After American Studies (Routledge Advances in American History) - Softcover

Herlihy-Mera, Jeffrey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 036788710X ISBN 13: 9780367887100

Publisher: Routledge, 2019

Synopsis

After American Studies is a timely critique of national and transnational approaches to community, and their forms of belonging and trans/patriotisms. Using reports in multicultural psychology and cultural neuroscience to interpret an array of cultural forms―including literature, art, film, advertising, search engines, urban planning, museum artifacts, visa policy, public education, and ostensibly non-state media―the argument fills a gap in contemporary criticism by a focus on what makes cultural canons symbolically effective (or not) for an individual exposed to them. The book makes important points about the limits of transnationalism as a paradigm, evidencing how such approaches often reiterate presumptive and essentialized notions of identity that function as new dimensions of exceptionalism. In response to the shortcomings in trans/national criticism, the final chapter initiates a theoretical consideration of a postgeographic and postcultural form of community (and of cultural analysis).

About this title

About the Author

Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera is associate professor in the Department of Humanities at the University of Puerto Rico.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 036788710X
• ISBN 13: 9780367887100
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 188