Resituating American Studies in a Critical Internationalism

Abstract

THIS ESSAY ARGUES FOR A CONCERTED EFFORT THROUGHOUT THE American studies1 scholarly community to embrace actively a paradigm of critical internationalism as we move into the next century. While we support the many current initiatives in this direction by the leadership of the American Studies Association and the Organization of American Historians, we urge our colleagues throughout the United States to make this paradigmatic shift a priority. Drawing on the work of Benjamin Lee and others, we define critical internationalism as more than internationalization. By critical internationalism we mean a conceptual orientation that resituates the United States in a global context on a number of terrains simultaneously: in terms of the scholarship that gets read, written, and cited and, most importantly, in the ways scholars conceive of new directions for formulating research. Over the past two decades a powerful body of work investigating concepts of social difference in relation to representation and social power has developed in the United States and spread well beyond the academy.2 We ourselves have participated in the dialogue, contributed to its scholarship, and engaged in debates within it.3 In American scholarship, these developments have emerged most strongly in areas denoted as cultural studies and multiculturalism. We are