engleski

F.O. Matthiessen, C.L.R. James and a Sense of the Past of American Studies

The articles looks at the origins of the discipline of American Studies focusing on the early Cold War period. An exemplary, if understudied, text in that respect is taken to be F.O. Matthiessen's travelogue and memoirs, _From the Heart of Europe_ (1948), recounting the author's engagements as an American scholar in war-torn Europe and his efforts at establishing a program of American Studies in a politically divisive situation. The other text reflecting the early Cold War politics in the ambit of transnationalism is C.L.R. James's idiosyncratic study of Herman Melville's _Moby-Dick_, entitled _Mariners, Renegades and Castaways_ (1953). While offering a highly topical reading of Melville's novel, James also lays a stage for the discussion of the fate of America and the world in the new political constellation. Both approaches were marginalized in the discipline but have recently been rediscovered.

American Studies, the Cold War, F.O. Matthiessen, C.L.R. James, From the Heart of Europe ; Mariners, Renegades and Castaways

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