the politics of american studies

8/13/2019 The Politics of American Studies

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The Politics of American Studies

Author(s): Allen F. DavisSource: American Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Sep., 1990), pp. 353-374Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2712939.

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The Politics of AmericanStudies

ALLEN F. DAVISTemple University

IN APRIL 1975 AT THE BICENTENNIAL WORLD REGIONAL CONFERENCEheld in Salzburg, Austriaan incident happenedthat startledall thosepresent and underscoredthe political nature of American Studies.Scholarshadgathered rom mostEuropean ountries,theUnited States,and Israel to discuss the impact of the United States and Europe oneach other. The meetings were held at the Schloss Leopoldskron,anelegant eighteeenth-centuryococo palace, home of the SalzburgSem-inar, but perhapsmore famousfor its role in the movie version of TheSound of Music. After the opening banquet,GordonWood of BrownUniversity was in the middle of readinga carefully craftedpaperonrepublicanismand the Americanplace in the world, when AndrewSinclairof GreatBritainrosenoisily from his chairto denounceWood'ssadand terriblewords and to attack he Americanpresencein South-east Asia andin Europe.Then he stompedout of the hall. Aftera fewmoments of embarrassedand stunned silence, Wood finishedhis ad-dress. Sinclair's outburst for which he apologizedthe next day) wasrelated to the particularworld situationin 1975 that found the UnitedStates at perhapsits lowest reputationat any point in the twentiethcentury,even among AmericanStudies scholars.' At anotherconfer-ence in Washington he nextyear, EqbalAhmadof PakistandenouncedHenryKissinger as a warcriminalwho ought to be triedfor his crimesAllen F. Davis is a Professor of History at Temple University. This article is hisPresidentialAddress to the AnnualMeeting of the ASA, Toronto,October 1989.AmericanQuarterly,Vol. 42, No. 3 (September 1990) X 1990 American Studies Association

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354 AMERICANQUARTERLY(to thediscomfortof the Statedepartment fficials who werepresent)2At the SalzburgConference, which was jointly sponsoredby theBicentennialCommitteefor InternationalConferencesof Americanists(BCICA), an American Studies committee, the United States Infor-mationAgency (USIA), and the Bureau of Educationaland CulturalAffairs of the State Department but paid for largely by grantsfromthe latter two agencies), there was a considerabledebate about therelationship between American Studies scholarship and Americanmoney and power. Some American scholars in previous years hadrefused to take USIA money to travel abroad, and many young Eur-opean scholars were nervous about selling out to American culturalimperialism. Dennis Donoghue, now at New York University, thenthe Presidentof the Irish AmericanStudies Association, later wroteabout the SalzburgConference and the natureof American Studies.

You thinkyou aretalkingaboutan Americannovel, but beforeyou are wellbegun you find yourself reflecting on the exercise of power in the world.That doesn't happen when you talk about Ulysses. It is absurd to suggestthat scholars should turnaway from their academic interestslest they findthemselves corrupted by American hospitality. But the relation betweenscholarshipand money andpower is an issue in American Studies where itis not an issue in, say IrishStudies, a pursuit n which worldly temptationsare few.3The relationshipbetween politics, power, and American Studies isan issue dealt with every day by those who teach about the UnitedStatesin anothercountry.It is sometimesnot as obvious for those who

teach American Studies in the United States, but the relationship salways there and ought to be explicit. We are all influencedby ourown times andby thepoliticsof ourgeneration;oftenwe arechallengedby events beyond our control. American Studies as a field has beenespecially influencedby events andmovements,becauseit takes as itsmain task the making sense of the Americanexperience, and becauseit has a special place and meaning outside the United States.American Studies is rooted in the 1920s and 1930s, but developedits firstreal growthin a climate of nationalism and patriotismduringWorld War II and the immediate post-war era.4 The war not onlystimulated the study of and the defense of American values, it alsoaltered the careers and forever influenced the world view of the aca-demic generationthatlived throughthe conflict. Some professorsand



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THE POLITICSOF AMERICAN STUDIES 355graduatestudentsserved in the Armed Forces; a few were recruitedby the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). NormanHolmes Pearson,who later became chair of the American Studies departmentat Yaleand presidentof the AmericanStudies Association, was not only inOSS (the forerunnerof the CentralIntelligenceAgency), but he wasalso the head of X-2, thecounter ntelligencebranchof OSS in London.His experience made him a believer in an internationalapproachtoAmerican Studies, but he also became a subject of some suspicionamong younger scholars when the CIA fell out of fashion.5 Otherscholarsstayed at homeduring hewar andtaught n a growing numberof interdisciplinary rograms.JayHubbell of Duke Universityprofitedfrom the war in a more direct way. The United States Armed ForcesInstitute(USAFI) selected his book AmericanLife in Literatureforuse in the ArmedServices, and in one year he sold 50,000 copies tothe government.6American Studies scholars in Europe also profitedin many waysfrom the cold war mentality, as Dennis Donoghue has pointed out.Therewere many landmarksn the development of American Studiesin Europe, all of them related to Americanhospitalityand influence:the founding of the AmerikaInstituutat the Universityof Amsterdamin 1946, the SalzburgSeminar,begun the next year;the establishmentof a chair at the Universityof Oslo in 1948, the Universityof Uppsalain the same year; and the foundingof the EuropeanAmerican StudiesAssociation in 1954.7Itwas notonly inEurope,however,that hedevelopmentof AmericanStudies was influencedby the cold war climate. Beginning in 1949,theCarnegieCorporationmadelargegrants o support hedevelopmentof AmericanStudiesprogramsn a half dozen colleges and universitiesincluding Brown, Amherst, Minnesota, and the University of Penn-sylvania. In 1950 the Coe Foundationgave a half-million dollargrantto Yale to supportAmerican Studies. CharlesSeymour,the Yale pres-ident, explained thatthe best safeguardagainsttotalitariandevelop-ments in our society is an understanding f our own culturalheritageandan affirmativebelief in the validityof our institutionsof freedom,enterpriseandindividual iberty. 8A numberof scholarsworriedaboutthisuncriticalpatriotismandnationalism.MarvinWachman,of ColgateUniversity, writing in 1958, suggested that teachersof AmericanStudies need not be provincial in their interests and learning, nor



