Teaching American Studies

This collection of twenty essays by new and established American studies scholars presents a wide array of actual classroom experiences and teaching methods, as well as the solutions that they and other American studies teachers have devised to meet themyriad challenges facing the field. Teaching American Studies will act as a resource for faculty new to teaching American studies, a springboard for those seeking to renew or transform their current courses, and a touchstone for academics in other disciplines who wish to include elements of American studies theories, practices, or scholarship into their pedagogy. Where other volumes on American studies pedagogy have largely focused on providing course content, though, this volume's contributors demonstrate and contend that the classroom is the public face of American studies, the place where theory and practice converge, and ultimately where the field takes shape. In doing so, the book also joins public conversations about higher education, the politics of academic speech, reflecting present-day social and political concerns in the classroom, and student outreach--