Description
Book SynopsisAmerican Studies is a vigorous, bold account of the changes in the field of American Studies over the last thirty-five years. Through this set of carefully selected key essays by an editorial board of expert scholars, the book demonstrates how changes in the field have produced new genealogies that tell different histories of both America and the study of America.
- Charts the evolution of American Studies from the end of World War II to the present day by showcasing the best scholarship in this field
- An introductory essay by the distinguished editorial board highlights developments in the field and places each essay in its historical and theoretical context
- Explores topics such as American politics, history, culture, race, gender and working life
- Shows how changing perspectives have enabled older concepts to emerge in a different context
Table of ContentsNotes on the Editors x
Acknowledgments to Sources xi
Introduction 1
Part I Empire, Nation, Diaspora 7
Introduction 7
1 Rethinking Race and Nation 9
Nikhil Pal Singh
2 Manifest Domesticity 17
Amy Kaplan
3 Nuestra América’s Borders: Remapping American Cultural Studies 26
José David Saldívar
4 The Practice of Diaspora 33
Brent Hayes Edwards
5 Removal 41
Tiya Miles
6 Redefining Security: Okinawa Women’s Resistance to US Militarism 49
Yoko Fukumura and Martha Matsuoka
Part II States, Citizenship, Rights 57
Introduction 57
7 Liberty’s Empire 59
Laura Doyle
8 The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 and the Reconstruction of Race in Immigration Law 69
Mae M. Ngai
9 The Citizen and the Terrorist 78
Leti Volpp
10 Race, Gender, and the Privileges of Property 89
Peggy Pascoe
11 Racing Religion 99
Moustafa Bayoumi
12 The Intimate Public Sphere 109
Lauren Berlant
13 Democratic Passions: Reconstructing Individual Agency 119
Christopher Newfield
Part III Reproduction of Work 133
Introduction 133
14 Domestic Life in the Diggings 135
Susan Lee Johnson
15 “Women’s Sweat”: Gender and Agricultural Labor in the Atlantic World 145
Jennifer L. Morgan
16 Fashioning Political Subjectivities: The 1909 Shirtwaist Strike and the “Rational Girl Striker” 155
Nan Enstad
17 The Age of the CIO 166
Michael Denning
18 Work, Immigration, Gender: New Subjects of Cultural Politics 177
Lisa Lowe
19 Global Cities and Survival Circuits 185
Saskia Sassen
Part IV Religion, Spirituality, and Alternate Ways of Being in the United States 195
Introduction 195
20 Snakes Alive: Religious Studies between Heaven and Earth 199
Robert A. Orsi
21 From Demon Possession to Magic Show: Ventriloquism, Religion, and the Enlightenment 213
Leigh Eric Schmidt
22 Rethinking Vernacular Culture: Black Religion and Race Records in the 1920s and 1930s 225
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham
23 The Madonna of 115th Street Revisited: Vodou and Haitian Catholicism in the Age of Transnationalism 233
Elizabeth McAlister
24 The Good Fight: Israel after Vietnam, 1972–80 246
Melani McAlister
25 Getting Religion 260
Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini
Part V Performances and Practices 269
Introduction 269
26 The Origins of Mass Culture 271
Richard M. Ohmann
27 The Riddle of the Zoot: Malcolm Little and Black Cultural Politics during World War II 280
Robin D. G. Kelley
28 Mardi Gras Indians: Carnival and Counter-Narrative in Black New Orleans 290
George Lipsitz
29 To Be Young, Brown, and Hip: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Indian American Youth Culture 299
Sunaina Marr Maira
30 Teatro Viva! Latino Performance and the Politics of AIDS in Los Angeles 307
David Román
31 Waiting for Godzilla: Toward a Globalist Theme Park 315
Takayuki Tatsumi
32 Hollywood’s Hot Voodoo 319
Eva Cherniavsky
Part VI Body-Talk 327
Introduction 327
33 Turning People into Products 329
Walter Johnson
34 Redressing the Pained Body: Toward a Theory of Practice 338
Saidiya V. Hartman
35 Between “Oriental Depravity” and “Natural Degenerates”: Spatial Borderlands and the Making of Ordinary Americans 346
Nayan Shah
36 The Rule of Normalcy: Politics and Disability in the USA [United States of Ability] 357
Lennard J. Davis
37 The Patient’s Body 365
Virginia L. Blum
38 Queer Cyborgs and New Mutants: Race, Sexuality, and Prosthetic Sociality in Digital Space 372
Mimi Nguyen
Part VII Mediating Technologies 385
Introduction 385
39 Two Spinning Wheels in an Old Log House 387
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
40 The Cultural Mediation of the Print Medium 397
Michael Warner
41 Likeness as Identity: Reflections on the Daguerrean Mystique 405
Alan Trachtenberg
42 “I Want to Ride in Geronimo’s Cadillac” 413
Philip Deloria
43 Reading the “Book of Life”: DNA and the Meanings of Identity 424
Sarah E. Chinn
44 Television and the Politics of Difference 433
Herman S. Gray
Part VIII Sites, Space, and Land 443
Introduction 443
45 Where is Guantánamo? 445
Amy Kaplan
46 Knowing Nature through Labor: Energy, Salmon Society on the Columbia 458
Richard White
47 Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California 465
Laura Pulido
48 Commerce: Reconfiguring Community Marketplaces 476
Lizabeth Cohen
49 The Prison Fix 486
Ruth Wilson Gilmore
50 The Globalization of Latin America: Miami 493
George Yúdice
51 Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans? Katrina, Trap Economics, and the Rebirth of the Blues 506
Clyde Woods
Part IX Memory and Re-Memory 515
Introduction 515
52 Not only the Footprints but the Water Too and What is Down There 517
Avery Gordon
53 The Lost Cause and Causes Not Lost 528
David Blight
54 The Wall and the Screen Memory: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial 540
Marita Sturken
55 The Patriot Acts 550
Donald E. Pease
56 Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History 558
Michel-Rolph Trouillot
Part X Internationalization and Knowledge Production about American Studies 567
Introduction 567
57 Spectres of Comparison: American Studies and the United States of the West 569
Liam Kennedy
58 Romancing the Future: Internationalization as Symptom and Wish 578
Robyn Wiegman
59 Outside Where? Comparing Notes on Comparative American Studies and American Comparative Studies 588
Donatella Izzo
Index 605
