CONSEULA FRANCIS, The Critical Reception of James Baldwin 1963-2010: An Honest Man and a Good Writer (Rochester: Camden House, 2014), 174 pp.

CONSEULA FRANCIS, The Critical Reception of James Baldwin 1963-2010: An Honest Man and a Good Writer (Rochester: Camden House, 2014), 174 pp. Amerikastudien/ American Studies 60.1     James Baldwin, Harlem’s own voice of reason, is regarded as a visionary and virtuoso in African American literature. Although often read as working through Richard Wright’s shadow,…

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WALTER JOHNSON, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2013), 526 pp.

WALTER JOHNSON, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2013), 526 pp. Amerikastudien/American Studies 60.1 In River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom, Walter Johnson, Winthrop Professor of History and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University,…

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HEIKE SCHWARZ, Beware of the Other Side(s): Multiple Personality Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder in American Fiction (Bielefeld: transcript, 2013), 456 pp.

HEIKE SCHWARZ, Beware of the Other Side(s): Multiple Personality Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder in American Fiction (Bielefeld: transcript, 2013), 456 pp. Amerikastudien/American Studies 60.1 Memoirs, novels, films, and academic studies in the humanities frequently establish a counter discourse to medical science, highlighting the narrative forces at work in illness and often promoting an understanding…

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JACE WEAVER, The Red Atlantic: American Indigenes and the Making of the Modern World, 1000-1927 (Chapel Hill, NC: U of North Carolina P, 2014), XIV + 340 pp.

JACE WEAVER, The Red Atlantic: American Indigenes and the Making of the Modern World, 1000-1927 (Chapel Hill, NC: U of North Carolina P, 2014), XIV + 340 pp. Amerikastudien/American Studies 60.1 The dust jacket of this handsomely designed hardcover shows (parts of) Cherokee artist America Meredith’s ‘naïve’ painting “St. Brendan: He Came, He Saw, He…

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JOSEPH F. KETT, Merit: The History of a Founding Ideal from the American Revolution to the 21st Century (Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 2013), 344 pp.

JOSEPH F. KETT, Merit: The History of a Founding Ideal from the American Revolution to the 21st Century (Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 2013), 344 pp.   Analyzing notions like religious pluralism,[1] republican virtue,[2] or the pursuit of happiness,[3] historians of U.S. intellectual history have repeatedly engaged with complex notions associated with the founding of…

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FRANK BARON, Abraham Lincoln and the German Immigrants: Turners and Forty-Eighters, Yearbook of German-American Studies, Supplemental Issue, Vol. IV (Topeka, KS: The Society for German-American Studies, 2012), 254 pp.

FRANK BARON, Abraham Lincoln and the German Immigrants: Turners and Forty-Eighters, Yearbook of German-American Studies, Supplemental Issue, Vol. IV (Topeka, KS: The Society for German-American Studies, 2012), 254 pp. Amerikastudien/ American Studies 60.1 In Abraham Lincoln and the German Immigrants: Turners and Forty-Eighters, Frank Baron aims to tie together two important strands of research on…

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WALDEMAR ZACHARASIEWICZ and CHRISTIAN FEEST, eds., Native Americans and First Nations: A Transnational Challenge (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2009), 259 pp.

WALDEMAR ZACHARASIEWICZ and CHRISTIAN FEEST, eds., Native Americans and First Nations: A Transnational Challenge (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2009), 259 pp. Amerikastudien/ American Studies 60.1 This book revisits indigenous issues through a transnational lens and is a major contribution to this field. It connects the study of colonial history and politics, cultural contacts, and neo/colonial with…

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KORNELIA FREITAG and BRIAN REED, Modern American Poetry: Points of Access

KORNELIA FREITAG and BRIAN REED, Modern American Poetry: Points of Access. (Heidelberg: Winter, 2013), xii + 236. Amerikastudien/American Studies 60.1 What do Terry Eagleton and Marjorie Perloff have in common? As the introduction by Kornelia Freitag and Brian Reed points out, both scholars deplore students’ unwillingness to attend to the linguistic specificities of poetry. Instead,…

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VÉRONIQUE BRAGARD, CHRISTOPHE DONY, and WARREN ROSENBERG, eds., Portraying 9/11: Essays on Representations in Comics, Literature, Film and Theatre (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), 176 pp. MICHAEL C. FRANK and EVA GRUBER, eds., Literature and Terrorism: Comparative Perspectives (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2012), 276 pp.

VÉRONIQUE BRAGARD, CHRISTOPHE DONY, and WARREN ROSENBERG, eds., Portraying 9/11: Essays on Representations in Comics, Literature, Film and Theatre (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), 176 pp.  MICHAEL C. FRANK and EVA GRUBER, eds., Literature and Terrorism: Comparative Perspectives (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2012), 276 pp.  Amerikastudien/American Studies 60.1 On September 11, 2013, the official memorial ceremonies in New…

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MICHAEL FUCHS and MARIA-THERESIA HOLUB, eds., Placing America: American Culture and Its Spaces

MICHAEL FUCHS and MARIA-THERESIA HOLUB, eds., Placing America: American Culture and Its Spaces (Bielefeld: transcript, 2013), 213 pp.  Amerikastudien/American Studies 60.1 The discussion of geographical as well as cultural, literary, and political spaces and places has attracted a lot of attention in the humanities over recent decades. Ever since Henri Levebvre, Edward Soja, Michel Foucault,…

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GREGOR HERZFELD, Poe in der Musik: Eine versatile Allianz, Internationale Hochschulschriften

GREGOR HERZFELD, Poe in der Musik: Eine versatile Allianz, Internationale Hochschulschriften 590 (Münster: Waxmann, 2013), 232 pp.  Amerikastudien/American Studies 60.1 This monograph represents the published version of a Habilitationsschrift in musicology accepted at Freie Universität Berlin in 2012. It is encouraging to see that a musicologist focused his postdoctoral dissertation on a subject area which,…

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FRED TURNER, The Democratic Surround: Multimedia & American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties.

FRED TURNER, The Democratic Surround: Multimedia & American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties. (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2013), 365pp. Amerikastudien/American Studies 60.1 (2015)   In 2006’s From Counterculture to Cyberculture, Fred Turner connected the rebellious energies behind The Whole Earth Catalog—offering star charts, guidelines for growing-your-own, and a communal withdrawal…

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