A Critical History of the New American Studies, 1970–1990 (Re-Mapping the Transnational: A Dartmouth Series in American Studies) - Softcover

Lenz, G�nter H.

9781512600032: A Critical History of the New American Studies, 1970–1990 (Re-Mapping the Transnational: A Dartmouth Series in American Studies)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1512600032 ISBN 13: 9781512600032

Publisher: Dartmouth College Press, 2016

Starting in 2005, G�nter H. Lenz began preparing a book-length exploration of the transformation of the field of American Studies in the crucial years between 1970 and 1990. As a commentator on, contributor to, and participant in the intellectual and institutional changes in his field, Lenz was well situated to offer a comprehensive and balanced interpretation of that seminal era. Building on essays he wrote while these changes were ongoing, he shows how the revolution in theory, the emergence of postmodern socioeconomic conditions, the increasing globalization of everyday life, and postcolonial responses to continuing and new forms of colonial domination had transformed American Studies as a discipline focused on the distinctive qualities of the United States to a field encompassing the many different “Americas” in the Western Hemisphere as well as how this complex region influenced and was interpreted by the rest of the world. In tracking the shift of American Studies from its exceptionalist bias to its unmanageable global responsibilities, Lenz shows the crucial roles played by the 1930s’ Left in the U.S., the Frankfurt School in Germany and elsewhere between 1930 and 1960, Continental post-structuralism, neo-Marxism, and post-colonialism. Lenz’s friends and colleagues, now his editors, present here his final backward glance at a critical period in American Studies and the birth of the Transnational.

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About the Author:

G�NTER H. LENZ (1940–2012) was one of the leading scholars of American Studies in Europe and one of the founders of Transnational American Studies. Trained in the famed Frankfurt School he was professor of American literary and cultural studies at Humboldt University in Berlin.

Review:

“G�nter Lenz is well-versed in the theoretical traditions of the “old and the new” world with a keen eye for processes of reception, appropriation, recontextualization, contradictions in the overall transatlantic “travelling of theories” and with a clear talent for synthesizing rather than antagonizing. Lenz masterfully and in encyclopedic fashion presents us with a kind of disciplinary “meta-discourse” along with a unique transatlantic perspective that remains fully committed to the project of critical theory.” (Heike Paul, Friedrich-Alexander-Universit�t Erlangen-N�rnberg)

“An absolutely essential book for anybody interested in the development from American Studies to the New American Studies and beyond, written from a transnational and transatlantic perspective. The editors deserve praise for rescuing for us this intellectually independent study. Its wealth of profound critical analyses of major theoretical approaches to literature, culture, and thought is unequalled. It points the way the disciplines coming together in American Culture Studies might and should evolve.” (Helmbrecht Breinig, professor emeritus of American Studies at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and founding director of the Bavarian American Academy, Munich)

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