American Studies in a Moment of Danger (Critical American Studies Series)

Rating:
Summary: bloody excellent book!
Review: If you liked/read nearly anything by Michael Berube (_Public Access_ and _The Employment of English_) or Cary Nelson (_Manifesto of a Tenured Radical_<-- C. Nelson's pointed response to Roger Kimball's right-wing bombast _Tenured Radicals_), then you should buy this book or check it out from your local library. As a grad student in Library & Information Sciences, I must declare that this book is a must for any Academic Library! Lipsitz very much continues the conversation begun by Berube in _Public Access_ and Cary Nelson, et. al. in their probing work on the exciting emergence of "Cultural Studies" in Higher Education.
"American Studies" as described by Lipsitz here is basically CultStud informed by US cultural/social/political history and
literature. It is very engaging reading, especially the chapters
on the legacies of the 1930s, 1960s, and 1980s (and the ideological uses of a distorted IMAGE of the 1960s by Reagan/Thatcher Neoconservatives in the 1980s down to the present
day, which Lipsitz documents and condemns persuasively throughout
his book). The book explores the ongoing, changing myths/images that ask "what is/are" the thing(s) that make up this cultural entity we call the US of A. Lipsitz is a very entertaining, very
gifted writer, and as was the case with Michael Berube's work,
I literally could not put Lipsitz's book down! This book shows the enormous promise and power of American Studies (e.g. cultural studies) and gives a definitive example of "how it's done".
Loved it!

Rating:
Summary: bloody excellent book!
Review: If you liked/read nearly anything by Michael Berube (_Public Access_ and _The Employment of English_) or Cary Nelson (_Manifesto of a Tenured Radical_<-- C. Nelson's pointed response to Roger Kimball's right-wing bombast _Tenured Radicals_), then you should buy this book or check it out from your local library. As a grad student in Library & Information Sciences, I must declare that this book is a must for any Academic Library! Lipsitz very much continues the conversation begun by Berube in _Public Access_ and Cary Nelson, et. al. in their probing work on the exciting emergence of "Cultural Studies" in Higher Education.
"American Studies" as described by Lipsitz here is basically CultStud informed by US cultural/social/political history and
literature. It is very engaging reading, especially the chapters
on the legacies of the 1930s, 1960s, and 1980s (and the ideological uses of a distorted IMAGE of the 1960s by Reagan/Thatcher Neoconservatives in the 1980s down to the present
day, which Lipsitz documents and condemns persuasively throughout
his book). The book explores the ongoing, changing myths/images that ask "what is/are" the thing(s) that make up this cultural entity we call the US of A. Lipsitz is a very entertaining, very
gifted writer, and as was the case with Michael Berube's work,
I literally could not put Lipsitz's book down! This book shows the enormous promise and power of American Studies (e.g. cultural studies) and gives a definitive example of "how it's done".
Loved it!