This book is based on a symposium which took place in April 2009 and was part of a year-long
celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Max Kade Institute for
German-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It presents ten essays by
scholars from North America and Europe working in the humanities social sciences and natural
sciences that endeavor to move the discipline of German-American studies away from the narrowly
conceived historical investigation of the migration of ethnic Germans to America that has
dominated the field for decades. The traditional understanding of what it meant to be
German-American as well as the myths associated with the ethnicity language and literature of
this large group of immigrants are thrown into question and reassessed and potential
directions for the future of the field - as it exists on both sides of the Atlantic - are
posited. The novel approach of this volume examines German-American studies from historical
literary cultural geographical and linguistic perspectives among others and seeks to
redefine the field as the study of the total experience of German-speaking immigrants and their
descendants as seen in a global multicultural and interdisciplinary context.