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356 AMERICANQUARTERLYchauvinistic n theirAmericanism. He didadmitthatthereweremanywho were both.9Both the AmericanStudiesAssociationand the AmericanQuarterlywhich preceded it were organized in a climate of patriotismand con-sensus. Originatedby TremaineMcDowell at the Universityof Min-nesota in 1949, andeditedby William VanO'Connorfor the first twoyears, the journalwas rescuedfromfinancial ailurein 1951 by RobertSpiller and the University of Pennsylvania. There are two theoriesaboutthe origin of the American Studies Association. RobertSpilleralways said that it emerged out of The Society of AmericanStudies,a small group founded after WorldWar II at the FranklinInn Club inPhiladelphia.CarlBode maintains hat tgrewfrom a series of luncheonmeetingsat the SupremeCourtCafeteria n Washington.Both theoriesareprobablycorrect. The AmericanStudiesAssociationwas a productof the post-warclimatethat fostered the studyof Americancultureandencouragedthe formationof professionalorganizations, ournals,andconferences.Moresignificant han heconflictingmythsabout heplaceof origin were the differentphilosophiesaboutthe academic missionof the Association. Bode anda few others believed thatit should reachbeyond the universityto all of those interested n studyingAmericanculture;while Spiller, the consummateacademicentrepreneur, nvi-sioned the Association as a thoroughlyprofessionaland scholarly or-ganization,a way to win power andprestigewithinthe academy.Theactual organizationalmeeting was held at the Library of Congress,March22, 1951, a meetingplace that Bode foundimportantnot only

becausethis was ournational ibrary,butalso becauseit symbolizedthe fact thatthe society was not to be a professors'club but somethingwider. 10In the end it was Spiller's professionalphilosophy that prevailed,especially afterhe obtained a grant for the Association in 1954 fromtheCarnegieCorporation tostrengthen tswork n advancingprogramsin AmericanCivilization in colleges and universities. But the twophilosophieshave always created a tension in AmericanStudies. Theneed to be thoroughlyprofessionaloftenhas led to anunfortunate uestfor a singleAmericanStudiesmethod,for aparticularAmericanStudiesmission or theory that would set those trained n the field apartfromotherswho triedto interpretAmericanculture. Yet for all the attemptsto professionalizetherehave been othereffortsto reachout to a wideraudience. The early issues of the AmericanQuarterlycontainessays



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THE POLITICSOF AMERICANSTUDIES 357by LionelTrilling, PeterViereck, Max Lerner,MargaretMead, DavidReisman, andothers, often withoutfootnotes. Significantlythe Quar-terly's firstissue was devoted to the internationaldimension of Amer-ican Studies. In 1961 when Congress established the Peace Corps,manyAmericanStudiesscholarshelpedteach Peace Corpsvolunteers:an American Studies course was an important part of the trainingwhether he volunteerswere labtechnicians,geologists, or mathteach-ers. The failures and the stresses and strains of Americansocietywere discussed as well as the more positive aspects. I don't know ofany attempt o evaluatethe effectiveness of AmericanStudiesin PeaceCorpstraining,but it is another ndicationof the willingness of Amer-ican Studies scholars to reach out beyond the university when theyhave the opportunity.Surprisingly hose who sought to make American Studies a profes-sional field did not promote a national convention. The AmericanStudiesAssociation was modeledin parton the Association of CollegeTeachers of English, and was a federationof regional chapters. TheAssociation did encourage regional meetings and sponsored sessionsatboththe ModernLanguageAssociation and the AmericanHistoricalAssociation annualmeetings, but more sessions wereheld attheMLA.In 1957 Merle Curti worried that there were not enough historiansinvolved in American Studies; anotherhistorianremarkedthat un-fortunatelyAmericanbelle-lettersis too slendera reed to supporttheweight of Americancivilization. 1 One-dayregionalconferencesandsessions at othernationalmeetingsdid not satisfyeveryone, especiallyduring he nextorganizingwave of the late 1960s. It is understandable,given thelong-standingoppositionof thenationaloffice to conventions,that the impetus came not from Philadelphia,but from the Mid-Con-tinentchapter,one of the strongestof the regionalgroups.The first convention was held in Kansas City in the fall of 1967.That was the year of urbanriots in Newark and Detroit. There werenearlyone-halfmillion Americantroopsin Vietnam, and some of theidealism of the early sixties had given way to bitter anti-warandanti-draft demonstrations.Yet there was still affluence in the academicworld; obs were plentifuland therewas a moodof expansion.Lookingback, it now seems obvious that the periodfrom 1963 to about 1969was an aberration,a small window of opportunity hatclosed quickly,but at the time that brief period of optimism seemed like the modelfor the future. The National Defense EducationAct providedsuch an



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358 AMERICANQUARTERLYabundanceof fellowships that many of us worriedwe were sendinggraduatestudents out for theirfirst jobs with no teachingexperience.There was a flurryof academicorganizing n the sixties. The NationalEndowment for the Humanities was authorizedin 1965 and begangiving grants in 1966. The OralHistory Association was foundedin1967. The AmericanFolklore Society began meeting on its own thesame year. RichardDorson, writingin 1967, summedup the feelingsof many when he wrote: The academic prospects for folklore andfolkloristshave reachedtheirhighestpointever in The UnitedStates.Substitutealmost any field, and the sentimentswould have been thesame. The WesternLiteratureAssociation, foundedin 1965, beganitsown journal in 1967. The Journal of Social History began the sameyear, and the Journalof Popular Cultureand the Journalof Interdis-ciplinary History the next. The Popular Culture Association wasfoundedin 1969 duringthe second AmericanStudiesConvention.Thefirst two American Studies nationalconventions were held at a timeof academicoptimism. They were partof the trendof expansionanddefinitionof fields in the humanities and the social sciences.'3Affluence and organizationwere not the only characteristicsof ac-ademiathatdefined the 1960s. Thepeople who wereyoung instructorsor graduate students during those years do not often remembertheprosperity; ather hey recall theirfrustrationwith the university, eventheirrebellionagainstthe university.I was teachingat the Universityof Missouri duringthose years. I recall a huge meeting one Sundayafternoonabout 1965 when the vice presidentof the university an-nounced to the crowd: You talkaboutstudentrights;let me tell you,studentshave no rights. Within a very short time, however, mostuniversityadministratorshrewuptheirhands n despairandabandonedthe concept of in loco parentis. Students freed from dress codes anddormitoryrules began to rebel in other ways. Inspiredby the CivilRights Movement and by news that filtered in from Berkeley andColumbia and Wisconsin, they began alternativenewspapers, con-ductedsit-ins, teach-ins, andprotestmarches. Some faculty began todress like students,even to act like students;others continuedtheiroldways and became, in some cases, bitter and alienated. Some of uslearned how to say fuck in the classroom (and you have no ideahow difficult that was), and even more importantwe learnedto usethe firstperson andoccasionally to revealour own doubts anddespairto ourstudents.We became in many ways the studentsof ourstudents,



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THE POLITICSOF AMERICANSTUDIES 359and we were often embarrassedand confused because the rules werechanging all aroundus.'4The intellectual turmoil, the Civil Rights Movement, and the anti-war protests influencedAmerican Studies, but so did the attackon theuniversity. Some studentseven wondered why they were in graduateschool. Writing n 1971 while a graduatestudentat Yale, Gene Leachcapturedsome of the frustrationof that period.

