In this presentation I seek to investigate Cold War 2.0 within the framework of transnational American Studies, with special attention to the geopolitics of the transpacific.
On the one hand, I examine the role that technology has played in the American national imaginary and proliferation of what Donald Pease powerfully critiques as American exceptionalism. Specifically, I explore why and how artificial intelligence and other four critical technologies may serve as hardware and infrastructure of Cold War 2.0.
On the other hand, I examine Cold War 2.0 as a possible turning point in the rise of the Global South and interrogate it in terms of a global power shift within the longue durée of the US-centered global order. As a concluding gesture, I perform a reading of the speculative fiction, Ghost Fleet, and discuss a possible scenario that critics refer to as “the post-American world.”

Dr. Yuan Shu is Professor of English, American Studies and Director of the Asian Studies Program at Texas Tech University.
Dr. Shu earned his Ph.D. in English and American Studies from Indiana University at Bloomington. He has co-edited several influential volumes, including American Studies as Transnational Practice (Dartmouth College Press, 2015) and Oceanic Archives and Transpacific American Studies (Hong Kong University Press, 2019). His current book project, Empire and Cosmo-politics: Technology, Race, Transpacific Chinese American Writing, is under revision with the Univ. of Massachusetts Press. He is a 2025 fellow of the Obama Institute.

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Presentation in the seminar “Chinese American Relations” – Session open to everyone.

The presentation traces the main features of the Westward Movement and the engagement of the United States in the Pacific as well as in Asia, especially the Korean and Vietnam wars. They are the background to the rise of transpacific literatures.

Dr. Yuan Shu is Professor of English, American Studies and Director of the Asian Studies Program at Texas Tech University.
Dr. Shu earned his Ph.D. in English and American Studies from Indiana University at Bloomington. He has co-edited several influential volumes, including American Studies as Transnational Practice (Dartmouth College Press, 2015) and Oceanic Archives and Transpacific American Studies (Hong Kong University Press, 2019). His current book project, Empire and Cosmo-politics: Technology, Race, Transpacific Chinese American Writing, is under revision with the Univ. of Massachusetts Press. He is a 2025 fellow of the Obama Institute.

You can download the poster for the event here.

Danielle Spencer is the author of Metagnosis: Revelatory Narratives of Health and Identity (Oxford University Press, 2021) and co-author of Perkins-Prize-winning The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine (OUP, 2017). A faculty member in the Columbia University Narrative Medicine Graduate Program, her scholarly and creative work appears in diverse outlets, from The Lancet to Ploughshares, and she is the Editor of the Anthem Press Advances in Human Medicines book series. Formerly artist/musician David Byrne’s Art Director, Spencer holds a B.A. from Yale University, an M.S. in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and has been awarded fellowships at MacDowell and Yaddo. Lives in New York city. 

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Zusammen mit einem Kollegen hat Peter Höyng zwei Romane von österreichischen Autoren der 1920er Jahre aus dem Deutschen ins Englische übersetzt und herausgegeben:
Hugo Bettauer, The Blue Stain. A Novel of a Racial Outcast (1922). Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2017.
Arthur Rundt, Marylin. A Novel of Passing (1928). Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2022.
Obwohl sich beide Romane in Stil und Inhalt wesentlich voneinander unterscheiden, eint sie, dass sie ihrem deutschsprachigen Publikum ein Bild der rassistischen USA vorführen, um eine anti-rassistische Haltung bei der LeserIn zu evozieren.
Sein Vortrag reflektiert über diese Übertragung in doppelter Hinsicht oder in interkultureller Absicht. Zum einen kann die Übersetzung als ein zeitgemäßer Beitrag innerhalb der German studies in Nordamerika verstanden werden. Zum anderen kann die Übertragung aber auch als ein Dokument interkultureller Germanistik gewertet werden, deutsche Literatur in ihrem Versuch das Fremde, ein Drittes oder das Andere zu integrieren. Kurzum versteht sich sein Vortrag als ein Beitrag zur interkulturellen Germanistik, bei der die Germanistik und German studies in Nordamerika zueinander in ein dialogisches Verhältnis treten.

Peter Höyng [ausgesprochen: Hö-ing] studierte Germanistik und europäische Geschichte in Bonn und Siegen, bevor er seinen Doktorgrad mit einer Dissertation zu historischen Dramen im 18. Jahrhundert an der University of Wisconsin-Madison erlangte. Seit 2005 lehrt und forscht er an der Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Aus kulturhistorischer Sicht publiziert er zahlreich zu Themen, die sich vor allem aus seinem Interesse an österreichischer Literatur und Kultur entzünden. So hat er beispielsweise zu Werken von assimilierten Juden wie Theodor Herzl, Hugo Bettauer, Georg Kreisler oder George Tabori gearbeitet, wie auch zum Theater von Elfriede Jelinek oder Thomas Bernhard veröffentlicht, oder aber zu Beethoven als Leser von Literatur zahlreiche Essays vorgelegt. Neben seinen über 50 Essays, hat er insgesamt vier Bücher editiert und eine Monographie publiziert.

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Writing against the Western tradition of freezing Native cultures in a long-gone past, Indigenous Futurism has established itself as a movement in the arts that creates Indigenous perspectives in the context of science fiction and related subgenres. This lecture investigates the artwork of Ryan Singer (Navajo) at the intersection of pop art, activism, and Indigenous Futurism. Singer’s artistic engagements with the fictional characters and settings of the Star Wars franchise are read as pop artistic acts of cultural and political decolonization.

Karsten Fitz is professor of American Studies/Cultural and Media Studies at the University of Passau. He is the author of The American Revolution Remembered, 1830s to 1850s: Competing Images and Conflicting Narratives (2011) and co-editor of the book series Transnational Indigenous Perspectives (Routledge). Among others, his research interests include Indigenous Studies, theories of cultural encounters, American cultural memory, visual culture studies, and political culture in transatlantic contexts.

You can download the poster for the event here.