미국학이란 무엇인가? = What is 'American Studies'?

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

American Studies in Korea is still inviting some definitional questions. General agreement made about American Studies in Korsa is: American Studies is a field of study dealing with anytopics about the US; it is interdisciplinary by nature; it exists as a form of program composed of several disciplines; and it is a sub-field of area studies, compelled to focus on the comparative study between Korea and the US. This essay is to verify whether these observations are correct by examining the history, theory, method and issues of the movement and, in the process, to define what we mean by 'American Studies.'
First of all, American Studies is a movement to study American culture as a whole. Since its beginnings in the 1920s as an amalgam of history and literature to develop an integrated approach to the study of the national culture, American Studies took on more formal shape in the 1930s. In the post-WWII period, it has seen the golden age of its movement with the emergence of the myth-symbol concept of culture and gradually incorporated subculture studies, expanding later on to encompass such studies like issues on race, ethnicity, and gender. At the start of the 21st century, American Studies is more inclined toward comparative studies with a transnational, global perspective on American culture.
Second, American Studies, in a strict sense, is not an academic discipline. To be a discipline, American Studies must have a given "subject-matter"(American civilization) and an authentic "form"(holistic method) to explain it. Yet, the holistic approach can be applied to explaining any civilization. This explains in part why American Studies does not attain the status of a discipline. Howerver, it is safe to say that American Studies as a field of study is a framework to systematize the American experience. And it is an interdisciplinary venture to synthesize different disciplines in a program.
Finally, American Studies has been traditionally revolved around the debates between the search for unity and the search for diversity in its attempt to define national or cultural identity. In the center stage of the debates is the myth-symbol school, the single and most important theory of American Studies. This bipolar division in American Studies discourse has appeared in various dichotomous concepts--center vs boundary, holism vs pluralism, uniersalism vs multiculturalsim, or most recently nationalism vs postantionalism. In conclusion, American Studies in Korea, another topic for a lengthy essay, should be geared to the study of American culture from the comparative context with an aim to better understand America and its people.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ.미국학의 역사: 등장과 배경
• Ⅱ.미국학의 정의
• Ⅲ.미국학의 학제적 연구방법의 의미
• Ⅳ.미국학의 이론과 쟁점들