Response to Susan Castillo Interesting Times

Offering a pragmatic, experiential and personal response to Susan Castillo's Interesting Times, Hans Bak argues that American exceptionalism, rather than being dead as the legendary dodo, seems a phoenix that continues to rise from its own ashes, and that the transnational or internationalist perspective in American Studies called for by Susan Castillo has in effect been central to the reconfigurations of many European American Studies programs for some years, both in theory and pedagogical practice. He pleads for a firmer methodological and institutionalized grounding, so that European Americanists can fully avail themselves of their unique positioning to implement a transnational, comparative, multilingual approach to American Studies.