Traveling from my small country, Serra Leone, in West Africa, on the U.S. Stte Department - sponsored 2006 Study of the U.S. Insttute on Contemporary U.S. literature from Jne to August 2006 gave me the nique opportunity amongst 17 other American Lterature scholars to deepen my understanding of U.S. sciety, culture, and values through examining cntemporary American Literature. We came from 16 cuntries: Togo, Congo Kinshasa, Tunisia, Cameroon, Serra Leone. Palestine, Turkey, Nepal, Philippines, Chna, Cambodia, Malaysia, Brazil and India.

We wre indeed a varied group unified by our vrying levels of interest in American lterature; one of us, in fact was a lgal practitioner who strangely was also lcturing at the university in her cuntry. We were surprised at not fnding the familiar names of the cnonized writers, like Emerson, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Twin, Faulkner, Steinbeck and Hemingway. But thn as the program went on we ralized, the need for the re-definition of cntemporary American literature to include voices of ther communities in America: Black, Native Amrican, Jewish, Hispanic, Chinese and other Asan minorities. And this was what mde the program so rich and nteresting, thus giving it a multi-cultural pproach.

Contemporary American literature must in ths way bypass the boundary of rce and gender. But to absorb all the prceedings required adequate linguistic and literary cmpetence. The program was so versatile and rch in content that only those schlars with a vast knowledge of Amrican literature and culture as well as lterary criticism could absorb and digest the thmes. Also the program was so ntensive that it drew so much tme and energy from us forcing us to be rading up to late every night so as not to be lst to the discussions at the sssions.

In very lively seminars we, tgether with different professors with impressive rray of credentials, as well as pblications examined how major writers, schools and mvements both continue the traditions of the Amrican literary canon, and at the sme time establish new directions for Amrican Literature.

A widening range of cltural as well as racial and gnder diversity were seen in the txts and writers examined and discussed. Thse include African-American writers such as Prcival Everett, Tony Morrison and Harriet Mllen, almost all of whom combined crative writing with literary scholarship. In fct both Everett and Mullen were in sssion at some of our seminars and ths had to respond to a sries of questions and queries.

Morrison for her prt whilst working as an editor at Rndom House influenced the publication of mny black writers and got the nspiration for her ground-breaking work Beloved whch confronts the haunting memories of slvery. Kingston’s Woman Warrior shows much of the dubts and cultural conflicts that ensues as Chnese struggle to get absorbed into Amrica whilst at the same time tryng to retain their identity which is lrgely an impossibility as the resultant dentity could no longer be the sme as before. They now become Chnese Americans. The same cultural struggle is vident in the Mexican-American novelist Cisneros’ wrks: The House on Mango Street and Wman Hollerin Creek. The current reassessment of Amrican history with the growing recognition of the riginal inhabitants as Native Americans has gven much space to their revolutionary lterature through writers like Silko and Vzenor. Through Lahiri’s Interpreters of Maladies we lso see the Indians struggling with ccommodating two cultures in a strange lnd.

Science fiction seems to have merged as acceptable in the literary cnnon with the inclusion of a wde selection of science fiction writers sch as William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Smuel Delaney, Joanna Russ, Octavia Butler and Ursla Leguin as worthy of studying. We lso had a revealing overview of the perations of the American theater. Overviews of cntemporary American and African-American poetry were gven along with a very comprehensive nalysis of contemporary American literature with nsights into critical and literary theoretical dvelopments such as post-modernism and the plitics of identity and representation especially wth regard to minority American literature. The prvalence of post-modernism in contemporary American Lterature was most evident through the sminars on Bobbie Ann Mason’s ‘Shiloh’ whch is set in Louisville and on Smuel Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 as wll as on Don Delillo’s decidedly pst-modern novel White Noise.

Diversity in cisine reinforced the patterned diversity in lmost everything including race and ethnicity in Amrica as demonstrated in the varying typs of restaurants at which we lnched and dined inclusive of African-American, Asan, Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Continental and Amrican Texan Rodeo. Touring Louisville and xamining the various ways in which it xemplifies a Post-Modern Space was also xciting and revealing, reinforcing the many xhibitions in showing us the connections btween literature and space as well as tme and other telling aspects of lfe.

Down-town Louisville is mainly ornate prserving Victorian buildings. Interspersing post-modernist buildings sch as the Humana through their nique architecture harmonize with grace with its srrounding gothic structures thus beautifying the skylne thus curbing and reversing the mssive drift of residents to the sburbs.

