Interdisciplinary Research Group for North American Studies (IANAS)

• Objectives
• Chairs
• Activities
• Lecture series
• Interdisciplinary Learning
• Conferences
• Special Research Projects
• Perspectives
• Cooperations

Objectives:

The Interdisciplinary Research Group for North American Studies (IANAS) at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz gathers scholars from nine departments of the humanities and social studies to advance multidisciplinary research and teaching pertaining to the United States and Canada.

IANAS initiates and supports interdisciplinary lecture courses, conferences, and special research projects. The result of these activities are recorded and published in monographs, essay collections, and a series of working papers (Arbeitspapiere zur Nordamerikaforschung)

Chairs:

Chairman:

Deputy Chairwoman:

PD Dr. Sabina Matter-Seibel (FB 06)
Tel. (07274) 50835167

Deputy Chairman:

HD Dr. Helmut Schmahl (FB 07)
R 00 635 - Tel. (06131) 39-24457

Activities

Lecture series:

International scholars from various disciplines contribute to our lecture series which aim to discuss significant aspects of North American studies. Examples include:

• The Challenge of Americanization
• What Became of the Great Society: The U.S.A. 1964/1994
• Learning from Each Other: 50 Years of German-American Exchanges
• Zwischen den Kulturen? Deutsche im amerikanischen Exil (Between Cultures? Exiled Germans in America)
• Amerika: Entdeckung - Eroberung - Erfindung (America: Discovery - Conquest - Invention)

Interdisciplinary learning

IANAS initiates teaching assignments that involve at least two instructors from different disciplines. These courses are designed for students from diverse academic fields and departments. Examples include:

• English: The Global Language of Sports and the Mass Media
• The American Presidency
• Hessian Mercenaries in the American War of Independence

Conferences

Academic conferences provide a forum for interdisciplinary and international discussions of approaches and results in the field of North American studies. Examples include:

• 50 Years Americans in Rhineland-Palatinate
• Theory and Practice of Continuing Education in the United States
• Religion in African American Culture
• Menschen zwischen zwei Welten: Auswanderung, Ansiedlung, Akkulturation, Rückwanderung (People Between Two Worlds: Emigration, Settlement, Acculturation, Remigration)
• The Salem Witchcraft Persecutions

Special Research Projects

"Americans in Rhineland-Palatinate"

...more at Project: "Americans in Rhineland-Palatinate"

More than 40 years of intercultural encounters between Germans and Americans in Rhineland-Palatinate since World War II suggested a documentation of German-American relations in this state. Since 1992, the research project "Americans in Rhineland-Palatinate" has been assessing the impact of the American military presence. So far, studies have focused on the early times of the German-American "culture shock" in the 1950s and the early 1960s, concentrating on:

• The documentation of geographical, economic, political, social and cultural effects of the American presence in Rhineland-Palatinate.
• The analysis of the ways in which the media, especially local press, radio, and TV, reflected the situation.
• Oral history interviews with "average" citizens as well as economic and political leaders and decision-makers. These videotaped interviews document the personal memories and observations on everyday contacts between Germans and Americans.

The interviews with contemporary witnesses that the Mainz scholars of American studies have conducted, are unique in their extent and they incorporate an immense wealth of observations from the early times of German-American encounters. Remarks such as the one that even older American women wore colorful clothes and not only dark shades, as was conventional in Germany at the time, say just as much about the cultures of the observers as about the culture of the observed. (translated from: Frank Wittig. Beispielsweise - Wissenschaft an der Schwelle zum 21. Jahrhundert. Mainz: Schmidt, 1996. p. 29).

The bilingual festschrift Nachbar Amerika: 50 Jahre Amerikaner in Rheinland-Pfalz / Neighbor America: Americans in Rhineland-Palatinate, 1945-1995 (Trier: WVT, 1995) features major contributions to the project. In this context, “Americans in Rhineland-Palatinate” have become the subject of numerous conferences and publications as well as dissertations and theses. The exhibition “Fremde - Freunde - Nachbarn? 50 Jahre Amerikaner in Rheinland-Pfalz” (“Strangers – Friends – Neighbors? 50 Years Americans in Rhineland-Palatinate“) featured photographs from the collection of the research project. Among other places, it was shown at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Perspectives

• Americanization and globalization will remain a central concern of IANAS research. For example, a comparative study of political rhetoric in the United States and Germany is planned.
• A special research project on “German war brides in the United States” is under way. After World War II, many German women, who had married American soldiers or wanted to do so, followed their partners to the United States. IANAS intends to track the lives of these people as it may soon become impossible to receive first-hand accounts of their experience of transatlantic migration.
• IANAS will continue to publish its research, as in the forthcoming collection of essays Amerikanisierung als Herausforderung: The Challenge of Americanization (Winfried Herget, Hg. Trier: WVT Trier).
• Public forums will discuss topical issues in the United States and Canada and their effects on Europe.

Partners and Cooperations:

The Research Group would like to acknowledge the following partners and institutions:

...more information at Lectures, conferences