Category: Volume 59.3 (2014)

KAREN A. WEYLER, Empowering Words: Outsiders and Authorship in Early America (Athens: U of Georgia P, 2013), 311 pp. Reviewed by Philipp Schweighauser Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.3 (2014)   In Empowering Words: Outsiders and Authorship in Early America, Karen A. Weyler gives a fascinating account of non-elites’ strategies—primarily collaborative writing and sponsorship by patrons and…

ANNETTE KOLODNY, In Search of First Contact: The Vikings of Vinland, the Peoples of Dawnland, and the Anglo-American Anxiety of Discovery (Durham: Duke UP, 2012), 448 pp. Reviewed by Johannes Fehrle Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.3 (2014)   Annette Kolodny is no stranger in U.S. Americanist circles. Her 1980 article “Dancing Through the Minefields” has been…

LAWRENCE BUELL, The Dream of the Great American Novel (Cambridge, MA; London: The Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2014), 567 pages. Reviewed by Frank Gado Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.3 (2014) As treated in this ambitious study, the term Great American Novel recalls the overcooked noodle in the sink, elusive in direct proportion to the intensity…

NINA REID-MARONEY, The Reverend Jennie Johnson and African Canadian History, 1868-1967 (Rochester: U of Rochester P, 2013), 186 pp. Reviewed by Nele Sawallisch Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.3 (2014)   In 1971, historian Robin Winks wrote the authoritative book on the African Canadian experience, covering three and a half centuries of the history of black people…

CAROLINE DE WAGTER, “Mouths on Fire with Songs:” Negotiating Multi-Ethnic Identities on the Contemporary North American Stage, Cross/Cultures: Readings in Post/Colonial Literatures and Cultures in English, Vol. 163 (Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2013), 356 pp. Reviewed by Kurt Müller Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.3 (2014)   The present study takes its starting point from the…

ARNOLD KRUPAT, “That the People Might Live”: Loss and Renewal in Native American Elegy (Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 2012), 242pp. Reviewed by Joanne van der Woude Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.3 (2014)   Arnold Krupat, an authority in Native American autobiography, applies his analytical acumen to several different genres in his most recent book, reading…

WILFRIED RAUSSERT and GRACIELA MARTÍNEZ-ZALCE, eds., (Re)Discovering ‘America’: Road Movies and Other Travel Narratives in North America/(Re)Discubriendo ‘America’: Road movie y otras narrativas de viaje en América del Norte, Inter-American Studies/Estudios Interamericanos, Vol. 6 (Trier: WVT; Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 2012), 242 pp. Reviewed by Julia Roth Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.3 (2014)   The…

IRINA BAUDER-BEGEROW and STEFANIE SCHÄFER, Learning 9/11: Teaching for Key Competences in Literary and Cultural Studies (Heidelberg: Winter, 2011), 302 pp. Reviewed by Wolfgang Hochbruck Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.3 (2014) This is a fascinating collection of essays. Simultaneously, it is a puzzling conglomerate of didactic and educational contentions and hypotheses. The very title, Learning 9/11,…

DANIEL HOROWITZ, Consuming Pleasures: Intellectuals and Popular Culture in the Postwar World (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2012), xii + 491 pp. Reviewed by Günter Leypoldt Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.3 (2014)   Almost from its eighteenth-century beginnings, the rise of a commercialized literary market has polarized critics into despisers and defenders—those who associate ‘mass culture’…

ANJA WERNER, The Transatlantic World of Higher Education: Americans at German Universities, 1776-1914 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2013), xiii + 329 pp. Reviewed by Annette G. Aubert Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.3 (2014) In the nineteenth century, a total of 9,000 to 10,000 American students attended Germany’s best universities. A growing number of German and American…

WERNER SOLLORS, The Temptation of Despair: Tales of the 1940s (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2014), 400pp. Reviewed by Christa Buschendorf Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.3 (2014) Distance may distort our view on history. In the case of the post-World War II era, the success story of German economic recovery and democratic reeducation has come to dominate…

CARL H. NIGHTINGALE, Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities (Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 2012), 536 pp. Reviewed by Maria Daxenbichler  Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.3 (2014)   In Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities, Carl H. Nightingale traces the development of urban segregation from ancient cities to the twenty-firstcentury. He argues…

MILES ORVELL and KLAUS BENESCH, eds., Rethinking the American City: An International Dialogue (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2014), 245 pp. Reviewed by Gerd Hurm Amerikastudien / American Studies 59.3 (2014) Paradoxes provide great tools for challenging well-trodden mental paths and for creating alertness in slumbering minds. Henry David Thoreau’s classic “The light which puts out…