Teaching and Studying the Americas: Cultural Influences from Colonialism to the Present

Interdisciplinary work across the humanities and social sciences is moving beyond analysis of any one nation in isolation and instead placing urgent questions in the larger matrix of the Americas as a hemisphere. But little attention has been given to the overarching methodological, institutional, and pedagogical issues resulting from the growth of inter-American, or American hemispheric studies. Teaching and Studying the Americas is designed to give close consideration to the range of fundamental challenges and questions that a hemispheric studies perspective raises. It is unique in its primary concern with questions of institutional practice, pedagogic transformation, and research perspectives.

Table of Contents:
Introduction - Alexander Byrd, Michael Emerson, Caroline Levander, and Anthony B. Pinn * PART I: LOCATING AND DISLOCATING THE AMERICAS * Good Neighbor/Bad Neighbor: Boltonian Americanism and Hemispheric Studies - Antonio Barrenechea * Bad Neighbor/Good Neighbor: Across the Disciplines Toward a Hemispheric Studies - Caroline Levander * Coloniality At Large: The Western Hemisphere and the Colonial Horizon of Modernity - Walter Mignolo * PART II: DISCIPLINING HEMISPHERIC STUDIES * A Major Motion Picture: Studying and Teaching the Americas - Michael O. Emerson * Embodied Meaning: The 'Look' and 'Location' of Religion in the American Hemisphere - Anthony B. Pinn * Primeval Whiteness: White Supremacies, (Latin) American History, and the Transamerican Challenge to Critical Race Studies - Ruth Hill * The Making of 'Americans': Old Boundaries, New Realities - Karen Manges Douglas and Rogelio Saenz * Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching the History of the Western Hemisphere - Moramay Lopez-Alonso * PART III: PROGRAMS AND PEDAGOGY * Beyond National Borders: Researching and Teaching Jovita Gonzalez - Heather Miner and Robin Sager * Migrant Archives: New Routes In and Out of American Studies - Rodrigo Lazo * Partnering Across the Americas: Crossing National and Disciplinary Borders in Archival Development - Melissa Bailar * Ghosts of the American Century: The Intellectual, Programmatic and Institutional Challenges for Transnational/Hemispheric American Studies - Matthew Guterl and Deborah Cohn

About the Author :
ANTHONY B. PINN Agnes Arnold Professor of the Humanities, Professor of Religion, and Director of Graduate Studies in Religion at Rice University, USA. CAROLINE F. LEVANDER Professor of English and Director of the Humanities Research Center at Rice University, USA. MICHAEL O. EMERSON Allyn and Gladys Cline Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Race, Religion, and Urban Life at Rice University, USA.