SOAR: Society of Americanists Review
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Weapons of Criticism, Criticism by Weapons: On Punching Nazis
Get PDFThis essay reflects on the uses of political violence in the contemporary "Resistance" movement against the US far right. In particular, I focus on the figure of "punching Nazis." Neither denouncing nor endorsing the latter, I sketch a dialectical position that might be dubbed "anti-anti-punching Nazis.
You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polluted Information (Phillips and Milner)
No full textReview of Whitney Phillips and Ryan M. Milner. You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polluted Information. (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2020. 280 ISBN 9780262539913
American Studies in the Republic of Turkey: A Journey Unfulfilled
Get PDFThe story of American Studies in Turkey dates from the mid-Fifties when the Fulbright Commission appointed Sidney Burks to teach in the English Language and Literature department of Ankara University. Later in that decade an American Literature sub-division was established in the English department of the same institution with İrfan Şahinbaş, a noted translator and academic in the chair, who held the job until his retirement in 1982. Until the mid-Sixties, the fledgling program was supported by visiting Fulbright scholars; in contrast, many local professors believed that the idea of an independent department remained unthinkable (Aytür 60). In 1966 a graduate program was established in Ankara – a decade later the two departments (English and American Literature) were re-organized into separate entitles, with the American department officially named the Department of American Language and Literature (Amerikan Dili ve Edebiyatı Bölümü). In 1982 a new university act reorganized foreign literature departments into divisions of Western Languages and Literatures, with English and American Literature transformed into anabilim dalı (social science branches). This lasted for six years, when the American department was transformed into the Department of American Culture and Literrature (Amerikan Kültür ve Edebiyatı), even though many staff members were left confused as to whether they were involved in an American Studies enterprise
Making Context Matter: American Studies and the Connecting Imagination
Get PDFThis article provides a pedagogical primer on how we construct context in American Studies. It argues that the contemporary political moment has provided the field of American Studies with an important opportunity to share its understanding of the "connecting imagination" and the importance of context. The essay outlines the strategies we use to analyze a cultural text in context, from close reading to audience reception to situating the text in a broader network of related discourses to making an argument about cultural work
A Future from the Past: Perspectives from Memory Studies
Get PDFoai:journals.psu.edu:article/60420Like American Studies, the interdisciplinary field of memory studies seeks to understand symbolic expressions social-group identity over time, the interplay of social behavior and cultural texts, and the emergence of counter-narratives of oppression within broader conversations about nationhood. This essay considers those parallels, and then surveys four recent thematic turns in memory studies—new focuses on social movements, cultural geography, ritual performance, and the cultural aspects of technology—that are strikingly similar to the original interests of American Studies. Such developments highlight the usable past of American Studies, in service of not only other fields but also its own future.
Paradigm Dramas Revisited: Reflections on the History of American Studies
No full textThis essay updates Gene Wise\u27s influential "\u27Paradigm Dramas\u27 in American Studies" by examining the American Studies movement at four key moments: publication of Leo Marx\u27s myth-and-symbol Machine in the Garden in 1964; Wise\u27s presentation of the pluralistic "Paradigm Dramas" at a meeting of the American Studies Association (ASA) in 1975; Janice Radway\u27s ASA presidential address promoting transnational scholarship in 1998; and ASA\u27s boycott of Israel, confirming a turn to political advocacy, in 2013. The history of the field is assessed by informal content analysis of articles published by American Quarterly during the four-year period leading up to each key moment
Stand-Up Comedy, Social Critique and Rethinking the Origins of American Studies
No full textThis essay considers a range of ways scholars reflect on the origins and institutionalization of the field of American studies in the post-World War II era. Drawing on examples from the comedy of Mort Sahl, Moms "Jackie" Mabley, and Richard Pryor, this essay argues that post-war stand-up comedy supplies an aesthetics and an ethics that can open up new and productive ways of engaging critically with the origins of the field
The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality (Justin Gest)
No full textReview of Justin Gest. The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. xiii+249 ISBN 978019063255