Studies in United States Culture

Studies in United States Culture will publish provocative books that explore United States culture in its many forms and spheres of influence. We seek interdisciplinary work characterized by big ideas, brisk prose, bold storytelling, and methodological sophistication.

In this endeavor, we build on the intellectual origins and historical development of American Studies as a field. In the last quarter century, scholars engaged in interdisciplinary research on United States culture have developed a rich and expansive intellectual practice now flourishing everywhere from academic presses to social media. The best work on literature, music and sound, visual culture, history, documentary arts, and other forms of cultural production regularly cuts across disciplinary bounds to assess the significance and influence of “American culture,” both within the United States and around the globe. Our goal is to publish books that serve as an intellectual meeting ground where scholars from different disciplinary and methodological perspectives can build common lines of inquiry around matters such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, power, and empire in an American context.

We seek authors who work across methodologies, specializations, and disciplines and combine sophisticated textual and archival analysis with equally sophisticated historical analysis. We are especially interested in books that use theory to dig deeply into cultural materials, examining their circulation, reception, interpretation, and reuse.

The series invites submissions from junior and senior scholars whose arguments and archives surprise and provoke their audiences. We will publish books that engage readers, speak to the issues of the present, and contest the contemporary narrowing of intellectual endeavor. The series particularly encourages submissions that experiment with new forms for scholarly and general interest work, including short, strong books that tackle big questions.

Series Editor

Grace Elizabeth Hale, Commonwealth Chair of American Studies and History, University of Virginia

Editorial Board

Sara Blair, University of Michigan
Janet Davis, University of Texas at Austin
Matthew Guterl, Brown University
Franny Nudelman, Carleton University
A. Naomi Paik, University of Illinois-Chicago
Bryant Simon, Temple University

Contact

For further information or to submit a proposal, contact:

Andreína Fernández, Editor
UNC Press
116 South Boundary Street
Chapel Hill, NC 27514

By email:
andreina.fernandez@uncpress.org