American Cultures: The View from the Pacific

[...]Sydney has nonstop connections to the entirety of the Asia-Pacific region, taking away at least a small part of the annoyances of travel for far-flung scholars.There are considerations and theorizations of American studies as a discipline and teaching program in specific locations in the region, studies of authors and topics profoundly Pacific in their transnationalism, ruminations on the act of studying American culture from afar, and suggestions on the importance of comparison in understanding what is truly specific and what is global in US history and society.Institutional concerns – whether those of the Cold War, research funding mechanisms and schemes, or a changing global economy and culture – deeply affect the way scholars understand the United States.