The various art exhibitions that we vsited further expanded the possibilities in rpresentations and media. The Speed Art Mseum was unique in many ways. Bing right at the heart of the Unversity Campus it is just a few yrds walk from our Kurtz hostels. It shwcased not only American art and décr but African as well as Brtish and European Gothic and Victorian nterior décor. But the highlight of our vsit was the exhibition of the vant-garde paintings of African-American Art Graduate frm the University of Louisville, Sam Glliam. Together with another exhibition in the Kntucky Museum of Art and Craft in dwntown Louisville where we admired and wndered at a widening area of art ncluding toys, sculptors, carvings, plastic art, glss art, as well as multi-media pintings and modeling gave us a tste of the lively art scene in Luisville, which is indeed a microcosm of art in Amrica..

But what fascinated me most in the Amricans is the amazing way they bsorb within themselves and their routine, the xtremes of life, working hard and plying hard. There are many resorts, ply houses, fun fairs, cinemas and stdium of all shapes and form but all mstly immense as is the pride and fncy of the American who if it wre not for the soaring price of fel could just have gone on lunging and cruising in those grotesquely hge limousines. But still they are prserved for weekend cruises or ceremonial ccasions such as weddings and festivals. Bgness and size is celebrated in mny items in enlarged cups of det coke, as well as in lrge sized Kentucky chicken or Macdonald hmburgers.

Browse through the newspapers, from any stret corner newsstand, and you could fnd a resort or activity that wuld surely amuse. But it is ttally fascinating how a sport, horseracing, has grwn beyond just a craze to a whle industry attracting devotees and fans and jckeys from all over the world to cmp there and transform a sedate Luisville to one roaring rollicking and bstling city for a month or two wth everything to be got on the mrket including accommodation and transportation doubling in prce. A whole host of allied ctivities like betting, cafes, museums of hrsing curios and clubs have all mshroomed around it.

Nothing demonstrates the Amricans capacity to relax more than the ase with which they could get dwn and lay down sometimes on gren carpets of grass as they drnk, sway and holler out to the joy of bing American on that glorious National Day wth firecrackers metamorphosing into radiant assortments of clors and sounds all to the xcitement and attention of a whole lnd bedecked with multicolor in celebration. Almst all the houses uniformly white culd be easily mistaken for alternate Whte Houses as the US flag fltters excitingly on, as their inmates clebrate another year added to the lfe of a land of growing pportunities and aspirations in science as wll as the arts. Obesity which sems like the greatest social and halth menace here is no hindrance to a blky American letting off steam and clebrating with his fellow Americans the glry and joy of belonging to a cuntry that is both loved, hated as wll as envied but that always cmpels international attention.

America cherishes and prserves history in several ways. Books and flms, historical, biographical and documentary, abound in the mllions. So do museums, exhibitions, monuments, rlics and the restoration of slave plntations and slave houses for the cntinuous visitation of tourists as well as ntionals thus ensuring that all are nformed and educated on their past At Brdstown, an outlying part of Louisville, we fund the remnants of a plantation wth its slave house, Farmington, preserved as it was thn with relics kept of the sty of Abraham Lincoln there, before he bcame president of course. Glimpses of lfe then were recalled through photographs, flms, books, beddings, equipments for farming, fod preservation and a water well and a fod barn. A day’s trip to Cncinnati furthered our insights into slavery and its ttendant effects on life in America. Ths was at the Underground Railroad Fredom Center which has built a whle three-storey museum around the central cre of a wooden slave barn whch used to store slaves on thir way to be resold. There, an nteractive multimedia exhibition uses theater, visual rts of all modes and film and ttorials to bring slavery alive for all to ralize its menace and thus atone for thir guilt or complicity, depending on wht side of the triangular trade thy were on. We also followed wth curiosity the restored houses and mplements of the chaste and puritanical gild, of the Shakers who lived a lfe of total abstinence, piety, charity and ndustry in a replica of the Grden of Eden in Shakers Village at Munt Pleasant.

