The participants of the 34th AAAS conference explored the topic “American Studies in Austria.” The event took place on October 22-25, 2007, at the Exerzitienhaus der Barmherzigen Schwestern in Graz. It was organized by Hanna Wallinger and Dorothea Steiner from the University of Salzburg.
The idea is to engage in intensive self-reflexion about our dealing with the field of American Studies in our research and teaching. The state-of-the-art, as viewed and practiced in European American Studies and in our national academic framework.
Working Panels:
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Teaching ‘American Studies’ in English and American Studies Departments: Literature and Cultural StudiesStructural questions: proportion, cooperation and competition with English Literature and British Studies; what is our claim to the New Literatures? the place of American literature in Introductions to the Study of Literature; do we teach American Civilization or North American Civilization? what are the basics that we teach? what textbooks do we use? the status of anthologies: surveys (Norton/Heath; Breidlid), special areas; status of Reading Lists.
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Teaching within / against departmental constraintsHow much AS can be offered – in History, Geography, Political Science, Philosophy, Ethnology, Economics, Translation Studies, Communication, Media Studies, etc.? What are the possibilities for cooperation with Amerikanistik in the different universities?
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The place of American English in English Departments and in schoolsHow much? how organized? Is it part of a departmental policy? What do Am. lectors offer?
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Amerikanistik im Studienplan: B.A. English / American StudiesLiterary Studies, Reading List, Cultural Studies; American English, Linguistics, Gender Studies, Media Studies, Fachdidaktik
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American Studies as / and Postcolonial Studies:(Shall we leave the anglophone world to British Studies? the possibilities of comparative studies, transatlantic (incl. Africa), intra-North American Studies: the Canadian component, Chicano/a); the chances and limits of a global engagement; what ‘area studies’ make the most sense – the Caribbean, the Americas?
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