ABSTRACT
This chapter posits that multiple perceptions of different authenticities in North America stem from an assemblage of cultural influences and meanings. The volume brings together an eclectic range of pieces that all explore versions of North American authenticity and inauthenticity as a fluid concept dependent on time and place. The emphasis of the book is to underline how researchers from American and Canadian Studies, Tourism, Heritage, Film and Cultural Geography backgrounds share the same concerns, uniting the Humanities and the Social Sciences. The creative or historical works discussed within Humanities research form the experiential subjects of interest for the Social Sciences and, as the book delineates, forms our mélange of identities and a “hyper-authenticity” which reflects the era of Post-Truth. The chapters are explored as a road trip, asking what purpose authenticity serves and what it allows us to understand about America as a nation and as an idea, and how places authenticate us and we authenticate them.
