From This Year's Call for Proposals
Since the end of the Cold War, we have heard a constant refrain about the end of the American Century, the end of history, and more recently, the end of the U.S. empire. At the same time, the institutions in which we work are changing, as many eliminate the tenure-track, downsize liberal arts programs, target our knowledge production, attack our dissent, and outsource shared governance to paid consultants. “America,” as an object, has been thoroughly stripped of its exceptionalism and is bankrolling a genocide, while the forces of fascism and authoritarianism have risen across the political spectrum. Moreover, climate change may have passed a tipping point, accelerating environmental catastrophe. What kind of America is invoked in American Studies and where/how is America studied? Are we living through an historical conjuncture characterized by late-stage American empire?