Günter H. Lenz: A Critical History of the New American Studies, 1970–1990. Ed. Reinhard Isensee, Klaus J. Milich, Donald E. Pease, and John Carlos Rowe. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2017.

Günter H. Lenz (1940–2012) belonged to the generation of German scholars who passionately pursued the aim of incorporating North American Studies as a critical discipline at German universities. Lenz’s commitment to critically engaged American Studies was driven by an untiring interest in the multiplicity of voices and perspectives in and about the Americas and by his conviction that American Studies from without the United States offer important insights for analyses of American culture(s) as well as that American Studies theories, methods, and methodologies can provide invaluable new impacts to cultural and literary studies in Germany. Transnational perspectives and cross-cultural dialogue were Lenz’s primary objectives. The success of his efforts is not least documented by the fact that, as the first foreign recipient, he was awarded the prestigious Bode-Pearson Prize in 1999, which honors “a lifetime of work to the mission and values of American studies.”