Transnationalism in Practice: Essays on American Studies, Literature and Religion

Paul Giles

jul 2019 · Edinburgh University Press

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Transnationalism in Practice 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 volume includes "e;Reconstructing American Studies"e; (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 internationalization 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 secularized forms of Catholicism in U.S. culture, from nineteenth-century slave narratives to the musical performances of Bruce Springsteen. Transnationalism in Practice ranges widely, 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. This book will be of interest to all of those concerned with the place of U.S. culture in the world today.

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Paul Giles has taught at the Universities of Nottingham and Cambridge as well as Portland State University in Oregon. From 2002 to 2009, he was Professor of American Literature and Director of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford, while also serving (between 2005 and 2007) as President of the International American Studies Association. In 2010, he moved to the University of Sydney, Australia, as Challis Chair of English Literature.