American Studies: A User’s Guide

✍ Scribed by Philip J. Deloria and Alexander I. Olson

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2017
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 323
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

American Studies has long been a home for adventurous students seeking to understand the culture and politics of the United States. This welcoming spirit has found appeal around the world, but at the heart of the field is an identity crisis. Nearly every effort to articulate an American Studies methodology has been rejected for fear of losing intellectual flexibility and freedom. But what if these fears are misplaced? Providing a fresh look at American Studies in practice, this book contends that a shared set of “rules” can offer a springboard to creativity. American Studies: A User’s Guide offers readers a critical introduction to the history and methods of the field as well as useful strategies for interpretation, curation, analysis, and theory.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
Introduction: The Object of American Studies......Page 10
PART ONE: HISTORIES......Page 32
1 History and Historiography......Page 34
2 Four American Studies Mixtapes......Page 51
3 An Institutional History of American Studies (Or, What’s the Matter with Mixtapes?)......Page 88
PART TWO: METHODS......Page 122
4 Methods and Methodology......Page 124
5 Texts: An Interpretive Toolkit......Page 137
6 Archives: A Curatorial Toolkit......Page 167
7 Genres and Formations: An Analytical Toolkit......Page 196
8 Power: A Theoretical Toolkit......Page 224
PART THREE: FROM JOTTING IT DOWN TO WRITING IT UP......Page 260
9 A Few Thoughts on Ideas and Arguments......Page 262
10 Dispenser: A Case Study......Page 277
Conclusion......Page 303
Acknowledgments......Page 306
Notes......Page 310
C......Page 320
I......Page 321
P......Page 322
W......Page 323