I teach American Studies and cultural history at the University of
Texas. I recently published a history on American social science between
the world wars. My new major research interest deals with the American
historical and social construction of alcohol and drugs, and I have taught
undergraduate and graduate courses in the field for the past several
years.
Before beginning my present position, I taught for a year at the
University of Wurzburg and for two years at Temple University Japan in
Tokyo. I hope to return overseas to teach college again soon. My dream
countries as of this minute are New Zealand, Australia, and Greece.
subject: Icebreaker #31: Werner Sollors sollors@HUSC.HARVARD.EDU
My name is Werner Sollors, and I am interested in comparative approaches
to literature and culture of the United States that would combine
American Studies and Comparative Literature methodologies. I have
recently finished a study of interracial literature, NEITHER BLACK NOR
WHITE, YET BOTH that is scheduled to be published by Oxford University
Press later this year; and edited a collection THEORIES OF ETHNICITY: A
CLASSICAL READER, forthcoming shortly from Macmillan. A big project that
I have become involved in in recent years is the work of the Longfellow
Institute, dedicated to the study of non-Anglophone texts of the United
States. For this purpose I am also trying to organize a Discussion Group
within the Modern Language Association, for the founding of which I would
welcome support.
The new discussion group is intended to stimulate scholarly work on
texts that were written or published in what is now the United States in
any language other than English. The group will have the task to identify,
and to bring back as the subject of study, the multitudes of culturally
fascinating, historically important, or aesthetically interesting texts that
were written in languages other than English, ranging, for example, from
works in indigenous Amerindian languages, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch,
German, Yiddish, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese, to Arabic and French texts by
frican Americans.
The group will support reprinting, translations, and the publication of
bilingual editions and will build up an international network of scholars
and students working on the languages of what is now the United States.