Standingat the window-slitsin the upperstacks of Yale's Sterling MemorialLibrary,American Studiesgraduate tudentscan see beyond the New Havenghetto that begins only two blocks away. In fact, they are encouraged o seebeyond the ghetto, but not so far as Vietnam, or the un-Yale-like placeswhere, if they are fortunate,they will end up working when they get theirdegrees. The American Studiesprogram nvites them insteadto gaze at anacademicmiddle landscapewhere the word problems refers to intellectualconundrums.... Graduate tudents earn unspokenrules of decorumaboutwhere to look and when to look away. They are urged to pour over thecatalogue listings of course offerings, but not the sections about how theprograms run.... Graduate tudy,AmericanStudies ncluded,is dominatedby the same ethic of competition,the same technicalizationandprofession-alizationof moral issues, the same drive to specialize, and rationalize,thesame zeal for efficiency and smooth procedure,the same essentially man-agerialoutlookthatprevailsin big business, foundations,andgovernment.5

Leach and some of his fellow American Studies graduatestudentsat Yale began their own alternativecourse on contemporaryAmericaand ran it without faculty guidance. They didn't transformYale, butthey did change themselves. Some droppedout of the university,butotherspersisted.Even before Leach andhis fellow studentsbegan attacking he stodg-iness of Yale, studentsand teachers n otherplaces weretryingto makeconnections between their study of American culture and what theysaw going on in Americansociety. As early as the springof 1966, ata joint meeting of the Michigan and Ohio-Indianachaptersof theAmericanStudies Association(ASA), held atWayneStateUniversity,a group of scholars from a varietyof fields met to discuss the ProtestMovements of OurTime. RobertSklarfromthe Universityof Mich-igan, who had received his Ph.D. fromHarvard he yearbefore, gavea lecture entitled AmericanStudies as a Form of Dissent. Therewere artexhibits, films, poems, and a real sense that AmericanStudiescould learnfrom the New Left, the-studentmovement, and the CivilRightsMovement.Betty Chmajof Wayne State, who had receivedthe



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360 AMERICANQUARTERLYfirstPh.D. in AmericanStudiesgrantedby theUniversityof Michigan,edited some of the papersfrom the conference and produceda mim-eographed booklet called The Protest Papers. It was probablythefirstof manymimeographed,alternativepublicationsn AmericanStud-ies which owed somethingto The Whole Earth Catalogue, and moreto the alternativepress of the counter culture.'6Some of those from Michigan, includingChmajand Sklar, playeda role in the formationof the Radical Caucusof the ASA. It all beganin Toledo at the second ASA national conventionin the fall of 1969.I was not there but have tried to recreate what happenedat the con-vention by consulting the surviving documents and by talking to anumberof people who were in attendance.The world had changedinthe two years since the firstASA conventionin 1967. MartinLutherKing and RobertKennedyhadbeen assassinatedn 1968, andAmericancities exploded in riot. The war in Vietnam had become so divisivethat even the editor-in-chiefof TimeInc. announcedthat for the firsttime in ourlives the countryhad lost a workingconsensus as to whatwe think America means. The countrywatchedin 1968 as Chicagopolice beat up young protestors, and even a staid and conservativeorganization ike the AmericanHistorical Association voted to protestMayor Daley's action by moving their convention from Chicago toNew York. 1969 was the year of Woodstockand the time when theleft splinteredandthe Weathermenwere organized.TheNationalGuardoccupied the campusof the Universityof Wisconsin, and bombs ex-ploded in the ROTC headquarters t Columbia.'7

The radicalswithinAmericanStudieswere notWeathermen orbombthrowers;they merely wanted to transfer some of the movement forfreedom and equality they witnessed all around hem to theirteachingandlearning.Some of those who were at Toledo would take parttwoweeks laterin the biggest demonstrationWashingtonhad ever seen-the Vietnam moratorium ally. A few denouncedthe United States asa repressive,dehumanizing,technocratic, mperialisticsociety, butotherswere not sure,andmanyweresimplycurious. The radicalswereled by Sklar,Chmaj, and Bob Merideth,a youngprofessor romMiamiUniversity in Ohio; Nancy Bannister and Bob Scarola, graduatestu-dents first at Indiana University then at Case-WesternReserve, alsoplayed importantroles. The group gatheredin the French Room onthe thirdfloor of the CommodorePerryHotel where a sign announced



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THE POLITICSOF AMERICANSTUDIES 361New University Conference, but by the meeting's end the groupwas calling themselves The Radical Caucus. ArthurDudden, theExecutive Secretary of ASA, remembers that there were really twoconventionsgoing on in Toledo,the regularconventionandtheinformalone run by the radical caucus. He also remembersCarl Bode, the firstpresidentof ASA, moving quietly back and forth between the twogroups n his suedejacket tryingto preventa permanent plit. Everyonerecallsexcitement, commitment, occasional anger, and groups sittingon the floor engaged in intense conversation. 8The ASA Council, meetingduring he convention, invitedtwo mem-

bersof theRadicalCaucusto speakto them. Bob Meridethand MichaelRockland of Douglass College appearedat the Council meeting andmade a seriesof demands,with Meridethas the spokesman.AmericanQuarterly,he argued, should be transformed nto a vital vanguardjournal ;graduatestudents shouldbe addedimmmediatelyto the ed-itorialboardandto the council;and the ASA shouldprovidefellowshipsforblackscholarswho wouldspend brief periodson severalcampuses,fellowships forgraduate tudentswho wouldmove fromone universityto another,andsupport or ThirdWorldscholars critical of the UnitedStates. He also urgedthatASA hold a plenarysession to vote supportfor the Vietnammoratorium.Despite the tone and arroganceof Mer-ideth's demands, the Council (chaired by Vice PresidentWalker be-cause DanielBoorstin had given his presidentialaddressandleft town)took the RadicalCaucusseriously.The ASA Councilrejected heresolutionon theVietnam moratoriumanddismissed the call fortravelingfellowships, butthenextyearvotedto help subsidize the RadicalCaucuspublication, Connections,and toexpand the council to include one student and one member of theRadicalCaucus. There was a storm of protestfrom the membership.Giving the Radical Caucus an automatic seat (because of the forceof its protests . . .) is especially outrageous, one scholar wrote. Imustconfess that I find the logic behindthis decision to subsidize thepublication of a journal of a specific ideological persuasion to beincomprehensible, anotherannounced. Severalpeople resignedfromASA in protest, includingDaniel Boorstin.'9The officers of the association, who themselves felt some ambiva-lence about their actions, had a difficult time explaining the specialdynamicsof the situationto those who were not present. In the end,



