Even though Baudrillard’s catchy piece of advice as for the most effective method of exploring America’s landscapes (both real and imaginary) comes from his postmodernist travelogue limited to its titular country, it is probably difficult for anyone interested in contemporary car cultures not to extend Baudrillard’s praise of the driving experience and perceive it in cognitive rather than transportation terms, not necessarily bounded by national borders. True, American driving culture and all its related contexts—its remarkable history, its contribution to social mobility, its spectacular cars, its mythologies, the list goes on and on—is not only the oldest one historically, but—given its ties with American life-styles, politics, social stratification and the overall consumerist mindset—also the most extreme one. From Henry Ford’s Model T storming millions of American households at the beginning of the 20th century to Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster shot into space in the second decade of the following one, cars have shaped American horizons, both private and collective, like no other machine. This introductory text presents the concept of the present issue of RIAS as well as the concepts underlying its feature texts.
{"title":"Americar Dreams (An Introduction)","authors":"M. Mazurek, J. Battin","doi":"10.31261/rias.12822","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.12822","url":null,"abstract":"Even though Baudrillard’s catchy piece of advice as for the most effective method of exploring America’s landscapes (both real and imaginary) comes from his postmodernist travelogue limited to its titular country, it is probably difficult for anyone interested in contemporary car cultures not to extend Baudrillard’s praise of the driving experience and perceive it in cognitive rather than transportation terms, not necessarily bounded by national borders. True, American driving culture and all its related contexts—its remarkable history, its contribution to social mobility, its spectacular cars, its mythologies, the list goes on and on—is not only the oldest one historically, but—given its ties with American life-styles, politics, social stratification and the overall consumerist mindset—also the most extreme one. From Henry Ford’s Model T storming millions of American households at the beginning of the 20th century to Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster shot into space in the second decade of the following one, cars have shaped American horizons, both private and collective, like no other machine. This introductory text presents the concept of the present issue of RIAS as well as the concepts underlying its feature texts.","PeriodicalId":37268,"journal":{"name":"Review of International American Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91334476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article presents an analysis of three paintings by one of the greatest American realist painters, Edward Hopper. The three selected works share a common denominator: they all address the concept of a car and the influence it has on the nation’s life—it has altered the way people traveled and expressed their identity. A car in Hopper’s works serves a twofold function, it allows its drivers and passengers to experience the land more as they can travel wherever they desire but, on the other hand, it contributes to a separation from their environment as the journey involves fragmentariness and rootlessness.
{"title":"Car Painting in America: Edward Hopper's Vision of the Road","authors":"Ewa Wylężek-Targosz","doi":"10.31261/rias.11806","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.11806","url":null,"abstract":"The article presents an analysis of three paintings by one of the greatest American realist painters, Edward Hopper. The three selected works share a common denominator: they all address the concept of a car and the influence it has on the nation’s life—it has altered the way people traveled and expressed their identity. A car in Hopper’s works serves a twofold function, it allows its drivers and passengers to experience the land more as they can travel wherever they desire but, on the other hand, it contributes to a separation from their environment as the journey involves fragmentariness and rootlessness. ","PeriodicalId":37268,"journal":{"name":"Review of International American Studies","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91128214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Road Course in Early American Literature: Travel and Teaching from Aztlán to Amherst by Thomas Hallock (A Book Review)","authors":"Nathaniel R. Racine","doi":"10.31261/rias.12622","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.12622","url":null,"abstract":"Nathaniel R. Racine's review of A Road Course in Early American Literature: Travel and Teaching from Aztlán to Amherst by Thomas Hallock.","PeriodicalId":37268,"journal":{"name":"Review of International American Studies","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76292995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The heyday of ‘Redneck’ cinema—the 1970s to early 1980s, saw the rise of the Redneck Rebel—a Southern or otherwise ‘hick’ anti-hero who rode around the countryside like a modern-day cowboy vanquishing evil. His ‘horse’ was his car—a beefed up/souped up muscle car that often became the star of the show and overshadowed the anti-hero himself. This article examines the Redneck Rebel through the lens of one American TV series—The Dukes of Hazzard. This popular 1980s TV series, along with its antecedents and contemporaries, underscore several important points that reinforce typical conservative American virtues: freedom, fighting the ‘good fight,’ an overt heterosexuality, a particular reveling in a sarcastic ‘sticking out the tongue’ at the overly sophisticated, overly arrogant, ‘anti-American,’ and well-heeled parts of American society.
