1959
		quarterly
		English
		interdisciplinary
		0026-3079
		Mid-America American Studies Association

Thomas Augst, New York University Michael Cowan, University of California, Santa Cruz Kate Delaney, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Dennis Domer, University of Kansas Jonathan Earle, University of Kansas Gerald Early, Washington University James Farrell, St. Olaf College Daniele Fiorentino, University of Macerata Iris Smith Fischer, University of Kansas Doris Friedensohn, New Jersey City University William Graebner, State University of New York at Fredonia Mark Hulsether, University of Tennessee, Knoxville J. Robert Kent, Independent Scholar Frieda Knobloch, University of Wyoming Angel Kwolek-Folland, University of Florida Cheryl Lester, University of Kansas Sherry Linkon, Youngstown State University Karal Ann Marling, University of Minnesota Carol Mason, Oklahoma State University Jay Mechling, University of California, Davis Bernard Mergen, George Washington University Joane Nagel, University of Kansas Eric Porter, University of California, Santa Cruz David Roediger, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Eric Sandeen, University of Wyoming David Sanjek, University of Salford Alex Seago, Richmond, The American International University in London Shirley Wajda, Kent State University Ryo Yokoyama, Kobe University
Format and style of submissions:  Please include a cover letter, providing your preferred address, telephone number, e-mail, the manuscript title, and any other important information.  Manuscripts (including endnotes, tables, and references) should be double-spaced with one-inch margins on all sides. Because American Studies uses a double-blind review process, contributors are asked not to put their names on manuscripts; only the title should appear on the manuscript.  Contributors agree upon submission that manuscripts submitted to American Studies will not be submitted for publication elsewhere while under review by American Studies. Manuscripts should be prepared following the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition, and may use either the documentary-note system of documentation frequently used in history or the author-date system more common in literature or the social sciences.    Form of submission:  We encourage authors to submit manuscripts (with a 100 word abstract) electronically, either in Microsoft Word (for Mac or IBM file format) or WordPerfect 6.0 or above.   If electronic submission is not possible, we require four copies of the  manuscript, two copies of a 100-word abstract, and a computer disk (either Mac  or IBM file format) containing the manuscript (in either Microsoft Word or  WordPerfect).  Disks will not be returned.   NOTES ON EDITORIAL POLICIES AND PRACTICES American Studies' editorial process is designed to encourage dialogue, colleagueship and communication without regard to disciplinary boundaries.  Editors and readers attempt to assist contributors by suggesting ways in which  manuscripts might be improved, and by prodding them to think of the relationship between what they have done and ideas and hypotheses developed in other sectors of American Studies. Few articles are ever accepted without having gone through at least one round of substantial revisions.   Many authors report that they have enjoyed the interchange with our staff and reviewers and the stimulation of connecting their often specialized work with the interests of scholars in contiguous, or more distant fields.  Ideally an article is reviewed by an outside specialist, an editorial board member familiar with the field, and an editorial board member from outside the academic discipline who reads for broad interest.  The non-specialist's review is weighed equally with that of the specialist, for the goal of American Studies is to cross academic disciplines and to expand dialogue beyond narrow fields.  We would like to make research accessible to the widest band of scholars.  Essays are sometimes sent back with the warm invitation to place the argument within the larger context of American culture, and then resubmit.   Because we use specialist consultants not on our staff, our processing of articles is somewhat slower than some other journals.  We expect an article returned from a reviewer within six weeks.  Often, the delay in processing is caused by our hunt for a specialist who is willing to review.  If an author has not heard from us within four months, we encourage them to write or phone us for an explanation.  We do not accept "multiple submissions." We ask our referees to provide in-depth reviews and offer extensive critique and comments to the author.  This is a time consuming process, and we consider multiple submissions exploitive of us and our reviewers.  We expect from reviewers not only a detailed and thoughtful response to a manuscript, but also an evaluation of the significance of the piece, its potential, and most importantly, whether or not the author would be capable of revising it for publication in American Studies.  It is important to keep in mind however, that publishing in American Studies is only one goal of the journal.  We are also committed to helping scholars improve their work, and the readers' reports forwarded to the authors nearly always offer detailed critiques and suggestions for improvement.  Even when manuscripts are turned down, we hope that authors will have had a constructive engagement with other scholars through American Studies. When the editors invite revision and resubmission, they send the revised manuscript to the same readers who read it previously.  We always send back the reviewer's comments to the author, and invite the author to respond to criticisms by informally "talking back" to the referees in appended notes or explanations.  We like to share the comments of our reviewers directly with our contributors, and we hope that contributors and reviewers are thick-skinned enough to take criticism without bitterness.  Our goal is to be helpful and to give a personal and detailed response to each submitted piece.  American Studies currently processes about 75 articles a year and prints about 10.  Many are finally turned down not because of their quality, but  because they are too narrow.  Articles that do not ultimately answer the question "What does this study tell us about society or culture in the United States?" are almost never printed.  We strongly advise prospective contributors to read through a few recent issues to familiarize themselves with American Studies and our readers' interests.  American Studies does not use "quotas" and generally has no backlog.  Articles are accepted or rejected on their own merit, and not because we have run too many or too few on given subjects.   We try when there is a larger than usual number of accepted essays in the shop  to find the funds to get all in print within the year.  This accounts for the occasional oversized issue.  The editors and editorial board members of American Studies often invite scholars to submit pieces to the journal.  Invited manuscripts, however, go through the same review and decision process as unsolicited ones.  American Studies uses a double blind-review process, and requires four non-returnable manuscripts without the author's name on them.