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362 AMERICANQUARTERLYhowever, the sympathetic hearing extended to the Radical Caucusprevented he divisionthatoccurredn otherprofessionalorganizations.At the AmericanHistoricalAssociationconvention n 1969, StaughtonLynd andEugene Genoveseengagedin a shoutingmatchatthe businessmeeting and wrestled for control of the microphoneas they vied forthe chanceto representhe radicals.Ultimately,all theradicalproposalslost. The Radical Caucus of the Modem LanguageAssociation hadmore success;they actuallyelected a vice presidentand passeda seriesof resolutions,but n theprocess splittheorganizationnto twocamps 20The word radical, in the context of 1969, troubled many peoplein the American Studies Association. When Gene Leach was electedas the representativeof the Radical Caucus to the Council, however,he provedto be reasonable,mature,and anythingbut a bombthrower,and the issue subsided. Leach and Lois Rudnick, the other graduatestudentelected, took the representation f studentsand their concernsas their primarymission. They were so effective that they preparedthe way for a great many other studentselected to the council, andtoday it is assumed that students should play a role in all Councildecisions. The Radical Caucus renameditself in 1971, The Com-munity of ScholarsConcernedAboutAmerica (a typicalsixties title),butto most peoplethey remained he RadicalCaucus.It was a shiftinggroup, but LawrenceChisolm of SUNY, Buffalo, Gene Wise, Case-WesternReserve, and Alice Kessler-Harrisof Hofstra, in additiontothe others, played key roles. Over the next years, they had a largeimpact on the field of American Studies on their own campuses andnationally hrough heir ournals, ConnectionsandConnections I. Theyraised issues aboutteaching and learningand aboutthe politics of theassociation.The RadicalCaucuschallengedthe way thingshadbeen done in theAmerican StudiesAssociation. They ran candidatesfor presidentandvice president n 1971, 1973, and 1975, and managedto elect two oftheir members vice president. They alteredthe way presidentswereselected, insisting on the nominationof at least two candidatesand avoteof theentiremembership:nthepastonenomineehadbeenselectedby a small groupof insiders, then elected by the council.2'The issue of the role of women in the Association was more con-troversial han that of electing radicalsand studentsto the Council. In1969 Betty Chmajwas the only womanon a council of twenty-seven.



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THE POLITICSOF AMERICAN STUDIES 363This reflectednot only the attitudeof the nationaloffice in Philadelphiaand the status of women in universities, but also the practice of theregional chapters n every part of the country, for in 1969 most of thecouncil members were elected by the chapters. Chmaj almost single-handedlyforced ASA to face the woman question. It was not easy.Manyof the menwho called themselvesradicaldid not think the issueof discriminationagainstwomen in the Association was a concernofhigh priority, and the ASA, like all professional associations of thisperiod, had its share of male chauvinistsand womanizers. One couldsay of Radical American Studies what Rayna Rapp said of her malecolleagues at the University of Michigan: They had all this empathyfor the Vietnamese, and for black Americans, but they didn't havemuch empathy for the women in their lives; not the women they sleptwith, not the women they shared office space with, not the womenthey fought at demonstrationswith. 22Still, enough people (both maleand female) followed Chmaj's lead so that the Executive Council oftheASA meetingin Washingtonn December1969 passeda resolution:thatthe AmericanStudies Association formally states its oppositionto discriminationagainst women in admissions, grants, awardingofdegrees, faculty employment, salary and conditions of employmentandconsiderationor promotion,andthat tundertakeo receive, solicitand publicize informationrelating to specific instances of such dis-crimination. In 1971, RobertWalker,as president, appointeda Com-mittee on the Status of Women, which was chairedby Chmaj, andtheCouncilvoted to helpsubsidizeabook,AmericanWomen ndAmericanStudies,which she edited. The next yearthe Councilapproveda seriesof resolutionson the statusof women, based in parton those passedby the ModernLanguage Association, but more comprehensivethanthose of most organizationsat thattime. Indeed,the ASA's resolutionson women became the model formanyother academicorganizations.23Passing resolutions was one thing, but making real changes wassomethingelse again. Theprogramcommittee for the 1971 conventioncontained no women, the editorialboard approvedfor the AmericanQuarterlyn 1972containedno women, and a conferenceon AmericanStudiesheldin Florida hesameyearhad no womenparticipants.WhenI became Executive Secretary n 1972, I conducteda special electionto select threetemporarywomen representatives o the Council as aninterimmeasureuntilwomencould be electedthrough egularchannels.



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364 AMERICANQUARTERLYSeveralmembersof the associationresigned nprotest,chargingreversediscrimination.Eventuallywomen took their place on committees andon the Council, but just as significant,the studyof women became animportantnfluenceon AmericanStudiesas a field. To look atAmericanculturethroughthe eyes of women was to question and revise manyaspects of the American characterand the American consensus.Black studies was anothermatter. There were very few Afro-Amer-ican members of ASA, although John Hope Franklin, the leadinghistorianof the Americanblack experience, had been presidentof theAssociationin 1967. Some of the Radical Caucus agendaincluded theneed for a black perspective,and several Afro-Americanscholarshadappeared on regional programs;but there were no Afro-Americansamong the small groupthat gatheredat Toledo to talk into the nightabout ransformingAmericansocietyandorganizingaradicalAmericanStudiescommunity.The minutesof the 1969 Councilmeetingmentiona discussion of the potentialrelationshipbetween AmericanStudiesand black studies, but the implicationwas that AmericanStudies hadsomething to teach black scholars. In 1969, however, when feelingsof black power and black separatismwere very prevalent, few blackscholars wanted to be instructed. The 1971 programdid have onesession on black studies with Letitia Brown and Mary Berry partici-pating. For all the rhetoric of cooperationand the efforts of ArthurDudden, Robert Corrigan,and others to reach out to black scholars,the Association of Negro Life andHistorymet in the same cities andat the same time as ASA in 1971 and 1973 with little cooperationbetween the two groups.24The 1971 convention, held in Washington,was the first AmericanStudies convention sponsoredby the American Studies Associationand planned from the national office (the 1967 and 1969 conventionshadbeen runby regional chapters).With Robert Sklar (who had beenelected vice presidentof ASA) as programchair,the conference brokenew groundwith sessions on black studies, women's studies, ethnicstudies, popular culture, museums, and comparativestudies. Therewas also a panel discussion on AmericanValues and the Indo-ChinaWar that included HowardZinn and RobertJayLifton. Lewis Mum-ford was one of several participants rom outside the university.The1971 convention was a key event in broadeningthe interpretation fAmerican Studies. It was also the first convention where ASA ran a



