Rethinking America
Department of Comparative Literature
Department of English
Department of Spanish Italian & Portuguese
Pennsylvania State University
Fall 2001, Mondays 2:30-5:30 p.m.
306 Burrowes Building
Professor Djelal Kadir
436N Burrowes Building
Tel. 863-9629; e-mail: kadir@psu.edu
Office Hours: M&T 11:00–12:00
With the collaboration of an international team of distinguished practitioners
of American Studies, this seminar aims to interrogate the multiplicity
of America as literary, historical, geographic, and cultural phenomenon.
Our project of “re-thinking” entails a reconsideration of America (U.S.
and non-U.S.) as national, plural, transnational, and international/hemispheric
agency in a global context.
America rethought from the outside is also America rethinking from within.
Thus, as a diverse team of Americanists engaged in this process, we aim
to re-read America through a number of key texts that examine, critically
and reflectively, the genesis, morphology, ascendancy, and hegemonic historical
phases of America in the world. We re-examine American culture as a globally
repercussive and locally self-reinforcing site of national and post-national
discourse, and as international narrative formation.
In the process, the trans-disciplinary field of American Studies itself
will undergo a reassessment, as will its geographical purview, scholarly
and pedagogical practices, discursive parameters, and its performative
role in the study and critique of America. In revisioning these professional
acts, we examine how they might be as defining and re-inscribing as they
are critically considerate of their object.
The seminar, rostered in the Department of Comparative Literature and
cross-listed with the Department of English and the Department of Spanish
Italian & Portuguese,, is a project of the Center for Global Studies
at Penn State and a collaborative endeavor with the International American
Studies Association.
The seminar convenes weekly on Mondays from 2:30 to 5:30 P.M. during
the fall term of 2001.
AUGUST 27
Prolepses: Locating America, Resituating American Studies
SEPTEMBER 3
Labor Day. No classes
SEPTEMBER 10
Presenter: RALPH RODRÍGUEZ (English and Comparative Literature/Latino/a
Studies, Penn State) & SANTIAGO VAQUERA (Spanish Italian & Portuguese,
Penn State). Alienated Aztlán: Post-Nationalist Chicana/os and
the National Imaginary. Rubén Martínez, “The Other Side,”
and “Tijuana Burning,” both in his The Other Side. N.Y.: Vintage
Books, 1993, pp. 2–5, pp. 85–101; Ana Castillo, “Loverboys” from
her Loverboys. N.Y.: WW Norton & Co, 1996, pp.11–31; Michel
Serros, “Reclaim Your Right as A Citizen from Here, Here,” from How
to Be a Chicano Role Model. N.Y.: Berkeley Pubs. Group, 2000; Rodlofo
“Corky” González, Yo soy Joaquín/I am Joaquin.. N.Y.:
Bantam Books, 1972; Stuart Hall, Introduction: Who Needs Identity?” from
Questions
of Cultural Identity. Sturat Hall & Paul du Gay, eds. Thousand
Oaks: Sage Pubs. 1996, pp. 1–17; Daniel Alarcón, ‘The Aztec Palimpsest:
Toward A New Understanding of Aztlán, Cultural Identity, and History.
Aztlán 19:2 (1992): 33–63.
SEPTEMBER 17
Presenter: PAUL GILES (English and American Studies,
Cambridge, U.K; Executive Council, International American Studies Association). National
Identity and Foreign Agency: Lolita's America. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
(1955); Emily Apter, Introduction, "Continental Drift: From National
Characters to Virtual Subjects" (U of Chicago P,1999), 1-24; Paul Giles,
"Virtual Eden: Lolita, Pornography, and the Perversions of American
Studies," Journal of American Studies, 34 (2000), 41-66; Julia
Kristeva, "What of Tomorrow's Nation?," Nations Without Nationalism,
trans. Leon S. Roudiez (Columbia UP, 1993; 1990), 1-47.
SEPTEMBER 24
Presenter: ARTURO ARIAS ( Latin American Studies,
University of Redlands; President, Latin American Studies Association). After
the Rigoberta Menchú Controversy: Lessons Learned About the Nature of
Subalternity and the Specifics of the Indigenous Subject. I Rigoberta
Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. London:
Verso, 1984; David Stoll, "The Construction of I, Rigoberta Menchú,"
in his Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans. Boulder:
Westview, 1998; Arturo Arias, “Authoring Ethnicized Subjects: Rigoberta
Menchú and the Performative Production of the Subaltern,” PMLA 116:1 (January
2001), 75–88; and his The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy, Minneapolis: U
of Minnesota P, 2001.
