The New North American Studies

Book excerpt: Winner of the English Book Award, Grand Prix du Livre 2006 de la Ville de Sherbrooke. In this original and groundbreaking study, Winfried Siemerling examines the complexities of recognition and identity, rejecting previous nationalized thinking to approach North American cultural transformations from transnational and interdisciplinary perspectives. Using material from the United States and Canada as case studies and drawing on a wide range of texts and theorists, he examines postcoloniality and cultural emergence from the sixties to the present against earlier backgrounds. Siemerling's argument for a retheorization of the field takes on the full history of multiculturalism debates, including radical readings of W.E.B. Du Bois and Charles Taylor and their relation to G.W.F. Hegel, and challenging many of the models of multiculturalism in use today. Tackling controversial subjects such as identity politics, The New North American Studies proposes a fresh outlook on the most central issues of North American cultural politics, from debates on canon formation to the role of racial and linguistic difference. Concluding with a look at the future of cultural difference, Winfried Siemerling's study is an innovative rethinking of the whole field of North American Studies.