Why Study Anti-Americanism?

I first encountered anti-Americanism when I was living and working as an English teacher in South Korea in 1995 in the sleepy but beautiful coastal city of Yeosu. One afternoon, after class, my Korean co-teacher Mr. Sun dropped me off at the local bus stop as I made my way back home. Just before he departed, he lit up a cigarette, took a drag, and squinted at me as the afternoon light touched his brown eyes.

"I like you, but I don't like your country," he said.

This was the first time in my life that I had heard someone utter those words. Why would anyone dislike the United States of America? Wasn't the USA the greatest country in the world?

After that afternoon chat with Mr. Sun, I thought long and hard about how and why global publics might feel love or hate toward the United States and the American dream. This later inspired me to study the impact of anti-Americanism for my PhD thesis at UC Davis.

Based on that research, I published my first book with Cambridge University Press. I've also had the privilege of teaching an intensive course on anti-Americanism at Akita International University in Japan and at the University of Richmond as a first year seminar.

Athough the book was published in 2014, the concept of anti-Americanism is different today under the leadership of President Trump. Some news pundits, like Paul Krugman of The New York Times, posit that the President himself is " un-American ," and that today America is divided unlike any other time in recent memory. This paves the way for new questions, inlcluding:

What does it mean to be American today, let alone anti-American?
What does anti-Amerianism mean in a world in which some countries might fear China or Russia more than America?
What impact might anti-Americanism have in a post-American world ?

Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss any of the above topics. I look forward to hearing your ideas.

Best,

Monti Datta
mdatta@richmond.edu