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THE POLITICSOF AMERICANSTUDIES 365job placementservice and an insuredday care center. The ExecutiveSecretaryArthurDudden, a full-time Professor of History of BrynMawrwho rantheASA office on a part-timebasis, had to learnquicklyhow to deal with the complex task of managinga nationalconvention.The NationalAmericanStudies Faculty(NASF) was also organizedin 1971. The NASF, modeled after the NationalHumanitiesFaculty,was the brainchildof Robert Walkerand was funded by a grantfromthe NationalEndowment for the Humanities.John Hague of StetsonUniversity was appointeddirector. The idea of the faculty was toorganizethe membershipof ASA into teams of unpaidconsultants inways which would enablea betterunderstanding f the Americanpastto illuminatethe needs andopportunitiesof the present. Consultantsworkedwithhigh schools andcommunityandfour-yearcolleges, spon-soredconferences, and raninstitutes to encourage cooperationamonginstitutions. Most importantof all, they tried to relate the world ofscholarshipto the community.Some of the National Facultyprojectswere traditional helpingcolleges restructureheircurriculum, or ex-ample), butmany were innovativeandunusual.NationalFacultyvol-unteers consulted with DARE, Inc., an alternativeschool for boysexpelled fromthe public schools in Boston, workedwith an innercityneighborhood n Denver, and sponsoreda four-weekinstitutein Co-lumbia, South Carolinadesigned to help high school teachersincor-porateAfro-American,Native American, Chicano, and Women's lit-erature nto the high school curriculum.The NationalFacultyworkedwith Bethune-CookmanCollege in Florida and Rust College in Mis-sissippi, wherea teamof scholarsmetwithavarietyof facultymembersto demonstratehow black literatureandculturecould be incorporatedinto a number of courses. Not all projects were successful, but theconcept of reaching out from the university to the community wasimportant. nthe end, thosewho served asconsultantsprobably earnedmore than those they tried to teach, and a few had their lives andcareers ransformed.One of themost innovativeof the NationalFacultyprojectswas the museumprogram,which enabledtwo teams of Amer-ican Studiesexperts to work with communitymuseumsin small citiesin various parts of the country. They helped redesign exhibitions tointerpret he story of local communities in the context of Americanculture. JoannaZangrando,a member of one of the teams, recallspresentinga plan to the Lion's Club in Lima, Ohio in a room where



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366 AMERICANQUARTERLYshe was the only woman present.She remembersworkingwith Men-nonite women in a Kansastown on a quiltexhibit. She also remembersthe long, lonely tripsfrom one small city to another.25One of the most valuablethings that John Hague did as directorofNASF was to reachout to the young dissidentscholars in the RadicalCaucus. He used them as consultants, invited them to conferences,and in many ways provided the forum for a dialogue between thosewhocalledthemselvesradicalsandthose moretraditional r established(overtime the lines betweenthe groupsbecameverydifficultto draw).It was this dialogue thathelped revitalize AmericanStudies in the early1970s andprevented he divisions and despairthat infested many otheracademic groups duringthese years. Perhaps he most importantplacewhere such dialogue took place was the KirklandCollege conferenceof August 1972.The KirklandSummer nstitutehas alreadyenteredAmericanStudiesfolklore. There are stories of all-nightbridgegames, of skinny dippingin the reservoir,of intense workshopsand long discussions about each-ing and learningandsocial relevance, and of utopiandreams aboutanAmericanStudies Centerand a radicalAmericanStudiescommunity.The KirklandInstitutebegan as a dream of Nancy BannisterandBobScarolaand a few othersin the RadicalCaucus;a dreamrelatedto thecounter-culture mpulse to form a communityand to get to the heartof the matterby getting away from it all. John Hague, as the directorof the American StudiesFaculty, made the dreama reality by findingthe money to help subsidizethe venture,and Doris Friedensohn oundthe place.26 Doris was teaching at KirklandCollege, a small liberalarts institution in Clinton, New York, in 1971 when the presidentofthe college handed her the issue of Connectionsthat included GeneLeach's essay on Yale. Fascinatedby what she read, she invited theInstituteto Kirkland.27The advertisements or the Instituteannounced our days of prob-lem-stating, problem-solving workshops. Thirty-nine people at-tended. They came from many different parts of the country, fromdiverse backgrounds,and they representedalmost as many politicalpositions. Ranging in age from the early twenties to perhapssixty,they came for differentreasons, some sentby their universities, otherson a more personalquest. Some wantedto restructure he universityand change society. Wouldn't it be great, one person wrote, if



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THE POLITICSOF AMERICAN STUDIES 367AmericanStudies could or would become a 'truly subversive' expe-rience for its students,unfitting hem for careersrather handiscipliningthem toward careers. Wouldn't it be great, another wrote, ifAmerican Studies could cut throughthe problemsof student-teacherroles and create a sense of learningrather hanteaching. Workshopswere organizedaround uch problemsas ContractTeachingandLearn-ing, Student Centered Culture Studies, and American StudiesBeyond the University. 28I had just become the Executive Secretaryof the American StudiesAssociation, and severalpeople suggested that it might be useful if Iattended:perhapsI could bridge the gulf between the Radical Caucusandthe national office, and at the same time perhapsI could find outwhat the Radical Caucus was all about. I went expecting to be anobserver,but I was quickly told that there would be no observers,thatI had to be a participant.29The discussions were often intense and sometimes personal; occa-sionally they resembled group therapy. Nancy Bannisterhad written,in one of her early calls for action, that American Studies shouldprovide people with the opportunityto learn about the process ofsolving personal and social problems, and Bob Merideth oftenswitched fromtalkingabout culture studies to arguingthe importanceof GestaltTherapy.The searchwas personalas well as political. Yetthe diverse mixture of people gatheredat Kirklandbecame a group-notall agreeing, some beingturnedoff by the talk of personalproblems,othersrejecting heoriesborrowed rom ThomasKuhn,KennethBurke,and HerbertMarcuse-that came away after four days with a greaterrespect for the quest that everyone shared, on one level or another,offinding a way to make American Studies work in the classroom andin a world that seemed in 1972 to have gone mad.By 1972 the time of academic expansion was over, and the NewYorkTimes was writing of a Ph.D. glut. The young people at Kirk-landandeverywherewondered f they would ever get a tenuredpositionin a university. At the same time some debated whetherthey wantedto teach in a university (which seemed partof a corruptculture)evenif theycould. Muchof the talk atKirkland, nretrospect, eemsutopian,idealistic, and impractical. One group, for example, dreamed of es-tablishinganAmericanStudies Center hatwouldpublishbooks, createbroadcastsand films, trainteachers, consult with museums, conduct



