Birgit M. Bauridl Livres

Rooted in Transnational American Studies, this collection explores German-American encounters in Bavaria since 1945. Spanning a trajectory from the end of World War II to the contemporary American presence in the region, the articles and visuals discuss the impact of the transnational contact zone on negotiations of democratization, historical guilt, cultural diplomacy, identity politics, military cooperation, economic interaction, pop and folk culture, literature, memory, museums, and tourism. Articles on Rhineland-Palatinate, Austria, and the Netherlands signify the complexity of European-American relations. The volume complicates bipolar, solidifying comparative approaches in favor of multidirectional, fluid conceptualizations of intercultural transfer and transnational entanglements.

The volume is uniquely located at the interdisciplinary crossroads of Performance Studies and transnational American Studies. As both a method and an object of study, performance deepens our understanding of transnational phenomena and America’s position in the world. The thirteen original contributions make use of the field’s vast potential and critically explore a wide array of cultural, political, social, and aesthetic performances on and off the stage. They scrutinize transnational trajectories and address issues central to the American Studies agenda such as representation, power, (ethnic and gender) identities, social mobility, and national imaginaries. As an American Studies endeavor, the volume highlights the cultural, political, and (inter)disciplinary implications of performance.

'Betwixt, between, or beyond?' is the first study of contemporary black performance poetry from the viewpoint of transnational American Studies. It investigates a vast array of performances ranging from online recordings to political rallies to the poetry slam and Broadway stage. Black poets discussed come from diverse personal and cultural backgrounds and include, e. g., Patricia Smith, Staceyann Chin, Taalam Acey, Bryonn Bain, and Tshaka Campbell. Developing an approach rooted in anthropological, ethnographic, and theatrical perceptions of performance, the study explores poetry as a liminal site of negotiation, scrutinizes its relationship to national and cultural formations, and addresses issues such as the black experience; memory; identity; and the construction of (imagined) communities. Fusing concepts of African American Studies and Performance Studies with critical questions triggered by the transnational paradigm, the study insists on the participation of black performance poetry in (trans)national processes and highlights its cultural implications and socio-political performativity.