Americanism, Americanization, Anti-Americanism. Transatlantic Relations in the Age of Globalization: syllabus

Week I
Introduction
Reading: Joseph Joffe “The Perils of Soft Power” The New York Times 6/2006
Margaret Drabble. “I loathe America, and what it has done to the rest of the world.” Telegraph, June 8, 2003.
George McGovern “Why I Believe Bush Must Go. Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse.” Washington Post. Sunday, January 6, 2008; B01
Optional :
Nick Cohen “Why it is right to be anti-American” The New Statesman Jan. 14, 2002
Editorial. “Looking at America” The New York Times. Dec 31 2007

Week 2
Soft Cultural Power or Why Is American Popular Culture so Popular? A View from Europe.
Reading: Berndt Ostendorf: „What makes American culture so popular? A View from Europe.“ OASIS. 2002
Todd Gitlin. „The Unification of the World under the Signs of Mickey Mouse and Bruce Willis: The Supply and Demand Sides of American Popular Culture” in B. Ostendorf, ed. Transnationalism. 2002.
Optional: Miles Orvell. “Understanding Disneyland: American Mass Culture and the European Gaze.” In Rob Kroes. Cultural Transmissions.

Week 3
What does „Americanism“ stand for? American exceptionalism after 9/11? America as City upon a Hill and as a universal model to emulate?
Reading: Handout on exceptionalism
Andrew Kohut & Bruce Stokes “The American Way” and “The Problem of American Exceptionalism”
Samuel Huntington: „The American Creed and National Identity,“ American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony. Cambridge 1981
Optional: Richard Crockat. “Americanism as a Source of Anti-Americanism”,
John Kane, “Schizophrenic Nationalism and Anti-Americanism” in O’Connor, Anti-Americanism Vol. 2
“American Exceptionalism” Wikipedia

Week 4
A Blessed People? Transatlantic Dissonances: Religion In American Politics
Reading: Kohut/Stokes “A Blessed People”
B. Ostendorf, “A Nation with the Soul of a Church: The Strange Career of Religion in American Politics” Rivista di Studi Nord Americani (Special European Issue) 15/16 2004-2005, 169-196.
Boyer, Paul S.: John Darby Meets Saddam Hussein: When U.S. Foreign Policy Meets Bible Prophecy. in: The Chronicle of Higher Education. February 14, 2003. B10-11.
Andrew Bacevich and Elizabeth Prodromou. “God is Not Neutral: Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy after 9/11” Orbis, Winter 2004, 43-54.

Week 5
America in the European Imagination: Decline or Progress? „Degeneracy or Utopia“? “Heaven or Hell”?
Reading: Simon Schama. “The Unloved Americans. Two centuries of alienating Europe.” The New Yorker, March 10, 2003
John Moser, “Anti-Americanism and Anglophobia” in: Anti-Americanism, Vol 3.
Gilbert Chinard. „Eighteenth Century Theories on America as a Human Habitat.“ Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 91,1 (1947).
James Ceaser: „Introduction“ and „America as Degeneracy,“ Reconstructing America: The Symbol of American Thought. Yale 1997.

Week 6
The Spectre of Americanization. What does the term really mean? Is it a useful concept?
Reading: Rob Kroes. „Americanisation: What are we Talking About?“ in Cultural Transmission and Reception.
Berndt Ostendorf. “The Americanization of Germany Debate: An Archeology of Tacit Background Assumptions. In E. Shore and F. Trommler, ed. The German-American Encounter. Conflict and Cooperation between Two Cultures, 1800-2000. New York: Berghahn Books 2001, 267-284
Richard Pells. “American Culture Abroad. The European Experience since 1945” in Rob Kroes, ed. Cultural Transmissions.
Optional: Handout: B. Ostendorf “Americanization – Anti-Americanism – Globalization” .
B. Ostendorf “Americanization and Anti-Americanism in the Age of Globalization”, in H.J. König and Stefan Rinke eds. North Americanization of Latin America? Stuttgart 2004.