American Studies

American Studies encourages interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary scholarship in U.S. cultures and histories broadly defined.  We welcome frameworks of comparative, international, and/or transnational perspectives.  With an editorial staff from a number of areas of study, the journal offers provocative perspectives on a variety of issues.  Frequent special sections and special issues (such as the Fall 2004 issue on Hawaii and the Fall/Winter 2005 issue, "Indigeneity at the Crossroads of American Studies.") create a space for a broad discussion on a single topic. Articles on pedagogy inform the American Studies classroom. The book review section aims at keeping readers conversant with contemporary scholarship. American Studies first appeared in 1959, and is sponsored by the Mid-America American Studies Association and the University of Kansas. It has 1,400 current subscribers. In 2005 it merged with American Studies International, and welcomes submissions with an international perspective. Find the American Studies Journal on Facebook.

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Fall/Winter 2008, Vol. 49, No. 3/4

The Wild West Turns East: Audience, Ritual, and Regeneration in Buffalo Bill’s Boxer Uprising

By John Haddad
In the summer of 1900, the Western world turned its attention to Peking (Beijing), China, where the expatriate community found itself trapped in the Foreign Legations, under siege from soldiers of the anti-western Boxer movement. In an effort to rescue the Legations, the United States, European nations, and Japan formed an international relief force that marched to Peking, routed the Boxers, and lifted the siege. Mere months later, William Cody assembled a reenactment of this military engagement that served as the spectacular grand finale for the 1901 edition of the Wild West. Along with describing this rare portrayal of the Far East in the Wild West, this article possesses two additional objectives. First, it seeks to understand the reenactment by situating it among several interrelated contexts: the closing of the frontier, the encroachment of modernity on everyday American life, and the intensifying imperial ambitions of the United States. Second, the article shifts away from the performance itself so as to explore the peculiarly raucous behavior of audiences. Employing the theories of cultural anthropologist Victor Turner, the article suggests that Americans may have used the performance as a rite-of-passage ritual, aiding their transition from the rugged past to the modern industrial present.

The Incoherencies of Empire: The “Imperial” Image of the Indian at the Omaha World’s Fairs of 1898-9

By Bonnie Miller
"The Incoherencies of Empire" examines the conflicting visual representations of Native Americans and the peoples of Cuba, Hawaii, and the Philippines on the fairgrounds of the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition and Greater American Expositions held in Omaha, Nebraska in 1898 and 1899. The fairs took place in the midst of the Spanish-American War and its imperialist aftermath, as the nation contemplated taking its first overseas colonies. Whereas the timeliness of the imperial debates inspired fair organizers to create exhibits, such as the "Indian Congress" and various colonial villages, to showcase subjects of American colonial rule at home and abroad, this article argues for the political ambivalence and inconsistencies of these exhibits as instruments of imperial ideologies. Competing agendas of organizers and participants, of those seeking to maximize gate receipts and those dedicated to anthropological study, complicated the makings of an imperial spectacle on the fairgrounds.

"Primitive'" Discourse: Aspects of Contemporary North American Indian Representations of the Irish and of Contemporary Irish Representations of North American Indians

By Joy Porter
This article explores the complexities of Ireland's relationship with Native Americans and of Na¬tive America's relationship with Ireland. Particularly at the level of imagery and representation, it suggests that this is a set of relationships more complex than contemporary creative and critical work has tended to suggest. In order to exemplify these contrasts and complexities the article explores a number of contemporary incidences of Irish repre¬sentation of and engagement with Native Americans and their history alongside two notable Native American novels and their depictions of Ireland and the Irish, LeAnne Howe's 2001 book Shellshaker and Leslie Marmon Silko's 1999 book Gardens in the Dunes.

"A Fascinating Interracial Experiment Station": Remapping the Orient-Occident Divide in Hawaii

By Shelley Sang-Hee Lee and Rick A. Baldoz
This article examines social science scholarship about interracial marriage and race relations in 1920s and 1930s Hawaii. Prominent members of the 'Chicago School' of Sociology regularly viewed Hawaii as a real world social laboratory where new and unorthodox race relations had taken hold. Hawaii's unusually high rate of intermarriage was seen as important, insofar as it represented a drastic change in customary rules of social distance adhered to in the United States. These scholars argued that Hawaii might serve as a model for more harmonious race relations on the U.S. mainland. While liberal in outlook, Chicago School scholars frequently fell prey to the Orientalist assumptions of their period upholding whiteness as the primary civilizing force in the islands and downplaying patterns of racial division and stratification in Hawaii.

