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Two Concepts of Un-Americanism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 August 2013

ALEX GOODALL
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Abstract

Using the Congressional record, press articles and the extensive literature on the theme of Americanism published in the early decades of the twentieth century, this article seeks to offer a new approach to the history of the idea of “un-Americanism” in the early years of the twentieth century, particularly in the period between the First World War and the Great Depression. It argues that a key distinction may be drawn between a procedural or “negative” concept of un-Americanism, in which the enemy is defined as the person who refuses to accept the liberal political order and therefore exempts themselves from the privileges of citizenship, and a “positive” definition of un-Americanism based on identity and status politics, in which the un-American is seen as the person who fails to meet the criteria for membership in the mythic community from which the modern nation is assumed to have been founded – usually defined in racial, ethnic and gendered terms; through religious affiliation; or by assertions of culture and character. The history of un-Americanism should therefore be understood principally in terms of the contestations that developed between these two concepts rather than as the evolution of a singular concept and shared understanding of its meaning.

Type
Un-American Articles
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 4: The “Un-American” , November 2013 , pp. 925 - 942
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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