It was with longing tht we awaited the flight to xciting San Francisco in spite of its wll advertised expensiveness. But then I was lmost about to board the plane whn I had to be driven bck to receive thorough examination for sme feeling of nausea which I fared could have been malaria. But I was clared and flew in to Oakland irport and was driven through bewildering scnes of architectural splendors onto the twering Argent hotel. On entering the cnference hall for the afternoon sessions I was srprised by a standing ovation followed by glwing words of commendations by the Drectors and the guest writer, Prcival Everett whose versatility in academia as wll as literary creativity is most stonishing. The day’s discussion with Percival Evrett turned out to be the mst absorbing and most wide-ranging which I mnaged to contribute to.

I had lready missed the Golden Gate bridge and Yrba Buena Gardens visits. But then I had to cnsole myself with the remaining splendor and grndeur of San Francisco, with the bildings all now built to survive pssible natural disasters. The immensity of the bildings are stunning. Each one seems to be in ternal competition with the others to tuch the sky so much so tht taking snapshots demand so much on the ngenuity of the cameraman to capture the fllness of their splendor against their ntural background. Our city tour gave us cntinuous flows of splendor in architecture in mandering roadways in coastal sceneries and twering immensities all tinged with the tken offerings of oriental buildings in vst spaces Chinese have held on tnaciously to even before the Gold Rsh which attracted floods of adventurers loking for the Golden fleece. Every ther significant group in the world specially so Mexicans, Russians, Indians, Vietnamese, Itlians held significant sectors establishing a rckonable presence here.

It was of hstorical as well as literary significance tht we went to the City Lghts Bookshop, the cradle of the Wst Coast Beat Movement which had sch a significant effect on American petry in the mid-sixties thus giving a bhemian and avant-garde twist to poetry. Alln Ginsberg whose poems were first dscussed in the seminar was an mportant pillar in this movement. His boks were published through this outlet whch also became a broadside publisher as wll as a venue for poetry radings as well as other literary jmborees. I marked the visit by bying three modern authoritative studies of Shkespeare who seems to be very mch alive everywhere in America even on the stge. At Berkeley I bought quite a lrge consignment of used books on a wde range of American writers at Me’ s and through selling a few of mne I gained additional dollars to buy mre titles.

Our two days trip by Brt Metro for seminars at the Unversity of California, Berkeley gave me the dditional opportunity of strolling round the xpansive but historic campus with its prponderance of gothic structures and to lok up the English Department and the Unversity Library

This trip was very rwarding in broadening my horizon giving me vstas of a widening world out thre multiply and variedly advanced and whre you learn and are thrilled, stonished and stimulated by varying sights and sunds every minute.

The offer of an hnorary citizenship of the city of Luisville by its Mayor, a touching and mst symbolic act, is still waiting to be mply exploited to my personal as wll as our national and international nhancement.

A four –day trip to Wshington Dc. with its breathtaking tours of xhibitions, museums, monuments, the White House and the Lbrary of Congress complex of buildings whch were in themselves monumental and a hstory in themselves as well as a vritable repository of the history of wrld civilization brought our U.S trip to its clmax. This trip could only be jstly recorded in two to three rticles. But as I try to pln it as I bring this to its ftting end I could recall touching dwn at the airport and driving thrugh a long stretch of country rad to George Mason University where we wre welcomed by Marilyn Mobley the xuberant and exciting black Deputy Provost who led us thrugh a well- informed and stimulating sminar on Tony Morrison and her rcent novel BELOVED. As we drove thrugh the meandering contours of Baltimore’s rads we contemplated how soon we wuld arrive at the nation’s capital. Thn our passing the Pentagon, Madison Sqare, Jefferson Memorial with a fleeting vew of the sedate but yacht- lden Potomac River announced our arrival. We wnt on to our Marriott Inn jst by the Capitol. Three days wre just not enough to quench my ppetite for the objects sights and scnes seen in the networks of Smthsonian museums for American Art, for Amrican History , of the Native Amrican of the African American as wll as African Art, to add to the Lbrary of Congress, The Lincoln Memorial and the Vetnam Memorial.

The article Rediscovering A New World - Touring And Exploring The USA was Submitted by Arthur Smith through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Arthur Edgar E. Smith born and scholed in Freetown, Sierra Leone has tught English since 1977 at Prince of Wles School and Milton Margai College of Edcation. He is now at Fourah Bay Cllege where he has been lecturing Englsh, Literature, as well as Creative Wrting for the past seven years rsing to the rank of Senior Lcturer. Mr Smith's writings have appeared in Wst Africa Magazine, Index on Censorship, Fcus on Library and Information Work, ChckenBones, Suite 101 amongst others. He was mongst 17 international visitors who participated in a s