Welcome to Regensburg American Studies
Prof. Dr. Udo Hebel, the Chair of American Studies, heads a dynamic group of scholars who engage the wide diversity of American cultures from colonial times to the present. Special areas of research include American cultures of memory, American visual cultures, transnational American studies.
Prof. Dr. Volker Depkat’s research is focused on North American cultural history and European American relations from the early modern period to the present.
Degree programs in American Studies at the University of Regensburg are interdisciplinary in scope, transnational in approach, and international in outreach. Courses explore the multiethnic and multilingual diversity of North American histories, politics, cultures, and literatures from early colonial times to the immediate present.
The Regensburg European American Forum (REAF) is a new platform for scholarly exchange and research in American Studies.
Amerikanistik/American Studies - A Short IntroductionAmerikanistik/American Studies an der Universität Regensburg umfasst die multiethnische und multilinguale Vielfalt nord-amerikanischer Literaturen und Kulturen in deren regionalen, nationalen und globalen Ausprägungen und Vernetzungen von der Kolonialzeit bis in die unmittelbare Gegenwart. Als interdisziplinär gegründete Kulturwissenschaft beschäftigt sie sich mit textuellen, performativen, visuellen, materiellen und virtuellen Repräsentationen und Interpretationen von 'Amerika' vor allem mit den Methoden der Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft, der Sprachwissenschaft, der Geschichtswissenschaft, der Politik-wissenschaft, der Kulturgeographie, der Visual Culture Studies und der Material Culture Studies. Im Kontext der Internationalisierung der Amerikanistik/American Studies kommt transnationalen Ansätzen und interkulturell-komparativen Fragestellungen verstärkt besondere Bedeutung zu. Ziel amerikanistischer Forschung und Lehre ist ein historisch informiertes, kulturell differenziertes und wissenschaftlich reflektiertes Verständnis Amerikas sowohl aus der Innen- als auch der Außenperspektive. Zu den Schwerpunkten der Regensburger Amerikanistik zählen derzeit vor allem die folgenden Forschungs- und Lehrgebiete: Amerikanische Erinnerungskulturen, Early American Studies, amerikanisches Drama und Theater, deutsch-amerikanische Beziehungen, amerikanische visuelle Kulturen sowie die Theorie und Praxis der Amerikanistik. |
Amerikanistik/American Studies at Regensburg University explores the multiethnic and multilingual diversity of North American literatures and cultures in their regional, national, and global manifestations from early colonial times to the present. As an interdisciplinary project, American Studies examines textual, performative, visual, material, and virtual representations and interpretations of ‘America.’ American Studies employs methodologies from literary and cultural studies, history, political science, cultural geography, visual culture studies, and linguistics. In the context of the internationalization of American Studies, transnational, intercultural, and comparative approaches have gained particular significance in recent years. The Regensburg American Studies program aims at a comprehensive understanding of North America, including both European and American perspectives. Research and teaching in American Studies at Regensburg emphasize the following areas: American cultural memory; early American studies; American drama and theater; German-American relations; American visual culture studies; teaching American Studies. |
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| “The joy of American studies is precisely in its lack of firm limits and borders” (Patricia Nelson Limerick 1997) "I believe that over the years American Studies has made itself distinctive as a movement which encourages people to be people - students as well as faculty." (Gene Wise 1979) American Studies – “a movement that refuses to be tyrannized by artificial and arbitrary ideas of order” (Robert H. Walker 1976) “Academic American studies has thrived in large part because its participants have been able to choose and negotiate multiple identities for themselves, identities that are often tactical and among which "Americanist" is only one. If a committed core of true believers in American studies has been crucial to the movement's survival in bad times as well as good, the movement has also gained bite and energy from the critiques of various loyal oppositions, the goodwill of fellow travelers, and even the occasional consumers of its conventions and publications. In all its own diverse manifestations and agendas, the movement continues to offer an array of students and scholars a supportive home for their work. Key to its present strength is its flexibility, its willingness to treat challenges to its agendas as opportunities to engage in enlightening dialogue, its willingness to welcome new perspectives and participants as full partners. In their most idealistic moments, Americanists still set for themselves the difficult and never-completed task of modeling in the movement itself a just, creative, and humane 'America' and helping make that imagined community a responsible partner in a just, creative, and humane world.” (Michael Cowan 2001) |
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