Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies (COPAS - E-Journal)
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"The Tube is Flickering Now": Aesthetics of Authenticity in Good Night, and Good Luck
No full textThe article examines the Clooney/Heslov/Soderbergh production Good Night, and Good Luck“ (2005). Its unusual visual style (cinematography, mise-en-scène, etc.) enables an immediate aesthetic viewing experience of Cold War America. Drawing on Fluck\u27s discussion about aesthetics and its socio-cultural function, the "docu-drama" (Doherty 53), while referring to the era of McCarthyism, serves as an instance of articulation for the dissatisfaction with contemporary American politics
“Of Vampire Born”: Interracial Mothering in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction
No full textFocusing on the portrayal of motherhood in black women’s speculative fiction, this essay discusses Jewelle Gomez’s short story “Louisiana 1850“ (1991) and explores how Gomez establishes an egalitarian interracial maternal relationship between a white woman and a slave child. I will demonstrate how the trope of a maternal vampire in particular not only functions in the story to make a mothering relationship plausible, but ultimately challenges and dismantles normative maternal categories, both white and black
The Impact of Tribal Colleges in the Economic Development of Tribal Communities: A Case Study
No full textThe essay examines a fairly new phenomenon in American Education: Tribal Colleges. As unique institutions of higher learning, established to specifically address educational and cultural needs of American Indians, they play a pivotal role in individual student and tribal community empowerment. It will be illustrated in-depth how one particular Tribal College – Salish Kootenai College – positively impacts and greatly contributes to the economic development of its tribal community
Brought Up to Be American: The Assimilation Process of Children and Teenage Refugees from Germany in the 1930s and 1940s in New York
Get PDFoai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/48The paper discusses the immigration and assimilation experiences of German refugees toNew York in the 1930s and 40s, specifically the experiences of children and teenagers. Itillustrates their integration process, focussing on various aspects of assimilation such aslanguage, friendships, social life and school, investigates into consequences and effects ofAmericanization and examines the immigrants’ own evaluation of adjustment
Between Earth Science and Language/Writing Imagery: How to Render the Workings of Memory in Anne Michaels\u27 Fugitive Pieces
Get PDFThe novel, Fugitive Pieces“ (1996), written by the Canadian author Anne Michaels, is one of these rare North American novels which deals with the Holocaust. Michaels’ use of different realms of imagery points towards her preoccupation with memory and Holocaust remembrance. This paper investigates two models of memory—memory as archeological quest and memory as narrative—which inform Fugitive Pieces“. 
History and Storytelling: Historical Narratives by Women Authors of the Contemporary American South
Get PDFContemporary historical fictions by women writers of the American South show new ways of dealing with the region’s history. In a project of rewriting mainstream history, they try to provide a means of identification and therefore a “usable past“ for women of the present-day South. At the same time, they still explore the epistemological questions inherent in all historical representation. Kaye Gibbons and Lee Smith show two distinctly different versions of dealing with these questions
How to Author a Walk: Henry David Thoreau’s and Mary Austin’s Regional Narratives of Environmental Learning
Get PDFOver the course of the last decade, Mary Austin has been recanonized as a regionalist woman writer and as an author in the Thoreauvian tradition of American nature writing. As a regionalist, Austin is thought to represent a female dominated branch of realist writing, given over to a feminist celebration of communal ways of life and “woman’s culture.“ A representative instance is her inclusion in the Norton Anthology American Women Regionalists“ (1992)
Now You See Me, Now You Don\u27t: Fanny Fern\u27s Private Theatricals in Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time (1854)
Get PDFThe essay discusses Fanny Fern\u27s autobiographical narrative Ruth Hall “(1854) in the context of the emerging entertainment industry in antebellum America. A brief analysis of Fern\u27s narrative strategies, focusing on aspects of the characters\u27 visual exposure, reveals that Fern\u27s selfportrait as the "authentic" and independent Ruth Hall“ is in complex ways implicated in the very mechanisms she purports to confront. 
"The Best Way to Explain It Is to Do It": Ida Cannon and the Professionalization of Medical Social Work During the Progressive Era and the 1920s
Get PDFIda Cannon (1877-1960) was a pioneer of medical social work in American hospitals. She had a founding role in developing and professionalizing this medical social service. She positioned medical social workers among hospital factions generally hostile to her approach, e.g. the doctors and nurses, but drew on all her political skills in relentless negotiations to maintain the legitimacy of that field in the hospital arena. 
