Category: Volume 59.1 (2014)

ANN-STEPHANE SCHÄFER, Auctoritas Patrum? The Reception of the Church Fathers in Puritanism, Mainzer Studien zur Amerikanistik 58 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2012), 449 pp. Reviewed by Tibor Fabiny Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.1 (2014) At first sight, the project seems to be too ambitious, as it proposes to discuss the appropriation of patristic literature…

BILLY J. STRATTON, Buried in Shades of Night: Contested Voices, Indian Captivity, and the Legacy of King Philip’s War (Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2013) 149 pp. Reviewed by John McWilliams Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.1 (2014) During the last forty years, the Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (the much…

DANIEL NAGEL, Von republikanischen Deutschen zu deutsch-amerikanischen Republikanern: Ein Beitrag zum Identitätswandel der deutschen Achtundvierziger in den Vereinigten Staaten 1850-1861 (St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 2012), 619 pp. Reviewed by Charlotte A. Lerg Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.1 (2014) “Im Rückblick erscheint es zwangsläufig, dass sich die Achtundvierziger früher oder später einer amerikanischen Partei anschließen mussten.…

HANNES BERGTHALLER and CARSTEN SCHINKO, eds., Addressing Modernity: Social Systems Theory and U.S. Cultures (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011), 372 pp. Reviewed by Alexander Starre Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.1 (2014) Niklas Luhmann’s standing in American academic circles over the past decades in many ways suffered from bad timing. The heyday of American cybernetics, which lasted from…

MIKE CHASAR, Everyday Reading: Poetry and Popular Culture in Modern America (New York: Columbia UP, 2012), 336 pp. Reviewed by Timo Müller Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.1 (2014) Mike Chasar’s rewarding study takes its cues from the observations that much more poetry was read and written during the modernist period than we assume today and…

PHILIPP DORESTAL, Style Politics: Mode, Geschlecht und Schwarzsein in den USA, 1943-1975 (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2012), 370 pp. Reviewed by Steve Estes Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.1 (2014) Years after the Black Power era, professor and activist Angela Davis met with a young man who at first did not recognize her. When she explained who she…

TOMASZ BASIUK, Exposures: American Gay Men’s Life Writing Since Stonewall (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2013), 398 pp. Reviewed by Dominika Ferens Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.1 (2014) Tomasz Basiuk’s Exposures: American Gay Men’s Life Writing is an ambitious literary analysis of a representative body of autobiographies written in the last fifty years—the first monograph…

RENÉ DIETRICH, Revising and Remembering (after) the End: American Post-Apocalyptic Poetry Since 1945 from Ginsberg to Forche (Trier: WVT, 2012), 254 pp. Reviewed by James Berger Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.1 (2014) Literary studies of the apocalyptic imagination since 1945 are usually studies of narrative, for the representation of apocalyptic endings has most commonly taken…

Sarika Chandra, Dislocalism: The Crisis of Globalization and the Remobilizing of Americanism (Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2011), 312 pp. Reviewed by Johannes Voelz Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.1 (2014) Since the 1990s, scholars in American Studies have tried to come to terms with the challenges globalization poses for a field traditionally organized around the nation-state.…

SUSAN M. SCHWEIK, The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public (New York: New York UP, 2009), 429 pp. Reviewed by Andrea Zittlau  Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.1 (2014) In this fundamental text, Susan Schweik connects discourses within the field of disability studies with an analytic approach to law and its ultimate consequences. The exhibition of disabled…

THOMAS G. WALKER, Eligible for Execution: The Story of the Daryl Atkins Case (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2008), 284 pp. Reviewed by Anthony Santoro Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.1 (2014) The recent history of the American death penalty has been characterized by a number of rapid shifts. The most notable shift occurred between 1972 and…