ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the framework of American Studies, in which the study of 'difference' has loomed large in a variety of ways. The study of 'race', class, and gender differences, along with an attention paid to age and disability, has been foundational for American Studies research. A number of images and ideas appear in Said's study of Orientalism that came to be central to Postcolonial Theory as a whole. The trajectory of Postcolonial Theory is hence twofold. First, it identifies the ways in which colonialism operates, especially with regard to its 'brainwashing' of colonial subjects. Second, it looks for ways in which such 'double consciousness' may be escaped and resisted. Colonialism was much more than a system of economic domination; it was also, first and foremost, a system of psychological and cultural rule. Postcolonial theorist Said best illustrates the ways in which Postcolonial Studies have been closely intertwined with American Studies and with the United States as a global signifier.
