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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Spring 2007, Vol. 48, No. 1

Black Artists and Activism:  Harlem on My Mind (1969)

By Bridget R. Cooks
At the end of the Civil Rights Movement, the Metropolitan Museum of Art organized Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900-1968, an exhibition that sought to explore the history and value of the predominantly Black community of Harlem, New York. In organizing one of the most controversial exhibitions in United States history, the Metropolitan decided to exclude Harlemites from participating in the exhibition planning and to exclude artwork by Harlem's thriving artist community from the exhibition. The museum justified this decision by arguing the Harlem itself was a work of art and the inclusion of artworks in Harlem on My Mind would only detract from the overall exhibition. Public unrest led to boycotts of the exhibition before it even opened. This article details the struggles of Harlem-based artists to confront and challenge the unethical machinations of the institutional epicenter of the postwar international art world. This discussion addresses the critical appropriations of the event forged by black visual artists, photographers, and visitors who brought a competing set of political and emotional investments in the documentary works on display. It also demonstrates that the surge of Black activism spurred by the Harlem on My Mind controversy eventually pushed mainstream art institutions to feature black art exhibitions and launch community-based initiatives in support of black talents. The response of Black visual artists to the exhibition was an important part of the nascent Black Arts Movement's development of an institutional infrastructure necessary to nourish Black art production and exhibition, and to redefine the political and aesthetic dynamics of the moment.

Appropriating Universality:  The Coltranes and 1960s Spirituality

By Franya J. Berkman
During the sixties, Americans increasingly rejected mainline denominations in favor of alternative, eclectic, and non-Western spiritual paths. For African Americans, such pursuits contributed to the goals of challenging racial and religious cultural hegemony. These spiritual explorations have had a lasting impact on jazz music. Many jazz musicians were exposed to the sounds and musical processes they discovered in the foreign cultures from which these traditions emerged. Though less audible, non-Western spiritual traditions also exerted a more abstract philosophical influence, inspiring artists to dissolve formal and stylistic boundaries and produce works of great originality. Contextualizing the spiritual explorations of John and Alice Coltrane within the American religious culture and liberation movements of the sixties, this essay explores the way that their eclectic appropriation of Eastern spiritual concepts and their commitment to spiritual universality not only inspired musical innovation, but also provided a counter-hegemonic, political and cultural critique.

Harriet Martineau's Exceptional American Narratives: Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown, and the "Redemption of Your National Soul"

By Ted Hovet Jr.
This essay argues for British writer and reformer Harriet Martineau's importance to mid-nineteenth century American cultural and literary history. Martineau maintained long and deep relationships with key American figures during this period, especially those surrounding the abolitionist movement. Using her writing about John Brown and Harriet Beecher Stowe as a catalyst, I will analyze Martineau's importance to this period, especially her influence on anti-slavery writing and her efforts to define a particular kind of American exceptionalism. Martineau's commentary on Stowe and Brown reveals the key elements of her methods as an abolitionist writer and serves as an example of how she encouraged her readers on both sides of the Atlantic to come to a particular understanding of America itself. My analysis of this commentary can serve as a model for additional consideration of Martineau's valuable contributions to American studies.

“Ribbons of Steel and Concrete”: A Cultural Biography of the Buffalo Skyway (1955)

By William Graebner
The Buffalo Skyway, a mile long and 110 feet high, opened in 1955 in an atmosphere of triumph and celebration, city planners certain that the enormous structure would invigorate the area's economy by eliminating troublesome rail and automobile bottlenecks between the city's downtown core and lakeshore plants and factories to the southwest. Today, the bridge is the whipping boy for politicians and regionalists, who view the structure as a concrete dinosaur, astride waterfront land that might otherwise be productively developed, ala Baltimore. This essay examines the cultural forces that produced the Skyway and many similar structures of the era. It contextualizes Buffalo's high-level bridge not just as an instrument of efficiency and commercial renewal, but as an icon of size and power, speed and mobility, movement and flight--a piece of 'structural art' in the mode of biomorphic, vital forms modernism, built and engineered for those who loved to drive, in the golden age of the American automobile.

Talking Books, Selling Selves: Rereading the Politics of Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative

By Matthew J. Pethers
Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative (1789) has often been seen as being ambiguously implicated in the emergence of liberal modernity, with Equiano's self-purchase and free-trade proselytizing marking out both the promise and the danger of economic individualism. This essay, while paying close attention to these arguments, also seeks to move beyond this conceptual paradigm by exploring how Equiano's autobiography connects with the wider political complexities of the Revolutionary era. In particular, I use recent historiographical debates about the values of the Founding Fathers to reframe the Interesting Narrative within an ideological universe where classical republicanism and modern liberalism existed as forces that were both antagonistic and inseparable. When considered in relation to the social theory of figures as diverse as Adam Smith and Benjamin Rush, Equiano's pioneering slave narrative can be seen as engaging not only with competing models of liberalism but also with the possibilities and problems of civic humanism. Moving rhetorically between print and profit, self-interest and disinterest, virtue and commerce, the Interesting Narrative stands revealed as a deeply conflicted text which uses a patchwork of political ideas to negotiate the minefields of African-American bondage.

Other Issues

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