User:English 468/Transatlantic literary studies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Transatlantic literary studies refers to the study of North American and European literature in a manner that takes into consideration transatlantic influences in its scope of research and analysis. Most commonly, transatlantic literary studies focuses on Anglo-American literature, placing the bodies of American Literature and British Literature in a transatlantic context.
Transatlantic literary studies is a part of transatlantic studies, a broader topic of study that encompasses many disciplines, including: Political Science, Comparative Constitutionalism, International Relations, Art History, Security Studies, History, Literature, Cultural Geography, Population Studies, and Environmental Studies. The inauguration of the Transatlantic Studies Association on July 11th, 2002 garnered scholarly interest for the transatlantic perspective of literary studies. NATO commended the initiative of this association, and from it The Journal of Transatlantic Studies was born.
Though transatlantic anthologies have begun circulating as early as 1945 with Robert Charles Le Clair’s Three American travelers in England: James Russell Lowell, Henry Adams, Henry James, the study of transatlantic literature is relatively new and groundbreaking. Paul Giles, a university lecturer in American Literature at the University of Cambridge is a prominent researcher using this approach to Anglo-American literature. His published works, which include Transatlantic Insurrections: British Culture and the Formation of American Literature, 1730-1860 (2001), and Atlantic Republic: The American Tradition in English Literature (2006), explore methods and aims of studying American Literature and British Literature in a transatlantic manner.
Transatlantic literary studies aims to break away from the traditional canonical technique of studying the two bodies of literature in isolation. In transatlantic literary studies, British and American Literature are read comparatively, but are also considered in relation to the historical, political, economic, and cultural contexts in which they were created.