{"title":"The Rebel Behind the Wheel: An Examination of the ‘Redneck’ Rebel Cultural Trope in The Dukes of Hazzard","authors":"Jon Starnes","doi":"10.31261/rias.11815","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.11815","url":null,"abstract":"The heyday of ‘Redneck’ cinema—the 1970s to early 1980s, saw the rise of the Redneck Rebel—a Southern or otherwise ‘hick’ anti-hero who rode around the countryside like a modern-day cowboy vanquishing evil. His ‘horse’ was his car—a beefed up/souped up muscle car that often became the star of the show and overshadowed the anti-hero himself. This article examines the Redneck Rebel through the lens of one American TV series—The Dukes of Hazzard. This popular 1980s TV series, along with its antecedents and contemporaries, underscore several important points that reinforce typical conservative American virtues: freedom, fighting the ‘good fight,’ an overt heterosexuality, a particular reveling in a sarcastic ‘sticking out the tongue’ at the overly sophisticated, overly arrogant, ‘anti-American,’ and well-heeled parts of American society.","PeriodicalId":37268,"journal":{"name":"Review of International American Studies","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83516352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
When we purchase an automobile, we are also acquiring an amorphous but very real image, that is, the statement which the automobile makes about its owner to the public. Such images are forged in popular culture, and Mercury is an automobile brand that had an auspicious post-WWII popular culture debut. In 1948, K.C. Douglas recorded “Mercury Boogie” on a 10-inch 78-RPM, with its memorable line in the chorus “I’m crazy ‘bout a Mercury.” Five years later in 1953, George and Sam Barris transformed a 1951 Mercury Club Coupe into the Hirohata Merc, creating a classic of customization that has been described as “the most famous custom of all time” (Taylor 2006: 56). Ford occasionally attempted to take advantage of these strong roots in popular culture formed in the make’s earliest days, but the company’s efforts were not notably successful. In spite of Mercury’s promising beginnings in media, it has had only a slight presence in music and film. Mercury’s image never influenced the automobile market beyond the first few years, and it was unable to prevent the brand’s 2011 demise.
{"title":"Crazy 'Bout a Mercury","authors":"E. McGoun","doi":"10.31261/rias.11654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.11654","url":null,"abstract":"When we purchase an automobile, we are also acquiring an amorphous but very real image, that is, the statement which the automobile makes about its owner to the public. Such images are forged in popular culture, and Mercury is an automobile brand that had an auspicious post-WWII popular culture debut. In 1948, K.C. Douglas recorded “Mercury Boogie” on a 10-inch 78-RPM, with its memorable line in the chorus “I’m crazy ‘bout a Mercury.” Five years later in 1953, George and Sam Barris transformed a 1951 Mercury Club Coupe into the Hirohata Merc, creating a classic of customization that has been described as “the most famous custom of all time” (Taylor 2006: 56). Ford occasionally attempted to take advantage of these strong roots in popular culture formed in the make’s earliest days, but the company’s efforts were not notably successful. In spite of Mercury’s promising beginnings in media, it has had only a slight presence in music and film. Mercury’s image never influenced the automobile market beyond the first few years, and it was unable to prevent the brand’s 2011 demise.","PeriodicalId":37268,"journal":{"name":"Review of International American Studies","volume":"78 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83889421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article traces the recursive character of automobility from a perspective of cultural crises and traumas that accompany motor culture development in the USA. The American automobility system has been caught in the treadmill of ideological criticism that defined the current role of motor vehicles in forms of political activism and cultural criticism. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is different as it seems to bring restoration to the original character of motor culture with its defining features of individualism, freedom, and opportunity achieved through mobility.
{"title":"Pandemic Automobility. Patterns of Crisis and Opportunity in the American Motor Culture","authors":"T. Burzyński","doi":"10.31261/rias.11810","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.11810","url":null,"abstract":"This article traces the recursive character of automobility from a perspective of cultural crises and traumas that accompany motor culture development in the USA. The American automobility system has been caught in the treadmill of ideological criticism that defined the current role of motor vehicles in forms of political activism and cultural criticism. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is different as it seems to bring restoration to the original character of motor culture with its defining features of individualism, freedom, and opportunity achieved through mobility.","PeriodicalId":37268,"journal":{"name":"Review of International American Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88403553","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Is an open road also a democratic one? Zooming in on two films—Queen & Slim (2019) and Unpregnant (2020)—this article discusses American road movie genre from the perspective of 2021, and how contemporary film narratives intersect with race and gender. One movie often drives in another film’s lane, meaning the genre is self-referential. Unfolding in three parts, the article begins by introducing these two films and surveying how they contribute to the road movie genre. It then discusses cars and clothing as characters and concludes by considering surveillance and how these films, in tandem, take the temperature of contemporary American society.
