This book focuses on the various propagations of American culture in literature, music, film, "the new media," architecture, politics, and ways of life. The essays question the notion of (anti-) Americanism as an object-oriented construct, a convenient vehicle used to transport ideology. The spectrum of topics includes the historical dimensions of European anti-Americanism roots of anti-Americanism in post-World War II Austria, and the relationship between anti-Americanism and American studies.

Shrill, beefy, drilled - hard bodies populate pop culture and science books alike. The essays in this volume trace the flexing muscles of the hard body in various disciplines and spatio-temporal contexts: from the medieval wooer in panty hose to the soldier in a bombsuit, from sculpted marble bodies to the treacherous images of German Terrormädels, from 19th century self-improvement manuals to 21st century technoporn, from Ballets Russes to Charlie's Angels, from Afro-Brazilian male sleeping beauties to the black female war machine.

While the end of the US's civil war marked a boom in US tourism in Europe, Austria's own civil war in 1934 both curtailed American tourism in Austria and marked a small, but important, wave of Austrian emigration to the US. The essays in this volume explore the ways Austrian-born immigrants in those years defined their own identities as American citizens; how they interpreted, performed, and profited from "American" modernity at home; and how their work - as immigrating authors, film makers, and musicians - impacted mainstream culture in the US, illuminating often overlooked connections, not...