Drawing on a broad range of textual, visual, and audiovisual materials, the course will give an in-depth overview over the cultural, social, and political history of the U.S. from the earliest European encounters with the ‘New World’ to contemporary interpretations of what ‘America’ might mean for different groups inside and outside of the U.S. We will cover a broad range of cultural and historical issues, including ideological interpretations of American landscapes and spaces, attitudes toward demographic developments and immigration, controversies about the U.S.-American political-economic system and foreign policy, the plurality of the American religious landscape, and multilingualism and the diversity of cultural traditions in North America to familiarize students with materials, areas of study, and theoretical approaches in the interdisciplinary field of American Studies and their significance for the study of American cultural history. The course is organized into a two-hour lecture outlining the major problems, contexts and trajectories of the individual session topics, and a one-hour seminar that will deepen the knowledge gained in the lecture and do in-depth work with selected textual, visual and audiovisual materials.
Credit requirement: final exam for participants of all sections of this class on Tuesday, February 3, 2026, 10am-noon, room tba.
Course materials: weekly readings; Hebel, Udo. Einführung in die Amerikanistik/American Studies. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2008. Print.
Recommended history textbooks: Depkat, Volker. Geschichte Nordamerikas: Eine Einführung. Köln: Böhlau, 2008. Print. ---. Geschichte der USA.Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2016. Print. Boyer, Paul S., et al. The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People. 10th ed., Cengage 2024. Print.
