American vistas and beyond

The twenty-three essays by American and European scholars collected in this volume were written to honor Professor Roland Hagenbüchle on his 70th birthday. Ranging from America's colonial beginnings to the twenty-first century, they examine America's multifacted national „vistas“ as well as their complex interrelations with European literatures and cultures. While part one focuses on the changing constructions of American literary and cultural identities from Puritanism to Postmodernism, part two examines the negotiations of America's intracultural ethnic diversity and polyvocality, as well as the formative role of its transatlantic dialogic encounters with Europe. The third and final section addresses the enabling contribution of inter- and cross-disciplinary dialogues to past and present concerns in American Studies.