Cultures Of United States Imperialism (new Americanists)

Cultures of United States Imperialism represents a major paradigm shift that will remap the field of American Studies. Pointing to a glaring blind spot in the basic premises of the study of American culture, leading critics and theorists in cultural studies, history, anthropology, and literature reveal the "denial of empire" at the heart of American Studies. Challenging traditional definitions and periodizations of imperialism, this volume shows how international relations reciprocally shape a dominant imperial culture at home and how imperial relations are enacted and contested within the United States. Drawing on a broad range of interpretive practices, these essays range across American history, from European representations of the New World to the mass media spectacle of the Persian Gulf War. The volume breaks down the boundary between the study of foreign relations and American culture to examine imperialism as an internal process of cultural appropriation and as an external struggle over international power. The contributors explore how the politics of continental and international expansion, conquest, and resistance have shaped the history of American culture just as much as the cultures of those it has dominated. By uncovering the dialectical relationship between American cultures and international relations, this collection demonstrates the necessity of analyzing imperialism as a political or economic process inseparable from the social relations and cultural representations of gender, race, ethnicity, and class at home. Contributors. Lynda Boose, Mary Yoko Brannen, Bill Brown, William Cain, Eric Cheyfitz, Vicente Diaz, Frederick Errington, Kevin Gaines, Deborah Gewertz, Donna Haraway, Susan Jeffords, Myra Jehlen, Amy Kaplan, Eric Lott, Walter Benn Michaels, Donald E. Pease, Vicente Rafael, Michael Rogin, José David Saldívar, Richard Slotkin, Doris Sommer, Gauri Viswanathan, Priscilla Wald, Kenneth Warren, Christopher P. Wilson Left Alone With America : The Absence Of Empire In The Study Of American Culture / Amy Kaplan -- New Perspectives On U.s. Culture And Imperialism / Donald E. Pease -- Why Did The Europeans Cross The Ocean? A Seventeenth-century Riddle / Myra Jehlen -- Terms Of Assimilation : Legislating Subjectivity In The Emerging Nation / Priscilla Wald -- The Naming Of Yale College : British Imperialism And American Higher Education / Gauri Viswanathan -- Savage Law : The Plot Against American Indians In Johnson And Graham's Lessee V. M'intosh And The Pioneers / Eric Cheyfitz -- Science Fiction, The World's Fair, And The Prosthetics Of Empire, 1910-1915 / Bill Brown -- Buffalo Bill's Wild West And The Mythologization Of The American Empire / Richard Slotkin. White Love : Surveillance And Nationalist Resistance In The U.s. Colonization Of The Philippines / Vicente L. Rafael -- Black And Blue On San Juan Hill / Amy Kaplan -- Teddy Bear Patriarchy : Taxidermy In The Garden Of Eden, New York City, 1908-1936 / Donna Haraway -- Américo Paredes And Decolonization / José David Saldívar -- Pious Sites : Chamorro Culture Between Spanish Catholicism And American Liberal Individualism / Vicente M. Diaz -- Plotting The Border : John Reed, Pancho Villa, And Insurgent Mexico / Christopher P. Wilson -- Anti-imperial Americanism / Walter Benn Michaels -- Appeals For (mis)recognition : Theorizing The Diaspora / Kenneth W. Warren -- Resisting The Heat : Menchú, Morrison, And Incompetent Readers / Doris Sommer -- Black Americans' Racial Uplift Ideology As Civilizing Mission : Pauline E. Hopkins On Race And Imperialism / Kevin Gaines -- From Liberalism To Communism : The Political Thought Of W.e.b. Du Bois / William E. Cain -- White Like Me : Racial Cross-dressing And The Construction Of American Whiteness / Eric Lott. Make My Day! : Spectacle As Amnesia In Imperial Politics [and] The Sequel / Michael Rogin -- The Patriot System, Or Managerial Heroism / Susan Jeffords -- Hiroshima, The Vietnam Veterans War Memorial, And The Gulf War : Post-national Spectacles / Donald E. Pease -- Techno-muscularity And The Boy Eternal : From The Quagmire To The Gulf / Lynda Boose -- Bwana Mickey : Constructing Cultural Consumption At Tokyo Disneyland / Mary Yoko Brannen -- We Think, Therefore They Are? On Occidentalizing The World / Deborah Gewertz, Frederick Errington. Amy Kaplan And Donald E. Pease, Editors. