The Health of the Nation

This edited volume, which simultaneously serves as the proceedings for the 2012 European Association for American Studies (EAAS) Conference held at Ege University in Izmir, and hosted by the American Studies Association of Turkey (ASAT), provides an overview of the conference theme, ‘The Health of the Nation’, through an interdisciplinary lens. Comprised of nineteen essays written by emerging as well as established scholars from across Europe and the United States, this collection dissects the health of the (American) nation from numerous historical, cultural, and literary perspectives, and represents an important intervention in American Studies from a transnational angle. The volume places considerable emphasis on the provision of health care in the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as on the literal and figurative health of the contemporary American nation. It also examines the health of the nation from a wide range of perspectives and approaches: from ecocriticism, to poetics, to graphic novels, to film.