Heinz Ickstadt

American Studies in an Age of Globalization

There seems to be an increasing gap between the traditional concept of the university as a place of independent intellectual pursuit and the demand that it respond more adequately and more immediately to the needs of its social, economic, and technological environment. It is most of all the structural unwieldiness of our universities that has called their usefulness into doubt. Might not the much-needed chemists, engineers, and computer specialists be educated faster and more efficiently elsewhere? Should not these clumsy institutions of public education function at least as efficiently as a business enterprise, since they seem to be exposed to the same forces that presently accelerate the restructuring of economic, financial, or political formations on a global scale? In Europe, where the universities are caught between nineteenthcentury ideals and the realities of the twenty-first century, and where nationally divergent university traditions are under pressure to develop transnational (that is, European) structures, the American university appears to offer the only convenient model for implementing this otherwise hopeless project. In his book, The University in Ruins, William Reading has, with some irony, called this model “the university of ‘excellence.’” Such a university, he argues, will become the locus of a predominantly technological training and will not be in the service of the nation any longer but in that of transnational corporations.

A Letter from Berlin

be sure, the wall that once separated the largest cities in each of the two Germanys is still present as a scar of empty space; but distances have shrunk, and old views of the city have been reestablished-at least geographically, Berlin, no doubt, is slowly becoming one again. However, the social and economic differences as well as the mental walls erected in forty years of separate existence still divide the eastern from the western part. Now that the euphoria of unification has finally subsided, gains and losses are being counted, and many East Germans are beginning to ask themselves whether the price they paid for political freedom was not too high after all. The moral and economic bankruptcy of the old regime daily becomes more apparent: its structures of corruption and repression, its system of total surveillance that had become a part of everyday life and made use of even those whom the state had marginalized. And yet that system, corrupt as it was, had also provided a measure of stability, a predictable life that, although it had restricted individual choice, can now evoke nostalgic memories of warmth and security. The political revolution happened last year, but the social revolution is happening right now. For many East Germans-if only, so they hope, for a brief period of transition-the bottom has dropped out of their lives.

American Literary History

The chapters of this section cover the five periods into which American literary history is usually divided: early American literature; the American Renaissance; realism/naturalism; modernism; and postmodern and contemporary American literature. Traditional literary historiography has situated the beginnings of American literature in the early seventeenth century, when the first English settlers arrived in Virginia and Massachusetts and wrote travel accounts, histories, and religious texts. As entry I.3.1 points out, however, the English were latecomers to American colonization, and if we look beyond national and language boundaries the beginnings of American literature can be dated back to 1492, when Columbus wrote his first letters about the new continent. More important still, there was a wide range of native cultures to whom the continent was not new at all. While our chapters focus on written literature, it must be kept in mind that Native American myths, legends, and chants were usually transmitted orally from generation to generation; they form a literary history of their own that dates back centuries before the Europeans arrived. The twentieth-century revival of Native American literature is covered in entry I.3.5.

Literatur Kanadas Die Andere Nord Amerikanische Literatur

Am Anfang steht die Frage, wie man sich die ›andere nordamerikanische Literatur‹ vorstellen soll und wie sie darzustellen ist. Anders ist sie ohne Zweifel in ihren Texten, ihrer historischen Entwicklung, ihrem Selbstbild — anders aber auch, weil sie sich stets im Bewustsein des Andersseins entwickelt hat, im Bewustsein des Nicht-Amerikanischen, Noch-Nicht-Amerikanischen oder des ausdrucklich Gegen-Amerikanischen. Das Problem der Alteritat wird uns also beschaftigen mussen, ohne das es den Blick auf die autonome Eigenstandigkeit der kanadischen Literatur verstellen soll. Die hier angeschnittene Frage nach dem Verhaltnis zur amerikanischen Literatur gehort zu einem umfangreicheren Fragenkomplex: aus welchem Blickwinkel sollen wir die kanadische Literatur betrachten? Als Gegenstuck zur amerikanischen Literatur, als britisch gepragte Klientenliteratur, als Teilgebiet dessen, was man in jungster Zeit gern als ›neue Literaturen in englischer Sprache‹ bezeichnet, oder aber als eigenstandige Nationalliteratur?