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Contents "Left Alone with America": The Absence of Empire in the Study of American Culture New Perspectives on U.S. Culture and Imperialism Part I. Nation-Building as Empire-Building Why Did the Europeans Cross the Ocean?: A Seventeenth-Century Riddle Terms of Assimilation: Legislating Subjectivity in the Emerging Nation The Naming of Yale College: British Imperialism and American Higher Education Savage Law: The Plot Against American Indians in Johnson and Graham's Lessee v. M’Intosh and The Pioneers Science Fiction, the World's Fair, and the Prosthetics of Empire, 1900-1915 Buffalo Bill's “Wild West" and the Mythologization of the American Empire Part II. Borderline Negotiations of Race, Gender, and Nation White Love: Surveillance and Nationalist Resistance in the U.S. Colonization of the Philippines Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908-1936 Black and Blue on San Juan Hill Américo Paredes and Decolonization Pious Sites: Chamorro Culture Between Spanish Catholicism and American Liberal Individualism Plotting the Border: John Reed, Pancho Villa, and Insurgent Mexico Part III. Colonizing Resistance or Resisting Colonization? Anti-Imperial Americanism Appeals for (Mis)recognition: Theorizing the Diaspora Resisting the Heat: Menchu, Morrison, and Incompetent Readers Black Americans' Racial Uplift Ideology as “Civilizing Mission”: Pauline E. Hopkins on Race and Imperialism From Liberalism to Communism: The Political Thought of W. E. B. Du Bois White Like Me: Racial Cross-Dressing and the Construction of American Whiteness Part IV. Imperial Spectacles “Make My Day!”: Spectacle as Amnesia in Imperial Politics The Patriot System, or Managerial Heroism Hiroshima, the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial, and the Gulf War: Post-National Spectacles Techno-Muscularity and the "Boy Eternal”: From the Quagmire to the Gulf “Bwana Mickey”: Constructing Cultural Consumption at Tokyo Disneyland We Think, Therefore They Are? On Occidentalizing the World Contributors __Cultures of United States Imperialism__Drawing on a broad range of interpretive practices, these essays range across American history, from European representations of the New World to the mass media spectacle of the Persian Gulf War. The volume breaks down the boundary between the study of foreign relations and American culture to examine imperialism as an internal process of cultural appropriation and as an external struggle over international power. The contributors explore how the politics of continental and international expansion, conquest, and resistance have shaped the history of American culture just as much as the cultures of those it has dominated. By uncovering the dialectical relationship between American cultures and international relations, this collection demonstrates the necessity of analyzing imperialism as a political or economic process inseparable from the social relations and cultural representations of gender, race, ethnicity, and class at home. Lynda Boose, Mary Yoko Brannen, Bill Brown, William Cain, Eric Cheyfitz, Vicente Diaz, Frederick Errington, Kevin Gaines, Deborah Gewertz, Donna Haraway, Susan Jeffords, Myra Jehlen, Amy Kaplan, Eric Lott, Walter Benn Michaels, Donald E. Pease, Vicente Rafael, Michael Rogin, José David Saldívar, Richard Slotkin, Doris Sommer, Gauri Viswanathan, Priscilla Wald, Kenneth Warren, Christopher P. Wilson Begins to fill the gaping lacuna of imperialism in the standard histories of the US by exploring how US expansion has influenced people of other cultures. The 26 essays focus mostly on Africa and African Americans, but also consider the Philippines, Native Americans, Cuba, Latin America, and Disneyw