"Versions of Nashville, Visions of American Studies": Presidential Address to the American Studies Association, October 27, 1994
1995; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 47; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2713279
ISSN1080-6490
Autores Tópico(s)Australian History and Society
ResumoTHE BUILDING THAT HOUSES ONE OF THE TWO BIG DEPARTMENT stores in Semarang, the capital of Central Java, is laid out in a slightly flattened V. At one end of the ground floor is a McDonalds; at the other end, something called California Fried Chicken. Between them are smaller shops with American jeans, backpacks, and boots. Search throughout the building for a batik frock or some Javanese shorts to bring home to your grandchildren; you will be frustrated, for all the children's clothing-made in Indonesia, to be sure-loudly declares allegiance to the Los Angeles Lakers or to Planet Hollywood. And presiding over all the internal space-like audible postmodern goddesses, mostly in English but occasionally in Bahasa Indonesian-are Janet Jackson, Tori Amos, Mary Chapin Carpenter. I begin with these images of the penetration of American mass culture into an altogether remote world because they seem to bring into focus the conditions and challenges for our work today. Virtually everywhere in the world, here as well as abroad, a particular version of American ideology is in the ascendent. As people who study America, what have we to say in this distinctive moment not only to our students, their parents, and the pundits, profiteers, and policy makers who inhabit our corner of the globe but also to the many Javanese kids-and their
Referência(s)