My areas of research and teaching are Hemispheric American Studies, Globalization, and Post-Colonial Discourse and Culture.  My book Reworlding America: Myth, History, and Narrative (2006) moves beyond the U.S.-centered approach of traditional American literary criticism in order to develop a critical vocabulary to study American literature and culture in a hemispheric, transnational context. This book contributes to the project of refashioning the role of English and American studies in a trans-border, post-national global economy.

Current Projects

I am working on two projects that examine the role of culture in generating knowledge about different societies and nations in multinational business environments like call centers, especially in countries like China and India, which have become pivotal players in the new Information Economy. I take a literary and cultural studies approach and study the use of metaphor, myth, and culture in contemporary IT globalization discourse. In a larger sense, my aim is to place the humanities at the center of discussions about the global IT economy and raise questions about the intimate connections between global economic practices and cultural flows.

 

 

Selected Publications

"Whose World is Flat? Mapping the Globalization of Information Technology." New Global Studies 2 . 1 (2008): 1-23. Available at: http://www.bepress.com/ngs/vol2/iss1/art3

“Gendering the Frontier in O.E. Rölvaag’s Giants in the Earth.” Great Plains Quarterly 25. 4 (2005): 229-244.

“Twilight of the Gods: Britain, America, and the Inheritance of Empire.” Rev. of Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire, by Niall Ferguson. American Quarterly 57. 4 (2005): 1253-61.

“‘America’ in Transit: the Heresies of American Studies Abroad.” Comparative American Studies: An International Journal 1.4 (2003): 395-420.
 
Almanac of the Dead: The Dream of the Fifth World in the Borderlands.” LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory 14. 4 (2003): 357-385.

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muthyala@usm.maine.edu
Department of English
311 Luther Bonney Hall POB 9300
University of Southern Maine
Portland, ME 04104
207-780-4780