As an American who has for a long time been teaching speakers
of French (indeed many languages other than English) and trying
to make sense of the USA to people from diverse cultural origins
(mostly Europeans but also Chinese during my fascinating stint of
teaching at Beijing Foreign Studies University in 1988-89), I
would like to share concerns with others who approach things
American from a certain distance. My last book, entitled
MODULAR AMERICA, actually won a prize from the American
Studies Association which I thought might signal increased
openness of American scholars to exocentric approaches to
American Studies. However, the book has not even been reviewed
in AQ, the official organ of the ASA despite the passage of
years since 1989 (and my complaints). I conclude that we who
look at the USA from outside share a need to generalize which
very unfashionalbe within the USA. The problme is partly situational.
S-based scholars who may still seek to define core Americanness
are readily dismissed by their peers as dinosaurs at best and at
worst holdovers from the bad old Cold War days of 'consensus history.'
In H-USA I hope to take part in professional conversations
which will take diverse and non-American cultures into account.
John G. Blair, University of Geneva
blair@uni2a.unige.ch
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Who is going to be Icebreaker #16???