Abstract

American studies began as a way of achieving independence in mind and of establishing an American identity distinguishable from the European. In the beginning, most American studies scholars did research and taught in the fields of literature and history. But American studies gradually expanded its scope to anthropology, sociology, and economics, namely social sciences. During the second world war, the American studies program was awarded a huge amount of funds from several prestigious foudations. With it, new programs of American studies were set up at universities over the country, and a lot of research on American studies within and outside the US was supported by these funds. However, with the decline of the ideological cold war, the importance of American studies also began to dimish. The most significant event showing the decline of American studies was the close of the department of American studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 1994. Because the American studies program at the University of Pennsylvania was leading direction of American studies in the US, the impact of the close of the department was enomous. This event vividly shows how difficult it is for American studies to be an independent scholarly branch without its own subject of research and methodology. This implies that Korean studies without its own subject of research and methodology which is distinguishable from that of other scholarly fields, will find it difficult to maintain its identity, and further, even survive.