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368 AMERICANQUARTERLYworkshops,and help influencepolicy on the nationallevel.The center was never organizedand aftera few years the NationalAmericanStudiesFaculty lost its fundingand disappeared.The 1970sproved a time of crisis for many who had taken part in the RadicalCaucus. One committed suicide, one went insane, two left the uni-versity and joined the Farmin Tennessee, the largestof the nation'scommunes.OthersdesertedAmericanStudies forotherfields, but someremainedcommittedscholarsand teachers n a worldthathadchanged,often strugglingin universitiesand colleges where budgetcrises pre-cluded even dreamingof transforming he universityand the world.

Yet the Radical Caucusand Kirklandhad their impact. The dreamof theKirkland nstitute o alterthenatureof the 1973 ASA conventionto be held in San Francisco did come true; some of the spirit andinformalityof Kirklandwas broughtto that conference. A committeeheadedby David Whisnantand Nancy Bannisterorganizedmore thantwenty workshopson topics as diverse as Film and Video, IndianStudies, Contract Teaching, The Uses of Autobiography, andEcology and EnvironmentalStudies. The workshopformat,whichcontrastedwith the more formal and traditionalsessions, helped totransform heSan Franciscoconvention.30 urther,wenty-eightpercentof the participantswere women. This comparedwith fifteen percenton the 1971 program.To put it in perspective, the AHA meeting inSan Franciscojust two months, ater had only six percentwomen par-ticipants.3'Something else happenedat San Francisco. With AliceKessler-Harris,CarolSmith-Rosenberg,WarrenSusmanandothersona programcommittee chaired by James Stone, culturalhistory, thestudy of material culture and social history-with its emphasis ongender,ethnicity,race and class-became dominant n the associationanddisplaced the emphasison Americanexceptionalismandan Amer-ican consensus.As one looks at American Studies today it is difficult to single outthe threadof influence that startedwith the Radical Caucus and theKirklandInstitute.One theme that does run throughmuch of the lit-erature always mimeographed)s a concern for teachingand a searchfor new methods and ways to engage studentsin a changing world.Books suchas Teachingas a SubversiveActivity,Deschooling Society,andGrowingUpAbsurdarefrequentlymentioned.In addition o skinnydipping,Kirklandwas a place for swappingsyllabiand discussing non-



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THE POLITICSOF AMERICANSTUDIES 369traditional earning.Another theme that runs throughthe literatureofthe Radical Caucus is the connection of the personalwith teaching andlearning. Connections (the Radical Caucuspublication) is filled withletters, personal statementsand taped interviews: the use of the firstperson became accepted on many levels in the sixties, from the NewJournalism pioneeredby TomWolfe withhis Yale Ph.D. in AmericanStudies), to more informal testimonials and autobiographicalac-counts.32Many people were fascinatedwith the tape recorder,whichnext to the mimeograph machine, symbolized much of the countercultureactivity of the sixties and seventies. None were moreintriguedwith the taperecorder han JayMechling, RobertMerideth,andDavidWilson who all taught in the AmericanStudies Departmentat Cali-fornia-Davis.Mechling,who hadstudiedatStetsonunderJohnHague,convertedto another kind of American Studies at the University ofPennsylvaniawhere he had just finished his Ph.D. when he attendedthe Kirkland nstitute.Overa period of monthsin 1974-75 these threetalked into a tape recorder about their lives, loves, frustrations,andalso about theirresearch n culturestudies. They edited the result intoa book called Morning Work:a Trialoguethat sums up much of thehope, optimism,naivete, and self satisfactionof the Radical Caucus.33Thereare manyimportant egacies from the RadicalCaucus. Perhapsthe most importantwas the democratizationof the American StudiesAssociation;but also significantwas the challenge to make the studyof Americanculturemorediverseand inclusive and the insistencethatthe personal and the political be connected to the process of teachingand learning. Yet the attemptof a few radicalscholars, most notablyRobertMeridethandGeneWise, to deviseatheoryof AmericanStudieslargelyfailed. Just as the searchfor one AmericanStudies method andthe attemptto define the American characterhad failed in the 1950s,so the searchfor one theorydid not succeed in reorienting he field inthe 1970s. On one level at least, the search for a single theorywas anattemptto make the field legitimate, and it ignored many who werenot truebelievers, who had nothad theproperconversionexperience.34As I look at the programs or recentAmericanStudies conventionsand as I read,orattempt o read,manyof thecurrentbooks andarticlesin thefield, I amdismayedto discoverthata greatmany young scholars(andsome not so young) are once againseekingthe one trueapproach.Mane seems seduced be deconstructionism, he new historicism, or



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370 AMERICANQUARTERLYby anotherversionof post-moderniterary heory. We all need theoriesto approachour work, and debating theoretical approachescan beintellectually stimulating, but our main task should not be to writeabouttheory, but to write a narrative,to tell a story, and to explainAmericanculture to as wide an audience as possible. Too often thoseconvertedto theory drop names, invent words or write in convolutedsentences, making theirarticles unintelligibleto all buta few insiders.It is not just those studying literarytexts who fall prey to excessivespecializationand unreadable anguage. It was important n the earlyseventies to write about the diversity of Americanculture-to studyrace, gender,class, and ethnicity-but now some of the work in socialhistoryhas become so narrow,so focused on small topics, andin somecases so technical and statistical, that it also has lost its audience.In a time when some proclaim he Closingof the AmericanMind,or the End of History, we cannotallow Fukiyamaand Bloom to bethe only ones who explainAmericanculture,or the place of the UnitedStates in the world. As AmericanStudies scholarswe have a respon-sibility to write text books, help constructmuseumexhibits, producefilms, define new methodsof teaching,as well as to do careful, originalresearch.We also have a responsibilityand an opportunity o writereadableprose, to define the governing narrative, and to help allAmericans make sense of their world at the end of the twentiethcentury.36This does not mean findinga new unity, a new consensus.In telling the story of the American people, we must describe thediversity,theconflict,theracism,andthedespair.As AmericanStudiesbecomes more internationalized,we have an opportunity o look at theAmericanexperience romoutsideas well as fromwithin. Weespeciallyneed to address the problem of the meaningof American culture in apost-cold-warworld. It will not be an easy task, but we should nothide behind our little studies, our careful deconstructionof texts, ourover concern with footnotes, and our preoccupationwith charts andgraphs. As the last forty years has demonstrated,we cannot avoidpolitics, but we shouldbe receptiveto manyapproachesand theories.We can build on the early heritageof AmericanStudies, and on thebest of the RadicalCaucusand theNational AmericanStudiesFaculty.By interpretingAmericanculturefor a wide audience, we can havean influence. We can make a difference.



