American Studies

The American Studies (German also: American Studies, American Studies) is an interdisciplinary cultural subject that deals with history, politics, society, culture and language of the United States.

American Studies vs. American Studies

The American Studies are from the American to distinguish whose employment on language and literature limited to the United States.

History of American Studies

The American literary historian Vernon Louis Parrington , who won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1928 for his influential three-volume work Main Currents in American Thought, is considered the founder of American Studies .

American Studies in German-speaking countries

American Studies was first established in Germany under National Socialism, with Friedrich Schönemann as the first professor. Although the subject was officially called "American Studies", Schönemann, a staunch National Socialist, aimed at a comprehensive cultural analysis of the USA; The focus of his work was then the criticism of American values: freedom and democracy. As the historians Willi Paul Adams and Philipp Gassert have shown, the Nazi history of the subject has not yet been processed.

Another early defender of the concept in Germany was Arnold Bergstraesser . Hans Galinski and Ursula Brumm are considered pioneers of American Studies in the Federal Republic of Germany .

Many of the women who work in this field today are close to feminism ( Hanna Beate Schöpp-Schilling , Carmen Birkle ) or gender studies ( Gabriele Dietze , Sabine Sielke , Astrid Böger , Nicole Waller ).

American Studies and Canadian Studies

The Canadian Studies ( Canadian Studies , "Canadian Studies") is a sub-discipline of American Studies discussed at many universities in the German speaking countries (such as in the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies of the Free University of Berlin ), as a subject so often in Combination with American Studies offered. Due to the close historical ties to Great Britain, however, there are often overlaps with English studies. In fact, Canadian studies as a cultural discipline developed less from American Studies than from Commonwealth Studies .

literature

Introductions

• Neill Campbell, Alasdair Kean: American Cultural Studies . Routledge 1997.
• Udo J. Hebel: Introduction to American Studies / American Studies (paperback), Stuttgart: Metzler, 2008, ISBN 3-476-02151-3

history

• Christian H. Freitag: The development of American studies in Berlin until 1945, taking into account the American work of state and private organizations. Dissertation, Berlin 1977.
• Levke Harders: American Studies. Discipline history and gender (= Transatlantic Historical Studies 48). Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2013. ISBN 978-3-515-10457-9
• Michael Dreyer, Markus Kaim and Markus Lang (eds.): America research in Germany: Topics and institutions of political science after 1945 . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 978-3-515-08466-6 (= Transatlantic Historical Studies 22).
• Lucy Maddox (Ed.): Locating American Studies: The Evolution of Discipline. Johns Hopkins University Press 1998. ISBN 0-8018-6056-3

The anniversary issue of the journal Amerikastudien / American Studies (50.1 / 2, 2005) , which was founded in 1956 as a yearbook for American studies, offers a good insight into the development of American Studies . The American Studies Association was founded in 1950. She publishes the American Quarterly , the most important American journal since 1949. The British Association for American Studies supports American Studies in Britain and publishes the Journal of American Studies .

Current discussion

• Donald E. Pease and Robyn Wiegman: The Futures of American Studies . Duke University Press, Durham NC 2002, ISBN 0-8223-2965-4 .

See also

• John F. Kennedy Institute
• American Studies Leipzig
• Heidelberg Center for American Studies

Web links

• American Studies Association (ASA)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Klaus Lubbers: Introduction to American Studies . Max Niemeyer, 1970, p. 3 .
2. ↑ Udo J. Hebel: Introduction to American Studies / American Studies . JB Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2008, ISBN 978-3-476-02151-9 , pp. 1 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
3. ^ Klaus Lubbers: Introduction to American Studies . Max Niemeyer, 1970, p. 1 .
4. ↑ Vernon L. Parrington. Retrieved October 2, 2019 . 
5. ^ Phillip Gassert: Before the DGfA: German America Research between the First World War and the early Federal Republic . In: Michael Dreyer, Markus Kaim, Markus Lang (eds.): America research in Germany: Topics and institutions of political science after 1945 . Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-515-08466-5 , pp. 20 ( limited preview in Google Book search).