Preface and introduction

Abstract

Preface and Introduction The current volume asserts its right to display a diversity of approaches, visions, and areas of investigation in the vast fields explored by the humanities and the social sciences. It has emerged at the confluence of two related projects. One had to do with what is particularly obvious today, in an age of vigorous cultural reassessments and confrontations. Could one still speak of a discernible, prevailing American Imaginary being challenged from various contemporary perspectives? The other project started from the transnational turn in American Studies and the ways in which a multiethnic, multicultural community defines itself in terms of its internal oppositions as well as in terms of its relation to the world outside. It soon became obvious that the two projects had a lot in common and the main thread linking them was the gradual transition from seeing the United States as essentially united to what is now generally accepted as the US as a bewildering expression of cultural diversity. As mentioned, the first project was meant to explore contemporary challenges to the American cultural imaginary, and the discussions which ensued among the potential contributors raised a number of important questions, such as ‘where does the contemporary begin’? The answers are inevitably very subjective, having to do with what, from a recent past, has unquestionable present relevance. At one extreme, as far as written records go, one can arguably go back to….