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THE POLITICSOF AMERICANSTUDIES 371NOTES

A versionof this paperwas presentedas the PresidentialAddress at the AmericanStudiesAssociation's annual meeting, 2 November 1989.I want to thank the following people for sharing heirmemories, andin some casestheir files, with me andfor commentingon an early draftof this essay: Betty Chmaj,ArthurP. Dudden, DorisFriedensohn,JohnHague, Alice Kessler-Harris,Gene Leach,JayMechling, RobertSklar, RobertH. Walker,and JoannaZangrando.Many of thesepeople disagreeaboutwhat happenedand its meaning, andmost rejectat least a partof my interpretation.This is not intended to be a complete historyof the AmericanStudies movement, but only some personal observationson various aspects of therecent past.1. Dennis Donoghue, ThoughtsAfterSalzburg, TimesLiterarySupplement June1975), 658; Dennis Donoghue, Reading America: Essays on American Literature(Berkeley, 1987), 3. My memory of the incident differs slightly from Donoghue's,particularlyn the language used by Sinclair.2. Conference on The United States in the World, held at the SmithsonianInstitution,Sept. 1975. Ahmad's paper used Americanrevisionist scholarship o de-nounce American foreign policy. See Eqbal Ahmad, Political Cultureand ForeignPolicy: Notes on AmericanInterventionsn the ThirdWorld, in Allen F. Davis, ed.,For Better or Worse:TheAmericanInfluence n the World Westport,1981), 119-44.3. Donoghue, ReadingAmerica, 4. BCICA stood for BicentennialCommittee for

InternationalConferencesof Americanists and was chairedby Robin W. Winks ofYale University. In additionto the meeting in Salzburg, Austria, the committee or-ganizedmeetingsin Fujinomiya,Japan;Shiraz, Iran;SanAntonio, Texas;andAbidjan,Ivory Coast. See Robin W. Winks, The Study of AmericaAbroadon the Occasionof the Bicentennial, in Robin W. Winks, ed., OtherVoices, OtherViews:An Inter-national Collectionof Essays From the Bicentennial(Westport,Conn., 1978), 3-15.4. Philip Gleason, WorldWar II and the Development of American Studies,AmericanQuarterly36 (Bibliography1984): 343-58.5. RobinW. Winks, Cloakand Gown:Scholarsin theSecretWar,1939-1961 (NewYork, 1987), 247-321.6. KermitVanderbilt,AmericanLiteratureand TheAcademy: TheRoots, Growthand Maturityof a Profession (Philadelphia, 1986), 460-98.7. RobertH. Walker,AmericanStudiesAbroad(Westport,Conn., 1975); SigmundSkard, Trans-Atlantic:Memoirsof a Norwegian Americanist(Oslo, Norway, 1978).8. JosephineMartinOber, Historyof the AmericanStudiesAssociation (unpub-lished Mastersthesis, Bryn MawrCollege, 1971), 16 ff; Seymourquote, New YorkTimes(19 May 1950), 29; AnnualReportof the CarnegieCorporation f New York,1954. The Coe Foundationalso subsidized American Studies Programsat Stanford,Harding, and Wyoming.9. ArthurE. Bestor, Jr., The Study of American Civilization:Jingoismor Schol-arship? Williamand Mary Quarterly9 (Jan. 1952): 3-9; MarvinWachman, Chau-vinism and AmericanStudies, AmericanStudies (May 1958): 3-4.10. Carl Bode, The Startof the ASA, unpublishedessay, 1960, ASA MSS,Libraryof Congress, published n somewhat differentform in AmericanQuarterly31(Bibliography 1979): 345-54. Formletter from RobertSpiller, Scully Bradley, Roy



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372 AMERICANQUARTERLYF. Nichols, Richard H. Shrylock to , 20 Nov. 1945, ASA MSS, LibraryofCongress; Conversationswith Robert Spiller, 1971-78.11. Robert W. Iverson, AmericanStudies in the Peace Corps, AmericanStudies(July 1962): 1-3.12. American Studies: Problems, Promises and Possibilities (Austin, 1958), 30.Various early surveys suggest that there were always more historians than literaryscholars, but in the 1950s the literary scholars often took a leadershiprole; WilliamHesseltine, Some Observationson AmericanStudies ProgramsAbroad, 1963, ASAMSS, Libraryof Congress.13. Dorsonquote, Annual Report of the AmericanFolklore Society (March 1967),2. CharlesT. Morrissey, Arrowheadand ArdenHouse in Context:The Oral HistoryAssociation and the Ethos of Formation n 1966-67, unpublished essay. Ray B.Browne, AgainstAcademia: The History of thePopular CultureAssociation/AmericanCulture Association and Popular CultureMovement, 1967-1988 (Bowling Green,1989).14. For the transformation f the universities, see MorrisDickstein, Gates of Eden:American Culture in the Sixties (New York, 1977); Godfrey Hodgson, America inOurTime:From WorldWar I to Nixon, WhatHappenedand Why New York, 1976);Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Yearsof Hope, Days of Rage (New York, 1987).15. Gene Leach, Yale: Trimming the Ivy, Connections(Fall 1971), no pages;Leach, RadicalAmericanStudies:A Movementand a Moment, unpublishedpaper,New England AmericanStudiesAssociation, April 1982.16. Betty Chmajwith James McEvoy, The ProtestPapers, mimeographed,1966;Chmajto Allen F. Davis, 11 July 1989.17. Hodgson, America, Our Times, 364; Gitlin, The Sixties, 285ff.18. Chmaj to Davis, 11 July 1989; conversationwith ArthurP. Dudden, 16 Sept.1989; Ray Browne to Members of ASA Advisory and Host Committees, 17 Sept.1969;RobertMerideth o Membersof ExecutiveCouncil, ASA, 3 Nov. 1969;MichaelMcGiffertto Ex-Council ASA, 16 Dec. 1969 (all correspondence n possession ofChmaj).The New UniversityConferencewas a radical scholarly organizationbasedin the mid-west to which some American Studies scholarsbelonged. Another moreacademic rebellion also took place at the Toledo convention when Ray B. Browneused his position as program hairto denounce ASA as elitist andto form the PopularCultureAssociation.19. Minutesof ASA CouncilMeeting, 28 Dec. 1970;Letterto ASA Members,23April 1971; Brooke Hindle to ArthurDudden, 26 May 1971; August Meier to ArthurDudden, 19 May 1971; Daniel Boorstinto ArthurDudden, 12 May 1971, (ASA MSS,Libraryof Congress).20. Minutes of Executive Council Meeting, 31 Oct. 1969, Toledo, Ohio, ASAMSS, LC. Onthe turmoilwithinthe AmericanHistoricalAssociation,see PeterNovick,ThatNoble Dream: The 'ObjectivityQuestion' and the AmericanHistorical Profession(New York, 1988), 434ff. On the Modem Language Association, see EdwardE.Ericson, Jr., Radicals in the University(Stanford,1975).21. The best place to follow the impactof The Radical Caucus is in the CouncilMinutes and in the publicationsConnectionsandConnectionsII, which unfortunatelyhave not foundtheirway into most libraries.Also see an occasionalarticle ike RobertSklar's, American Studies and the Realities of America, American Quarterly22(Summer 1970): 598-605. Significantly this article was not published in a regularissue of the Quarterlybut in the bibliography ssue, sponsored by the association.



