1st Edition
An Unfamiliar America Essays in American Studies
This collection focuses on conceptions of the unfamiliar from the viewpoint of mainstream American history: aliens, immigrants, ethnic groups, and previously unencountered ideas and ideologies in Trumpian America. The book suggests bringing historical thinking back to the center of American Studies, given that it has been recently challenged by the influential memory studies boom. As much as identity-building appears to be the central concern for much of the current practice in American history writing, it is worth keeping in mind that historical truth may not always directly contribute to one's identity-building. The researcher’s constant quest for truth does not equate to already possessing it. History changes all the time, because it consists of our constant reinterpretation of the past. It is only the past that does not change. This collection aims at keeping these two apart, while scrutinizing a variety of contested topics in American history, from xenophobic attitudes toward eighteenth-century university professors, Apache masculinity, Ku Klux Klan, Tom Waits's lyrics, and the politics of the Trump era.
Introduction
Ari Helo and Mikko Saikku
Part 1: Facing and Adapting to an Unfamiliar America
1. "Hoist That Rag": Tom Waits, the Uncanny, and the Old, Weird America
Jeffrey L. Meikle
2. "Damn the European Professors": Higher Education and Xenophobia in Jefferson’s Virginia
Alan Taylor
3. "Brave Men to Brave Men": Experiencing Honor and Masculinities on a Settler Colonial Borderland
Janne Lahti
4. Aleš Hrdlička and the Boundaries of Whiteness
Mark A. Brandon
Part 2: Conservatives and Liberals in the Unfamiliar Trumpian America
5. Defending the Unreached and Unknown: American Evangelical Advocacy for International Religious Freedom
Lauren F. Turek
6. Elite Unfamiliarity and Popular Recognition: Texas Tea Party Republicans’ Embrace of Donald Trump in 2016
James Henson
7. Trump and the Christian Right: The Political Theology Behind the Mutual Attraction
Markku Ruotsila
8. Voting Against the Unfamiliar: The Rural/Urban Divide in U.S. Elections
Jerry Pubantz
9. It Can't Happen Here: The Struggle Against Tyranny and the Trouble with Liberalism
Bo Pettersson
Part 3: African American History and the Present
10. History Matters
William H. Chafe
11. Race in the Cultural Politics of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan
Niko Heikkilä
12. Emmett Till, History and Memory
Elliott J. Gorn
13. The Lessons of the Civil Rights Movement for Activists in Xenophobic Times
Cheryl Greenberg
Biography
Ari Helo is a Senior University Lecturer in North American Studies at the University of Helsinki.
Mikko Saikku is the McDonnell Douglas Professor of American Studies at the University of Helsinki.