{"title":"Buddies, Lovers, and Detours: America and its Road Movies","authors":"Sasha Gora","doi":"10.31261/rias.11809","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.11809","url":null,"abstract":"Is an open road also a democratic one? Zooming in on two films—Queen & Slim (2019) and Unpregnant (2020)—this article discusses American road movie genre from the perspective of 2021, and how contemporary film narratives intersect with race and gender. One movie often drives in another film’s lane, meaning the genre is self-referential. Unfolding in three parts, the article begins by introducing these two films and surveying how they contribute to the road movie genre. It then discusses cars and clothing as characters and concludes by considering surveillance and how these films, in tandem, take the temperature of contemporary American society.","PeriodicalId":37268,"journal":{"name":"Review of International American Studies","volume":"87 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75644948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A farewell to Marietta Messmer (1966–2021), the Vice President of International American Studies Association, who shaped both InterAmerican Studies and American Studies in Europe and the world. In 2009 Marietta Messmer co-founded the International Association for InterAmerican Studies, where she served as Executive Board Member and Treasurer until 2012. She was president of the Netherlands American Studies Association between 2011–2014. She was Board Member of the of the European Association of American Studies between 2009-2016, where she also served as Chair of the Organizing Committee of the conference America: Justice, Conflict, War in the Hague, April 2014. An outstanding Scholar, belowed Colleague, and fierce Friend, Marietta Messmer will be missed by all the IASA Members, whom she so mastefully led.
{"title":"In Memoriam Marietta Messmer","authors":"G. Tóth","doi":"10.31261/rias.12821","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.12821","url":null,"abstract":"A farewell to Marietta Messmer (1966–2021), the Vice President of International American Studies Association, who shaped both InterAmerican Studies and American Studies in Europe and the world. In 2009 Marietta Messmer co-founded the International Association for InterAmerican Studies, where she served as Executive Board Member and Treasurer until 2012. She was president of the Netherlands American Studies Association between 2011–2014. She was Board Member of the of the European Association of American Studies between 2009-2016, where she also served as Chair of the Organizing Committee of the conference America: Justice, Conflict, War in the Hague, April 2014. An outstanding Scholar, belowed Colleague, and fierce Friend, Marietta Messmer will be missed by all the IASA Members, whom she so mastefully led.","PeriodicalId":37268,"journal":{"name":"Review of International American Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77677433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This contribution features a transatlantic conversation between Christof Mauch, environmental historian and Americanist from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, and Lawrence Buell, literary scholar and “pioneer” of Ecocriticism from Harvard University. Buell’s The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture (1995) marked the first major attempt to understand the green tradition of environmental writing, nonfiction as well as fiction, beginning in colonial times and continuing into the present day. With Thoreau’s Walden as a touchstone, this seminal book provided an account of the place of nature in the history of Western thought. Other highly acclaimed monographs include Writing for an Endangered World (2001), a book that brought industrialized and exurban landscapes into conversation with one other, and The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination (2009), which provides a critical survey of the ecocritical movement since the 1970s, with an eye to the future of the discipline.
{"title":"Imagining Rivers: The Aesthetics, History, and Politics of American Waterways. A Conversation Between Lawrence Buell and Christof Mauch","authors":"Lawrence Buell, C. Mauch","doi":"10.31261/rias.10414","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.10414","url":null,"abstract":"This contribution features a transatlantic conversation between Christof Mauch, environmental historian and Americanist from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, and Lawrence Buell, literary scholar and “pioneer” of Ecocriticism from Harvard University. Buell’s The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture (1995) marked the first major attempt to understand the green tradition of environmental writing, nonfiction as well as fiction, beginning in colonial times and continuing into the present day. With Thoreau’s Walden as a touchstone, this seminal book provided an account of the place of nature in the history of Western thought. Other highly acclaimed monographs include Writing for an Endangered World (2001), a book that brought industrialized and exurban landscapes into conversation with one other, and The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination (2009), which provides a critical survey of the ecocritical movement since the 1970s, with an eye to the future of the discipline. \u0000 \u0000 ","PeriodicalId":37268,"journal":{"name":"Review of International American Studies","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76066723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Doing God’s Will: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Life of Purpose by Larry L. Macon Sr. (A Book Review)","authors":"Weronika Kurasz","doi":"10.31261/rias.12464","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.12464","url":null,"abstract":"Weronika Kurasz's review of Larry L. Macon Senior's Doing God’s Will: Martin Luther King Jr. and a Life of Purpose. Saint Paul Press, 2019.","PeriodicalId":37268,"journal":{"name":"Review of International American Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89773579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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