The American Question
Abstract
In the summer of 2006, as U.S.-made bombs rained down on Lebanon, President George Bush repeatedly insisted that it was premature to demand an end to the killing, and Condoleezza Rice called the suffering “the birth pangs of a new Middle East” Rice . Lebanon’s share of these pangs included over a thousand dead, a million displaced, infrastructure destroyed, and beaches and harbors polluted with oil. These events were on my mind as I prepared to teach fall semester American studies courses at the American University of Beirut AUB , but in a sense they merely intensified the already existing context for such teaching. On the one hand, such events obviously demonstrate that teaching American studies is not the same everywhere. On the other hand, the U.S. role in this war points to a concern that confronts people almost everywhere because the power of the United States is palpable almost everywhere. I propose to call this concern the American question.
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