Introduction

This Forum seeks to provide the readers of J19 with an exemplary glimpse into American studies in Germany today, with a view to how scholars in this particular academic framework see its position in the larger field. Sascha Pöhlmann’s introduction first proffers a brief overview of the discipline’s complex history in this particular national context, while the four main contributions by Johanna Heil, Heinz Ickstadt, Kerstin Schmidt and Clemens Spahr take a more hybrid perspective by combining the personal with the scholarly. The contributors to this Forum reflect the regional diversity in American Studies in Germany, but more importantly they also reflect the structural diversity of the field with regard to different career stages and thus the contexts in which they embarked on and have practiced American studies. Their essays address the general question of what it means to be an Americanist in Germany both politically and intellectually, and their answers are exemplary in that they are unique, individual voices but are also indicative of broader cultural contexts.