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THE POLITICSOF AMERICANSTUDIES 37322. Betty Chmajto ASA ExecutiveCouncil, 3 Nov. 1969; RobertWalker o ArthurDudden, 15 Sept. 1971, (ASA MSS, Libraryof Congress).For Rappquote see RonaldFraser,et al., 1968: A StudentGeneration n Revolt (New York, 1988), 301.23. Also serving on the committee were Blanch Gelfant, Lillian Schlissel, LoisRudnick, CarleneBagnell Blanchardand RobertMerideth.See Resolutions on theStatus of Women, American Quarterly 24 (Oct. 1972): 550-54; Chmaj to ArthurDudden,4 Feb. 1972, Allen F. Davis to AlmaPayne, 3 Oct. 1972, ASA MSS, Libraryof Congress.24. ASA Council Minutes, 28 Dec. 1970; ConventionProgram1971, ASA MSS,Libraryof Congress.25. National AmericanStudiesFaculty Reportsto the Council 1972-1976, in pos-session of John Hague, also ASA MSS, Libraryof Congress. John Hague to AllenF. Davis, 10 July 1989; Conversation,JoannaZangrando,29 Sept. 1989.26. Conversationwith Doris Friedensohn,30 Sept. 1989; Nancy Bannister o BobMeridethandJayMechling, 2 Aug. 1972 (in possession of Jay Mechling);Bannisterto all, 25 Sept. 1972.27. AnnouncingAmericanStudies SummerInstituteon Programsand Teaching,KirklandCollege, Clinton, NY, Aug. 23-27, 1972 (in possession of Jay Mechling).Memoriesof Kirklandareconfusedbecause there was anothersmallerconferenceheldtherein the summer of 1973.28. Connections,2: 2, Reporton the AmericanStudies SummerInstitute.29. Participatingn my firstworkshop at Kirkland,I began to work out a strategyto use family historyin the classroom, a strategy hatlater became a book. Jim Watts

and Allen F. Davis, Generations: YourFamily in ModernAmerican History (NewYork, 1974), 3d edition, 1983.30. Program: FourthBiennial Convention of the AmericanStudies Association,Oct. 18-20, 1973 ;David E. Whisnant, Proposal or anAlternativeCultureFestivalat the AmericanStudiesAssociationMeeting, ASA MSS, Libraryof Congress.Thealternativeculture festival was scaled down, but twenty-oneworkshopswere held.31. Percentagesare based on an analysis of the three publishedprograms.32. PaulGoodman,Growingup Absurd:Problemsof Youthn the OrganizedSystem(New York, 1960); Ivan D. Illich, Deschooling Society (New York, 1971); NeilPostman and Charles Weingartner,Teaching as a SubversiveActivity (New York,1969). Forthe newjournalismand the use of the firstperson n the 1960s see Dickstein,Gates of Eden.33. JayMechling, RobertMerideth,andDavidWilson, MorningWork:A Trialogueon Issues of KnowledgeandFreedom in Doing AmericanStudies(Salinas, California,1979).34. The debateover, and searchfor, an AmericanStudies method and paradigm,ordefinition,canbe followed in:HenryNashSmith, Can 'AmericanStudies'DevelopaMethod? AmericanQuarterly9 (Summer1957): 197-208; RobertE. Spiller, Unityand Diversity in the Study of AmericanCulture:The American Studies Associationin Perspective, American Quarterly25 (Dec. 1973): 611-18; Cecil F. Tate, TheSearch or a Methodin American Studies(Minneapolis, 1973); Mechling, Merideth,Wilson, AmericanCultureStudies:The Discipline and the Curriculum, AmericanQuarterly25 (Oct. 1973): 364-89; Gene Wise, 'Paradigm Dramas' in AmericanStudies:A CulturalandInstitutionalHistoryof the Movement, AmericanQuarterly31 (Summer 1979): 293-337; Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., A New Context for a NewAmericanStudies? AmericanQuarterly41 (Dec. 1989): 588-613.



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374 AMERICANQUARTERLY35. For the uninitiated,good places to begin to understandwhat all the fuss is aboutare Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Minneapolis, 1983);H. Aram Veeser, ed., The New Historicism (New York, 1989); John E. Toews,Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn:The Autonomy of Meaning and theIrreducibility f Experience, AmericanHistoricalReview 93 (Oct. 1987): 879-907.36. Two recent pleas for a narrativesynthesis are Thomas Bender, Wholes andParts: The Need for Synthesis in American History, Journal of AmericanHistory,73 (June 1986): 120-36, and Alan Dawley, A Prefaceto Synthesis, LaborHistory29 (Summer 1988): 363-77. We could all emulate MarcusRediker's richly texturedinterdisciplinary arrative,Betweenthe Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: MerchantSea-men, Pirates and the Anglo-AmericanMaritimeWorld1700-1750 (New York, 1987).He writes in his preface: In reconstructing he social and culturallife of the earlyeighteenth-century ommon seamen, I have soughtboth to tell a storyand to write a

history (9). Another model for American Studies might be Simon Schama, TheEmbarrassment f Riches:AnInterpretation f Dutch Culture n theGolden Age (NewYork, 1987).

the politics of american studies

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