Keywords for American Cultural Studies

Welcome to the discussion forums for Keywords for American Cultural Studies. They are a part of the Keywords Collaboratory website, jointly sponsored by NYU Press and the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington, and an extension of the ideas contained in Keywords for American Cultural Studies, a book published by NYU Press in October 2007. There are four categories of discussion forums, each open to participation like any blog. (more…)

On Friday, October 17, 2008 (12:00 pm) Keywords editor Glenn Hendler and program coordinator Deborah Kimmey will participate in the “American Studies at the Digital Crossroads” panel at the 2008 ASA Annual Convention. They will join Randy Bass and Tim Powell of the ASA’s Crossroads website and Tara McPherson and Sharon Daniels from the online journal Vectors, along with American Quarterly editor Curtis Marez as commentator and Keywords editor Bruce Burgett as moderator. The panel will explore how digital forms of pedagogy and publication challenge existing hierarchies and forms of American Studies scholarship and engagement. (more…)

James Bowman’s review of Keywords for American Cultural Studies published in The Wall Street Journal is sure to provoke some debate among contributors, instructors, and students. Bowman criticizes the collection as an “intellectual house of cards” that has “nothing but contempt for the ‘discourse of expertise,’ i.e., traditional language scholarship.” Keywords-based methodologies within American Cultural Studies are, in Bowman’s words, a “politicization of language.”

Read the review online, and post your responses here.