CURRENT ISSUE

December 2009

Volume 61, Number 4
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News

12/28/09: American Quarterly wins award for Best Special Issue
American Quarterly received the award for Best Special Issue from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals for the September 2008 issue “Nation and Migration: Past and Future” (Volume 60, Number 3). Editor Curtis Marez says that while the topic may appear more frequently in news headlines in recent years, it is not a new subject of research and interest. “Migration is not a marginal, episodic, or temporary feature of life in the United States, but rather a central and permanent part of it—and hence a topic of ongoing interest for scholars in and around American studies,” he says.
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Call for Papers

AQ Special Issue on Sound (due Aug 1, 2010)
The field of American studies has long been a familiar home to scholars interested in the social and cultural worlds of sound. Yet while visual culture has had a more visible presence on the pages of American Quarterly, sound has been heard in sporadic bursts, forceful whispers, and sudden critical noises. We propose a special issue of American Quarterly that highlights the key role of sound in the formation of central themes and areas of inquiry within contemporary American studies.
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Responses to Recent AQ Scholarship

Enduring Freedom: Public Diplomacy and US Foreign Policy - A Critique
Kennedy and Lucas have done a fine job in throwing the proverbial cat among the pigeons with their recent article in American Quarterly. In these politically charged times, with the United States seemingly out of kilter with the rest of the world, it is especially pertinent to consider some home truths about ‘American Studies’ and ‘public diplomacy’. Intellectual integrity and autonomy in relation to US foreign policy are back on the agenda for the first time since Vietnam. Spaces of dissent need to be well articulated to escape the gravitational pull of ‘full spectrum dominance’. Exposing the power relations operating behind public diplomacy and undermining the power-less pretensions of American Studies are two counter-punches which Kennedy and Lucas land with some skill. They claim that the critical autonomous zones they aim to open up with this assault, hopefully to be filled rapidly by willing accomplices, should provide the basis for a New Look on the ‘American empire’. The intent is admirable, the means conceivable. Nevertheless, their call to arms tends to smooth over some inconsistencies in the logistical build-up. ...
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THE ASA

American Quarterly is the journal of The American Studies Association. ...Go to the ASA...