220053 Spaces of Empire: Cultural Geography of the United States at the Turn of the 19th Century (BS) (SoSe 2015)

Despite its currency in 21st century discourses regarding the United States’ global presence, the term ‘empire’ has proved to be tough to pin down with a clear-cut definition, tricky to use universally in reference to the course of the history of the United States, and troubling to map out as a single trajectory. To map the United States while it tended to expand, to locate it on world maps while it resisted following European models of imperialism, and to estimate its distance from the world while it actively sought to find its way in overseas markets and battlefields were part of what fin-de-siècle Americans had to deal with on the national scale and to communicate to the next generation in preparation for the coming century.

Spaces of Empire is an attempt to provide a historical/geographical reading of such complexities in discussing various definitions and spatial implications of empire’ in/for fin-de-siècle United States. As such, the block seminar introduces a number of theoretical frameworks in cultural geography and space studies in order to understand the complexities of this concept as it was defined, practiced, and at times defied by American adults at the turn of the 19th century. Furthermore, different cultural geographical scales onto which the American Empire could be charted and mapped will be identified. This introduction will be followed by the analysis of various historical sources which primarily, but not solely, addressed American children, ranging from juvenile periodicals, to school geography primers, and home entertainment.

A reader will be provided which includes texts on the course’s theoretical framework, contemporary discussions of empire in its U.S. American context, as well as the historical sources under examination.