Research in transnational American studies, a field of American studies, foregrounds the complex relationships amongst nations, cultures and histories that intersect with the United States of America.
A significant impulse driving the development of transnationalist American studies is the pursuit of analytical methods that are less likely to reinforce the ideology of American exceptionalism by removing the nation state as the "natural" frame for analysis.
[3] Bauridl and Wiegmink report that the field of transnational American studies has shifted away from the nation state as a container of an individual's identity to an understanding in which the nation state is one node in a networked phenomenon.
[4] The argument has also been made that transnationalization of American literary and cultural studies is actually the continuation of a strain of Americanist exceptionalist critique.
This standing committee of the American Studies Association is responsible for informing the ASA membership of the issues affecting international scholars and students in the profession and it is responsible for special tasks involving international scholars and students in the ASA membership.