Amy Kaplan (September 10, 1953 – July 30, 2020) was an American academic working in the interdisciplinary field of

American Studies American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American literature, history, society, and culture. It traditionally incorporates literary criticism, historiography and critical theory. Schol ...

, her work focused on the critical study of the culture of imperialism, prison writing, mourning, memory, and war. Kaplan was Edward W. Kane Professor of English at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, and president of the American Studies Association in 2003.

Education and career

Kaplan graduated '' summa cum laude'' from

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , ...

with a BA. She completed her PhD at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

, where she researched late-nineteenth-century American literature. Her 1982 thesis was titled "Realism against itself: the urban fictions of Twain, Howells, Dreiser, and Dos Passos". In 1994, she co-edited ''Cultures of United States Imperalism'' with

Donald E. Pease Donald E. Pease is the Ted and Helen Geisel Third Century Professor in the Humanities, chair of the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program, professor of English and comparative literature at Dartmouth College. He is an Americanist, literary ...

, a book which has been credited with marking "a paradigm shift for the field of American Studies, forcing scholars to contend with the United States' imperialist history". Kaplan was a professor of English and chair of the American Studies program at Mount Holyoke College before joining the department of English at the University of Pennsylvania in 2003. For the 2011–12 academic year, Kaplan was a member of the school of social sciences at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

in Princeton, New Jersey. Kaplan died on July 30, 2020.

Selected works

* Kaplan, Amy. ''The Social Construction of American Realism.'' The University of Chicago Press, (1988). * Kaplan, Amy. "Romancing the empire: The embodiment of American masculinity in the popular historical novel of the 1890s." ''American Literary History'' 2.4 (1990): 659–690. * Kaplan, Amy, and Donald E. Pease. ''Cultures of United States Imperialism.'' Duke University Press, (1993). * Kaplan, Amy. "Manifest domesticity." ''American literature'' 70.3 (1998): 581–606. * Kaplan, Amy. "Homeland insecurities: Some reflections on language and space." ''Radical History Review'' 85.1 (2003): 82–93. * Kaplan, Amy. "Violent Belongings and the Question of Empire Today." ''American Quarterly'' 56.1 (2004): 1-18. * Kaplan, Amy. "Where is Guantanamo?." ''American Quarterly'' 57.3 (2005): 831–858. * Kaplan, Amy. ''The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture.'' Harvard University Press, (2005). * Kaplan, Amy. ''Our American Israel: The Story of an Entangled Alliance''. Harvard University Press, (2018).

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaplan, Amy 1953 births 2020 deaths University of Pennsylvania faculty Brandeis University alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni American studies scholars American literary theorists Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars Mount Holyoke College faculty