American Cultural Studies: The Epistemic Reconfiguration of the Field in the Context of Postmodernism

The current paper aims to establish the force lines that marked the emergence and transformation of the American Cultural Studies as an academic discipline and a domain of intellectual enquiry. The transition from the consensus model - crystallized around the adherence to myth and overarching identity structures - to a configuration perceived as the site of dissensus and subversion of the Grand Narratives was effected under the influence of postmodernism in its double role as an aesthetic practice and a cultural phenomenon. America, in its dual acceptation as a geographical and socio-political reality - on the one hand - and as a cultural space and constructed reality - on the other hand - represents the object of epistemic engagement of the American Cultural Studies. Therefore, it had to undergo a similar transformation as concerns the accompanying signifying and hermeneutic practices. The aura of permanence and exceptionalism grounded in a mythical and symbolic vision collapsed, being shattered by the cultural and social effervescence of the "explosive sixties" and dissolved into the fluidity and inclusivity of postmodernism which permeated the intellectual landscape. The American Studies discourse, articulated through a permanent repositioning and semantic renegotiation, reflects the continuous reversal of hierarchies and displacement of the center by the periphery operated by postmodernism.