Reconsidering Theory and Accountability in Early American Studies

Abstract:The words we use matter, and our terminology is of great importance for the kind of scholarship we produce, and the audiences to which our work is legible. But the words themselves are more the means than the end of this analytical work. Each of the scholars writing in this issue of JER explains the importance of their assigned terms within a broader set of methodological and theoretical questions and framings, and so these terms act as a kind of shorthand for interdisciplinary and community-engaged approaches that are bringing new questions and perspectives to early American studies.