American Studies from the Inside Out

This workshop challenges the traditionally national focus of the field of American Studies. Participants will address scholarship on the circulation of people, cultural objects, and capital across U.S. borders, while also interrogating the very notion of a bounded America. To do so, we will engage with themes of migration, dissidence, outsiderness, subculture, and activism—both in the past and present.

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Our current moment of cultural and political unpredictability underscores the relevance of the workshop. Rather than simply bemoaning the present conditions of intellectual production, the workshop will provide a critical and historical framework enabling American Studies scholars at Stanford to move forward productively and to forge a collegial community. As an inherently interdisciplinary field, American Studies demands collaboration across traditional departments and disciplines. Our group—comprising faculty and graduate students across the humanities, including the departments of English, History, Art and Art History, Theater and Performance Studies, Modern Thought and Literature, and African and African American Studies—will embody this interdisciplinary approach in each of our sessions.

Image: Alfredo Jaar, A Logo for America, 1987