In American Studies, attention is shifting to American engagements with the Middle East, especially in the aftermath of war in Iraq and broad American economic influence. As protest against economic inequality, social discrimination, and political repression has risen around the world, recent Arab uprisings have attracted special focus. In this volume, Alex Lubin and Marwan Kraidy curate a new collection of essays that offer a reappraisal of the field of American Studies at the end of the “American Century.” The goal of this volume is not merely to continue the ongoing process of international ... More

In American Studies, attention is shifting to American engagements with the Middle East, especially in the aftermath of war in Iraq and broad American economic influence. As protest against economic inequality, social discrimination, and political repression has risen around the world, recent Arab uprisings have attracted special focus. In this volume, Alex Lubin and Marwan Kraidy curate a new collection of essays that offer a reappraisal of the field of American Studies at the end of the “American Century.” The goal of this volume is not merely to continue the ongoing process of internationalizing American studies approaches by including non-U.S. scholars, but rather to explore how cultural forms circulate transnationally and are shaped by, and contribute to, international geopolitical contexts. With an introduction by the editors, these essays focus on the cultural politics of the U.S. engagement with the Middle East and North Africa and the geopolitics of American involvement with the uprisings of the Arab Spring, making a crucial intervention in the growing subfield of transnational American Studies. Featuring a diverse list of contributors from the United States, the Arab world, and beyond, America Studies Encounters the Middle East analyzes Arab-American relations by looking at the War on Terror, pop culture, and the influence of the American hegemony in a time of revolution.