OCTOBER 1
Presenter: WILLIAM BOELHOWER (English and American Studies, University
of Padua, Italy). Comparing Multicultural Societies: Rights and Biopolitics
in America and Europe. Giorgio Agamben, "Introduction" and "Part Three:
The Camp as Biopolitical Paradigm of the Modern" in his Homo Sacer
(Stanford University Press, 1998); John E. Wideman, Two Cities.
Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1998; Romano Prodi, Member of the European Commission,
"The Commission's Strategic Objectives for 2000 – 2005," http://europa.eu.int/index-en.html;
White Paper on European Governance: "Enhancing Democracy in the European
Union," http://europa.eu.int/index-en.html;
Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission, "Year 2001: European
Year of Languages: Unity/Diversity", 10 February 2000, http://europa.eu.int/index-en.html
(click on Reding); White Paper on Education and Training: "Teaching and
Learning. Toward the Learning Society," 1996, http://europa.eu.int./comm/education/lb-en.pdf);
"Education and Active Citizenship in the European Union," http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/citizen/citiz-en.html
OCTOBER 8
October break. No classes
OCTOBER 15
Presenter: JOHN CARLOS ROWE (English and American Studies, UC, Irvine;
Executive Council, International American Studies Association). Post-nationalist
American Studies. JCR, "Post-nationalism, Globalism, and the New American
Studies," in Post-Nationalist American Studies, JCR, ed. Berkeley:
U California P, 2000, 23–39; John Rollin Ridge (Yellow Bird), Life and
Adventures of Joaquin Murieta. Norman, OK: Univ. of Oklahoma Press,
1955.
OCTOBER 22
Presenter: PAUL JAY (English and American Studies, Loyola, Chicago).
American
Literatures and the Black Atlantic: Omeros and Globalization. Derek
Walcott, Omeros. Books 1–4; Books 6–7: Useful information at:
http://www.mcc.cc.fl.us/Faculty/Jonesj/LIT2090/Walcott.htm;
Paul Jay, “Border Studies and the Literature of the Americas,” Arizona
Quarterly 54:2 (1998); Paul Jay, “Beyond Discipline? Globalization
and the Future of English,” PMLA 116:1 (January 2001), 32–47.
OCTOBER 29
Mid-term Recapitulation and Presentation of Seminar Projects
NOVEMBER 5
Presenter: LAURA LOMAS (Comparative Literature and Spanish, Penn State).
Critics
and Masses: Representing "social life" in America. José
Martí, "Two Views of Coney Island." Trans. Elinor Randall.
Inside the Monster: Writings on the United States.
Ed. Philip S. Foner (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975), pp. 165-175;
José Martí, "Our America." Trans. Elinor Randall. Our
America: Writings on Latin America and the Struggle for Cuban
Independence (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), pp. 84-94; W.E.B.
DuBois, from Souls of Black Folk (New York: Dover Thrift Editions,
1994), pp. 1-7 & 155-165; C.L.R. James, from American Civilization.
Eds. Anna Grimshaw and Keith Hart. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993. pp. 50-98;
Vilashini Cooppan, "W(h)ither Post-Colonial Studies? Towards the
Transnational Study of Race and Nation." Post-colonial Theory and Criticism,
Laura Chrisman and Benita Parry, eds. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer,
2000, pp. 1-35.
NOVEMBER 12
Presenter: FRED GARDAPHÉ. (English and American Studies, SUNY
Stony Brook). The Southern Answer: America Italian Style. Antonio
Gramsci. "The Southern Question." Translated with an Introduction
by Pasquale Verdicchio. West Lafayette, IN: Bordighera, Inc., 1996; Helen
Barolini."Reintroducing The Dream Book: An Anthology of Writings by Italian
American Women." Chiaroscuro. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1999. 137-208; Pietro di Donato. "Geremio." Christ in Concrete.
(Chapter One) New York: Penguin (Signet Classic), 1993; Robert Viscusi.
"A Literature Considering Itself: The Allegory of Italian America." From
the Margin: Writings in Italian Americana. Eds. Anthony Julian Tamburri,
et. al. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1991; 2001. 259-273.
NOVEMBER 19
Presenter: Jeffrey Nealon (English and American Studies, Penn State).
From
Late Capitalism to Just-in-Time Capitalism. Fredric Jameson, The Cultural
Turn (Verso, 1998): especially chapters 1, 7 & 8; Michael Hardt
and Antonio Negri, Empire (Harvard, 2000): sections 1-3; Gladiator,
Ridley Scott (2000)
NOVEMBER 26
Presenter: MICHAEL BERUBÉ (English and American Studies, Penn
State). Americana Redux. Don DeLillo, White Noise.
Thomas Peyser,"Globalization in America: The Case of Don DeLillo's White
Noise." Clio 25 (1996): 255-71.
DECEMBER 3
Term-paper Presentations
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