We cannot understand America without Europe and vice versa. Both continents serve one another as surfaces for cultural projection and demarcation. From the European perspective, America presents both an attractive landscape and a critical point of reference. For European specialists in American studies, the “Americanness” and “Europeanness” both of America and of Europe are therefore of interest, as are the changing concepts of “self” and “other”, because all of these prompt rethinking of established categorisations.