A conference held way back then… Mobility in American culture:

The corsortium’s first conference was held at the University of Bologna in June 2002. It explored mobility as a quintessential American ideology. Participants considered sociological, cultural (both popular and high), economic, technological, literary, historical and political approaches to the topic. They discussed how Americans received and resisted the ideology of mobility. They considered mobility in art and film, mobility in racial, ethnic, gender and class formations, and mobility in the 21st century’s context of globalization.