When American Indian/Native American studies (AI/NAS) programs began to emerge in the halls of academia during the late 1960s and early 1970s, some who served as faculty and staff questioned whether they would be one-generation phenomena. Would the programs survive, would they continue to draw students, and could they make an impact on…

It is difficult to overestimate the differences between Native American studies in Europe and the United States. In Europe there are no dedicated university programs in Native American studies; instead, disciplinary units such as American studies or departments such as English, history, development studies, and anthropology house teaching and…

The attack on ethnic studies in Tucson is a local struggle with broad implications. This essay poses that Arizona is a testing ground for neoliberal laws, policies and practices, including HB2281, an anti-Latin@ law banning ethnic studies courses in public schools. Given that many such political "experiments" have been successfully…

M. Karen Powers and Catherine Chaput's ""Anti-American Studies" in the Deep South: Dissenting Rhetorics, the Practice of Democracy, and Academic Freedom in Wartime Universities" begins a much needed discussion about the current and ongoing assaults against academic freedom in American universities, which have not received…

Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" describes a callous America in which the dollar trumps justice. It famously exposed the American meatpacking industry's loathsome practices and prompted federal consumer-protection laws. It is, however, primarily a sympathetic sketch of the foreign born, those fabled "masses yearning to breathe free" that Americans…

Provides an interpretation of survey results of historians by an Italian scholar of American studies. Maintains that U.S. historians and historiography are changing the way Italian and other European scholars view history and its societal role. Concludes that cultural and intellectual pluralism is deeply rooted in U.S. political culture. (CFR)

Based on four years of experience teaching computers to 8-12 year olds, media scholar Ellen Seiter offers parents and educators practical advice on what children need to know about the Internet and when they need to know it. "The Internet Playground" argues that, contrary to the promises of technology boosters, teaching with computers is…

A professor who teaches an American Studies course at the University of Idaho contends that she has her work cut out for her. According to the professor, Idaho's conservative political climate has led to her learning to negotiate. This paper first describes the development of an American Studies core course that began in the 1980s and continues…

Back in the early 1990s the author applied for a spot with the Teacher Corps Program on his reservation. The program stated that he could go to school in the morning and be in the classroom in the afternoon. It was an accelerated program, and he would be a teacher in less than four years. As he was being interviewed for the spot, the man leading…

The author asserts that development of a critical pedagogy appropriate for education in this country is a top priority. She suggests ways educators can begin to reappropriate the American cultural heritage to create conditions for a meaningful pedagogy. (Author/CH)

The field of American Studies explores the cultures and practices of individuals and communities in the United States, as well as their transnational exchanges and impacts. It is an interdisciplinary field that is based on making "connections." Environmental justice, as a social movement, also makes important connections. It integrates…

Using baseball as its focus, this article demonstrates the importance of sport in helping students understand certain central themes of United States history. Provides a brief history of baseball and reviews scholarly works on its influence in United States culture. (JDH)

James E. Hartley tracks the rise of American Studies early in the twentieth century as a scholarly effort to draw distinctions between American culture and things European. The radical impulse for relevance in the 1960s brought an end to that and to the quaint concept that great books allow an easy summing up of our values and ideals. Professor…

In this article, the author discusses a course she taught entitled, "Grrl Power and Beyond: Third Wave Feminism and Contemporary Popular Culture," in the interdisciplinary American Studies Program at her college. Here, she lays out her goals in designing the course, and the ways that her students, her circumstances, and her classroom…

Comparative research involving American minorities is examined in terms of external validity. It is proposed that an adequate approach to research would involve cultural, interpretive, population, ecological, and construct validity. (Author/MP)