READING AMERICA
Fulbright American Studies Institute
on the United States through Literature

Organized by the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies

The Transregional Center for Democratic Studies of the New School University's Graduate Faculty will be conducting an intensive six-week program for 18 professors of American Studies from all over the world. The focus of this summer institute, called Reading America, will be on American literature as a vehicle for the study of American society, institutions, and culture.

While the instruction during the institute will frequently make references to American nonfiction literature, the primary lens through which the Institute's six overlapping themes will be explored is American fiction and poetry. From early travel literature, diaries, biographies, novels, political treaties and speeches, to literary and cultural criticism, memoirs, poetry, photographic essays, the oral traditions of Native Americans, feature films and videos, American literary culture constitutes a unique source of knowledge about the United States.

The program of the proposed Summer Institute unfolds in six substantive sections, examining distinct processes of American social, political, and cultural life which (even if rooted in the past) are a vital part of the nation's life today. The sections will be examined in the following order:

• Section One: Constituting America
• Section Two: Imagining America
• Section Three: Becoming American
• Section Four: Contesting America
• Section Five: Globalizing America
• Section Six: Local America: The Borderland Culture of the Southwest

Although the initial sections of the program will pay more attention to earlier writings (and therefore provide exposure to relevant aspects of U.S. history), the curriculum nonetheless emphasizes contemporary and even most recent texts and debates.

Each section integrates three main methods of presentation: seminar sessions exploring substantive issues, concepts, debates; on-site study; and readings and conversations on American writings. Through these, the participants are provided with direct exposure to the issues, institutions, and processes involved in the very discipline of American Studies, and in literary production and dissemination (magazines, journals, performance places). Screenings of relevant documentary and feature films will also be arranged, followed by discussion.

Among the Institute's faculty are distinguished writers, academics, publishers, editors, and journalists, including Robert Boyers, Julia Foulkes, Donald Lamm, N. Scott Momaday, Bernard Mergen, Bradford Morrow, Cyrus Patell, David Plotke, Robert Polito, Ross Posnock, Jonathan Schell, Andre Schiffrin, Ann Snitow, Susan Sontag, Alan Trachtenberg, Jonathan Veitch, Steven C. Wheatley, and Craig Wilder. The director of the Institute is Elzbieta Matynia and its key academic advisor is Jonathan Veitch.

The Institute, which will provide for its participants ample opportunities to directly experience not just literature, but also the crucial facets of our social and cultural life, will include a one-week field study in New Mexico, and will conclude in Washington, D.C.

  INSTITUTE PARTICIPANTS

  SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES