specialized jargon, making the field less accessible to broader audiences.
Important Note: It’s crucial to remember that not all scholars within American Studies agree with these criticisms, and that the field is a dynamic space with a variety of perspectives and approaches.
How have changing economic, political, and social conditions shaped the meaning and attainability of the American Dream across different historical periods? To what extent has the promise of the American Dream differed for marginalized groups?
Racial Representation and Power in Hollywood Cinema
Cultural Studies, Critical Race Theory, Postcolonial Theory
How have historical and contemporary Hollywood films constructed racial identities? In what ways do cinematic portrayals of race perpetuate or challenge existing power structures?
Environmentalism in American Literature
Literary Analysis, Ecocriticism
How does American literature reflect and shape evolving human-nature relationships? How have literary works contributed to environmental awareness and activism throughout different periods of US history?
Labor Movements and American Musical Traditions
Interdisciplinary: History, Musicology, Cultural Studies
How have labor movements influenced the development of specific American musical genres? In what ways have various musical traditions served as vehicles for working-class voices and expressions of solidarity?
Discourse Analysis, Media Studies, Political Science
What rhetorical strategies and narratives are employed by political actors on social media platforms? How do social media algorithms and user engagement shape the spread and reception of political messages?
