S (Cult): Methods and Theories in American Studies: Approaching Democracy in Cultural Studies

The presidential election of 2024 has once again highlighted the central role of democracy as a discourse object in American public debates and, moreover, the study of American culture(s). The legitimacy of American democracy, its stability, its promises are matters of urgent debates that go back to the founding of the nation. The seminar will zoom in on select aspects of democracy in the United States from a decidedly cultural-studies point of view, such as mediatized struggles of demographic groups for access to participation in public life, textual strategies of authorizing demands for fundamental civil rights, and modes of organizing campaigns that redress grievances and call for the recognition of group-based interests. By reading a variety of historical sources, cultural texts, and secondary literature that shape discourses of democracy, we will approach questions concerning, among other things, the values and shortcomings of democracy and the implications of this for today. We will do so by combing through one of the foundational and state-of-the-art works in American cultural studies scholarship of recent years: Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors. A New Literary History of America. Harvard UP, 2012, https://doi-org.wwwdb.dbod.de/10.4159/9780674054219. We will examine how select essays in this volume put a spotlight on various personas, texts, and thematic aspects of debates on American democracy at different moment in time. A willingness to engage in history and theory will be mandatory for participation in the seminar.

The seminar begins in the first week of the semester.