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