“Developing a Signature Pedagogy for American Studies in the UK” workshop

Citation

Toth G “Developing a Signature Pedagogy for American Studies in the UK” workshop.

Abstract
"In the next breakout session, we should move on to discussing what we teach as American Studies, what make our teaching American Studies, and what it means to be teaching American Studies in the here and now. These are the questions we should share about in the breakout session – and add our thoughts in notes on the padlet/in the document. - The field of American Studies is diverse, multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary, decentered: do we share any common pedagogies? Or do we use our various fields’ pedagogies to teach a geographical focus, such as the United States? - What, if anything, is “American Studies” about our pedagogies? Is it any technique, format, general approach, or a geographical focus? - To what extent should our American Studies pedagogy reflect the critical frames and approaches of our American Studies scholarship? (in the UK). - To what extent are our American Studies pedagogies nationally grounded or specific to the UK? Do we use the UK as a geographical, political, and/or cultural vantage point, for the understanding of issues in American Studies through teaching and learning? Do we find needs or interests amongst our students specific to the UK, as opposed to other countries? With our teaching, are we responding to / intervening in (?!) the changing circumstances, directions or politics of the UK (think Brexit, “Global Britain”, Black Lives Matter, etc.) vis-à-vis our geographies and entities of study?"

Keywords
American Studies pedagogies; American Studies in the United Kingdom; signature pedagogies

People

Dr Gyorgy Toth

Lecturer, History