Introduction: Globalizing American Studies
Introduction: Globalizing American Studies
The roots of both American studies and the understanding of the twentieth century as the “American Century” can be found earlier in the twentieth century. The myth of an American Century and the mythology of American exceptionalism sustained each other through subsequent decades, even though American studies scholars grappled with them both repeatedly, and attempted to free themselves from these narratives by identifying and critiquing their limitations and occlusions. The exceptionalist thesis has made possible many sophisticated readings of American history, literature, and society. This chapter attempts to locate the roots of the multilateralism that may already exist in literature and Americanist scholarship, conscious of the contingency of “America” within global circulation. The combination of American studies–American exceptionalism–American Century has served until now as an enabling interpretive matrix that has been able to contain a variety of contradictions, generated both internally by academic inquiry and externally by changing historical conditions.
Keywords: American studies, exceptionalism, historical conditions, multilateralism, Americanist scholarship
Chicago Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