Week 7
“Why do they hate us?” Anti-Americanism after the Cold War I
Reading: Andrew Kohut & Bruce Stokes, “The Rise of Anti-Americanism” America Against the World
Tony Judt. “A New Master Narrative? Reflections on Contemporary Anti-Americanism”, In: With US or Against US. Studies in Global Anti-Americanism.” Eds. Tony Judt and Denis Lacorne. Palgrave Macmillan 2005.
Peter Katzenstein, Robert Keohane “Anti-Americanism. Biases as diverse as the country itself“ Policy Review. Oct/Nov 2006.
Harold Pinter “Nobel Prize Speech” “God Bless America”


Week 8
“Why do they hate us?” Anti-Americanism after the Cold War. II: Europe
Reading:
Rob Kroes. “European Anti-Americanism: What’s new?” Journal of American History ms.
David Ellwood. „Comparative Anti-Americanism in Europe“, in Fehrenbach/Poiger, eds. Transactions, Transgressions, Transformations. American Culture in Western Europe and Japan. New York: Berghahn 2000
Optional : James W. Ceaser. « A Genealogy of Anti-Americanism » The Public Interest Summer 2003
John Borneman, B. Ostendorf et. al. “Is the United States Europe’s Other?” American Ethnologist. Vol 30, No 4, Nov 2003, 487-507

Week 9
“Why do they hate us?” Anti-Americanism after the Cold War. III: Latin America.
Julia Sweig „Cold War History and The Latin American Laboratory“ and “The Cold War Beyond Latin America”
Alan McPherson, “Anti-Americanism in Latin America” Anti-Americanism Vol 3
Optional: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Americanism
Stanley Hoffmann, „Why Don’t They Like Us?“ Prospect. 12:20, Nov. 19, 2001.

Week 10
The Clash Of Cultures or Of Civilizations: Jihad vs. McWorld
Reading: Samuel Huntington. “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993
Fujad Ajami, “The Clash” The New York Times, Jan 6 2008
Benjamin Barber. “Jihad vs. McWorld” Atlantic Monthly March 1992.

Week 11
“Who Are We”: Wasp Nation or Multicultural Empire?
Reading:
Walter R. Mead. “The Jacksonian Tradition and Foreign Policy” The National Interest 1999
http://home.uchicago.edu/~rhaynes/papers/jackson.html
Samuel Huntington. The Hispanic Challenge. Foreign Policy March 2004
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/blogs/gems/culturalagency1/SamuelHuntingtonTheHispanicC.pdf#search=%22Huntington%2C%20hispanic%20challenge%22
Optional: Ostendorf, “Samuel Huntington and the Mexican Threat to the American Dream” In B. Vincent, F. Bisutti, eds. The American Dream. C’a Foscari, Venice 2006.
Wikipedia “American Empire”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Empire
Michael Hardt. “From Imperialism to Empire” The Nation July 31, 2006.
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20060731&s=hardt
Thomas Friedman. “Intercepting Iran’s Take on America” The New York Times Dec 5 2007
Richard Lamm “I have a plan to destroy America”.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/lamm.asp
Robert Kagan. “Power and Weakness” Policy Review 113
http://www.policyreview.org/JUN02/kagan_print.html
Robert Keohane, Peter Katzenstein, “The Political Consequences of Anti-Americanism” in Anti-Americanism in World Politics.
Parag Khanna, “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony” The New York Times, Jan 27, 2008

Week 12
Globalization As Americanization
Reading.
George Ritzer & Todd Stillmann. „Assessing McDonaldization, Americanization and Globalization.“ in: Ulrich Beck et. al. Eds. Global America. The Cultural Consequences of Globalization. Liverpool University Press 2004
Kohut/Stokes “Globalization and Americanization”
Optional: Martin Griffiths and Michael Schiavone. “Anti-Americanism and Anti-Globalisation” in Anti-Americanism, Vol. 3
Berndt Ostendorf. „Transnationalism or the Fading of Borders“ in B. Ostendorf (ed) Transnationalism. Winter Verlag 2002.
(alternative programs)

Anti-Americanism and Anti-Semitism: Identical or Different?
Josef Joffe. “Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism” PEW Forum
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. “The Israel Lobby” The London Review of Books
Markovits, Andrei S. “Twin Brothers: European Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism” Uncouth Nation


Fast-Food Nation vs. Slow Food Europe?
David Cutler, Edward Glaeser and Jesse Shapiro, “Why Have Americans Become More Obese?” Ms.
Laura Knowlton, “Reading American Fat in France: Obesity and Food Culture” European Journal of American Studies. http://ejas.revuew.org/document1363.html
Michael Pollan, “The way we live now: 10-12-03; The (Agri)cultural Contradictions of Obesity” The New York Times Oct 12, 2003.