Constituting American Masculinity

By Jeffrey C. Osborne
"Constituting American Masculinity" analyzes the tensions among competing discourses on modes of manhood during the Constitutional period that lay the ground for the move toward political independence. In particular, the essay takes up the debate over the Constitution to demonstrate how it reframes manhood, deploying insecurity as its engine to catch the confederated states in a masculine double bind. This double bind enlists male citizens into a mandatory political dependency that they can only name independence. The Constitutional moment thus becomes, among other things, a mechanism of democratic imposture that promises equalitarian social and political relations, but that, in a kind of leger-de-main, works to install a hierarchical relation in the name of democracy.

Woman's Temple, Women's Fountains: The Erasure of Public Memory

By Carol Mattingly
By the turn of the twentieth century, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) had become the largest and most influential activist group of women the nation had ever seen. With that power, they laid claim to prized public spaces to launch numerous capital construction campaigns, building an early Chicago skyscraper, hospitals, industrial homes, homes for unwed mothers, summer homes at Chatauquas, and drinking water fountains. The monuments, intended to memorialize women and the WCTU, have largely been destroyed or have deteriorated to the point that they are no longer recognized for the significance their builders intended. This article examines the numerous capital projects of the WCTU and the difficulty members of this and similar organizations face when trying to create permanent memorials.

A Cartel in the Public Interest: NCAA Broadcast Policy During the Early Cold War

By Jeffrey Montez de Oca
This article explores the intersection of politics, economics, and culture through a study of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's television broadcast policy. The establishment of broadcast regulations in the 1950s transformed the NCAA from a confederation of semi-autonomous institutions into a powerful governing and policing body. Broadcast regulations further transformed the NCAA into a cartel that fixed the value of football broadcasts by limiting supply in order to gain monopoly profits. Claiming the regulations served the public interest shielded them from a possible U.S. Supreme Court "rule of reason" test. This article finds the NCAA's regulation of the television broadcast market and its process of cartelization was supported by the economic conditions of the television age and the cultural conditions of the early Cold War that made the claim that young men's bodies were in need of athletic intervention funded by college football appear reasonable.

'"You Can't Legislate the Heart'": Minneapolis Mayor Charles Stenvig and the Politics of Law and Order

By Jeffrey T. Manuel and Andrew Urban
This article examines the career and legacy of Charles Stenvig, a police lieutenant elected to three terms as mayor of Minneapolis. Stenvig's initial victory as the independent candidate in 1969 following his pledge to "take the handcuffs off the police," marks a decisive shift in Minneapolis' political landscape. This article helps to complicate the history of Minnesota politics by exploring how a self-styled conservative, law and order politician like Charles Stenvig was able to gain office, and by looking at the connections between his career and the rise of the "New Right" as a national political movement. This article focuses on how Stenvig successfully opposed liberalism's perceived reliance on social scientific explanations in addressing issues such as crime. Stenvig argued that these explanations were ineffective in remedying Minneapolis's social problems in the late 1960s and early 1970s. By invoking his close relationship to God and his "street-smart" sensibilities, Stenvig claimed a different type of governing wisdom as Mayor, while disavowing the expertise of the technocrats and University professors who had preceded him in the position. As a police officer only recently removed from the beat, Stenvig affirmed and physically embodied the unmediated, practical knowledge of the street and everyday experience. In his rhetoric Stenvig attacked liberals' attempts to apply theoretical knowledge to "real world" problems, and dismissed the notion that politicians needed to rely on academic professors, business leaders, and community activists in order to govern. This article demonstrates that the cultural resentments attributed to the "backlash" of the 1960s and 1970s were not solely motivated by racism, patriotism, and the desire to maintain traditional cultural values, but also included anger toward presumed liberal expertise.

On Teaching: "Making Globalization Ordinary": Using the Web to Teach Globalization

By Stacy Tackacs
"Making Globalization Ordinary" examines the challenge posed by globalization to traditional conceptions of the nation-state and offers a case study for how to address these transformations in the introductory American Studies class context. It is particularly geared toward colleges and universities in the Mid-American region where circumstances encourage students to think of globalization as a distant and relatively unimportant problem. It seeks to provide answers to the following questions: How do you teach about globalization in areas where the most destabilizing effects of capitalist transformation seem unrelated to daily life? Where global migrations increasingly affect local conditions, but in ways that are obscured by persistent patterns of ethnic, racial, and class privilege? Where politicians, economic leaders, and heritage industries all tout the timelessness of "local values" and encourage a willful blindness to the global penetration and reconfiguration of the local?

The Class Divide in American Culture in the Early Twentieth Century

By Judith Smith

Other Issues

Spring/Summer 2009, Vol. 50, No. 1/2
Aaron Douglas and the Harlem Renaissance, Vol. 49, No. 1/2
Winter 2007, Vol. 48, No. 4
Fall 2007, Vol. 48, No. 3
"Homosexuals in Unexpected Places?", Vol. 48, No. 2
Spring 2007, Vol. 48, No. 1
Fall/Winter 2006, Vol 47, No 3/4
Summer 2006, Vol 47, No 2
Indigeneity at the Crossroads of American Studies , Vol. 46, Nos. 3/4