Transnationalism in PracticeEssays on American Studies, Literature and Religion

Abstract

This title brings together fourteen essays written by Paul Giles between 1994 and 2009 on the subjects of American studies, literature and religion. In an introduction written especially for the collection, Giles traces the evolution of critical transnationalism as it developed through the 1980s and 1990s. The book includes Reconstructing American Studies (1994), one of the first articles to address the field from a transnational perspective, along with other pieces on methodological and practical issues surrounding the internationalisation of American studies. The essays on American literature contain work on Theodore Dreiser, Henry James and the critic F. O. Matthiessen, along with a new study of Jamaica Kincaid in relation to postcolonialism. The section on religion traces the circulation of secularised forms of Catholicism in U.S. culture, from nineteenth-century slave narratives to the musical performances of Bruce Springsteen. The book covers a variety of subjects, from the culture of colonial America to the novels of Robert Coover and Kathy Acker, while also encompassing a broad range of interdisciplinary topics, from the presidency of George W. Bush to the role of religion in American society.