Perspectives on American students

Abstract

The widespread interest in American Studies that is now accelerating in Southeast Asia at the post-secondary level originated in the form of background studies for students of American literature. The presentation, usually through lectures of factual information about American life and institutions, was designed to teach students about the social, economic, and political background to the great works of literature they were studying. This, however, often led to the problem of how to relate this historical information to the realities of contemporary American culture. A further problem has arisen with the rapid expansion of Englishlanguage teaching in the ASEAN region over the past fifteen years, since this has sometimes triggered the belief that cultural studies constitute a mere topping up or supplement to language studies rather than an area worthy of study in its own right. The danger for academics in the university is to fail to respond to the need for innovative curriculum design where literature courses were previously the purveyors of American culture. Maintaining old-style programs and renaming them American Studies or American Multicultural Studies may appear to be a short-term solution, but in the longterm will be counter-productive.