The contributors in this interdisciplinary collection address the problem of interconnection between the study of the "Other," either Russian or American, and the shaping of national identities in the two countries at different stages of US-Russian relations. The focus of research interests were typically determined by the political and social debates in scholars' native countries. In this book, leading Russian and American scholars analyze the problems arising from these intersections of academic, political, and sociocultural contexts and the implicit biases they entail. The book is divided into two parts, the first being a historical overview of past configurations of the interrelationship between fields and agendas, and the second covering the role of institutionalized area studies in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In both parts the role of the "human factor" in the study of mutual representations is elucidating.
Part 1: US Russian Studies and Russian Amerikanistika in Historical Retrospective Chapter 1: How Home Agenda Defines the Study of the Other: Russia and the US in the 1850s, Ivan I. Kurilla Chapter 2: Russian Ideas of Cassius M. Clay, Vladimir V. Noskov Chapter 3: Zenaida Ragozin and Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood: Two Remarkable Russian American Women, Norman E. Saul Chapter 4: Russian Studies in the United States and Amerikanistika in the Russian Empire: Imagination and Study of the Other in the context of Peace and World War, Victoria I. Zhuravleva Chapter 5: Russian Sociologists Abroad and Their Influence on Russian Studies in the United States in the First Half of the 20th Century, Marina B. Bulanova Chapter 6: Between Moscow and the West: Constructing the Soviet Self in the American Studies in Soviet Russia and Ukraine during Late Socialism (1956-1991), Sergei I. Zhuk Chapter 7: Zbigniew Brzezinski's Appraisal of the Systemic Inadequacies of Soviet-Style Communism: Bureaucratization, Degeneration, and the Failed Quest for Transformation, Mark Kramer Chapter 8: The Pedagogy of Patriotism: America and Americans in Soviet Children's Literature, Milla Fedorova Chapter 9: American Literary Canons in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Russia, Olga Yu. Antsyferova Part 2: Disciplines and Area Studies Centers in the Context of Foreign Policy Making and Societal Demand Chapter 10: Russia in the Representations of the Council on Foreign Relations during the Period of Nonrecognition, Alexander B. Okun and Iana V. Shchetinskaia Chapter 11: Knowing Allies and Enemies: The World War II Origins of Soviet Studies in American Universities, David C. Engerman Chapter 12: Slavic and Soviet Area Studies at the University of Kansas, Richard T. De George Chapter 13: The Politics of Knowledge: Teaching Russian Studies at an American Community College, William B. Whisenhunt Chapter 14: American Studies on the Shores of Neva: in the Pursuit of Scholarly Identity, Alexander I. Kubyshki and Ivan Tsvetkov Chapter 15: Contemporary Dialogue of Russian and American Historiographies, Vladimir V. Sogrin Chapter 16: Studying Russian Politics after the Cold War: Changes and Challenges, Vladimir Gel'man
