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Title: Paradigm Dramas in American Studies: A Cultural and Institutional History of the Movement


1
Paradigm Dramas in American Studies A Cultural
and Institutional History of the Movement
  • Gene Wise
  • American Quarterly, Volume 313 (1979) 293-337

2
Paradigm Definition (Thomas Kuhn)
  • Beliefs held by a person, group or culture
  • The acts that function to characterize those
    beliefs.

3
American Studies Stages of Development (An
Overview)
  • Prelude to the American Studies Movement (Before
    1900)
  • Initial Stage Revolt against Academic Formalism,
    1900-1927
  • Consensus School of American Studies, 1927-65
  • Crisis in American Studies, 1965-1975
  • Emergence of Cultural Studies and Cultural
    Materialism, 1975- 1990s
  • The Current State of American Studies
    (Kessler-Harris).

4
I. Prelude to the American Studies Movement
(Before 1900)
  • The insignificance or inferiority of American
    culture, especially in relation to British and
    European cultures
  • Emphasis on individuals, great men and heroic
    events.

5
II. Initial Stage Revolt against Formalism,
1900-1927
  • Vernon Parrington, intellectual founder of
    American Studies
  • Main Currents in American Thought (1927)
  • Era when academic disciplines are being created
    and institutionalized (methods and hierarchies)
    formalism.
  • Where does the study of America fit?
  • Integration of Academic disciplines history,
    literature, sociology, philosophy, etc.

6
III. Consensus School of American Studies, 1927-65
  • Intellectual agreement--or CONSENSUS-- on what
    the American experience is like and how to study
    it.
  • Goal of consensus scholarship
  • To make American culture "intellectually usable.
    Not just objective history but a history (story)
    that supports the development of America and
    American culture
  • To discern the fundamental (or universal) meaning
    of American experience and American culture.

7
III. Five Characteristics of Consensus Scholarship
  • 1. There is an American Mind.
  • This mind is more or less homogeneous,
    essentially the same in everyone.
  • While it may be complex and multi-layered, it is
    a single entity.

8
III. Five Characteristics of Consensus Scholarship
  • 2. What distinguishes the American Mindin fact,
    what creates itis its location in the New World.
  • As result, Americans are typically . . .
  • Hopeful (oriented toward the future rather than
    the past)
  • Idealistic or Innocent (Naïve)
  • Individualistic (Democratic)
  • Pragmatic or materialistic
  • Believe in boundless opportunity.

9
III. Five Characteristics of Consensus Scholarship
  • 3. The American Mind can be found (theoretically
    at least) in any American to varying degrees.
    Some individuals will possess it more fully than
    others based on their intellect and experiences
  • Great intellectual works (artistic / political)
    reveal or express the major themes or ideas at
    work in the culture at large. They transcend
    their own particularity. They are universal.

10
III. Five Characteristics of Consensus Scholarship
  • 3. Continued
  • The American Mind finds its fullest expression in
    the countrys most influential leaders and
    thinkers
  • Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau
  • These become the basis for our educational and
    political systems, as a way to train
    othersespecially new Americansin what it means
    to be American.

11
III. Five Characteristics of Consensus Scholarship
  • 4. The American Mind is also evident not just in
    individuals but in the portrayal of our
    intellectual and cultural history
  • Creates distinctive themes and identities
  • The Pilgrims / Puritanism
  • American Revolution
  • The Frontier and Westward Migration
  • Individualism / Non-Hierarchical Society
  • WWII and The Greatest Generation
  • The Cold War (Democracy threatened by communism)

12
III. Five Characteristics of Consensus Scholarship
  • 5. The American Mind (and America itself) is
    revealed most profoundly in its high culture,
    its greatest intellectual thinkers and it
    greatest creative works (art, music, literature).
    These hold a privileged position
  • Representatives of popular culture may be
    interesting but are NOT as significant to the
    understanding of America
  • Popular heroes (Daniel Boone / John Wayne)
  • Artistic works (The Western / Star Trek)
  • Cultural Events (Dueling / Professional
    Wrestling)
  • Material Culture (farm implements / shopping
    malls)

13
III. Key Figures in the Consensus School
  • Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land The American West
    as Symbol and Myth (1950)
  • Perry Miller, The New England Mind From Colony
    to Province (1953)
  • F.O. Matthiessen, American Renaissance Art and
    Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman
    (1941)
  • Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden (1964)
  • Alan Trachtenberg, Brooklyn Bridge Fact and
    Symbol (1965).

14
III. Other Important Contributions During this Era
  • American Quarterly, 1949
  • American Studies Association, 1951.

15
IV. Crisis in American Studies, 1965-1975
  • Emerges along with the cultural / political
    rebellions of the sixties
  • Critiques A/S as a field of study
  • Argues that it is not a pioneering movement but a
    very conservative one that reinforces old
    historical and cultural assumptions about America
    and Americans.

16
IV. Crisis in American Studies, 1965-1975
  • America is not one monolithic culture (the
    American mind), but a variety of interrelated
    cultures that are at times working together and
    at times in conflict with different values and
    goals
  • Complete cultural synthesis is no longer
    possible.

17
V. New American StudiesEmergence of Cultural
Studies and Cultural Materialism, 1975- 1990s
  • Shift from humanistic to scientific / analytical
    approaches to American Culture
  • Not interested in what the "meaning" of America
    is (or if one meaning is more legitimate or valid
    than another)
  • Rather, it is interested in how and why people
    create meaning, how individuals and groups go
    about creating a coherent social universe.

18
V. New American StudiesSEVEN Major
Characteristics
  • 1. Focus on the social and material structures
    that underlie intellectual and artistic
    expression

19
V. New American StudiesSEVEN Major
Characteristics
  • 2. CULTURE is redefined via social sciences.
  • The totality of socially transmitted behavior
    patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all
    other products of human work and thought
  • A set of control mechanisms--plans, recipes,
    rules and instructions for the governing of human
    behavior
  • Social structures always mediate between a
    particular cultural artifact and the larger
    society in which it is situated.
  • Includes high culture (art forms) as well as
    popular culture

20
V. New American StudiesSEVEN Major
Characteristics
  • 3. Highly self-conscious
  • Critically reflective
  • Intellectually neutral or objective not
    interested in supporting or endorsing any
    prevailing cultural ideologies.
  • Treats the study of America as a science.

21
V. New American StudiesSEVEN Major
Characteristics
  • 4. Pluralistic approach (the MANY)
  • Does not focus on just one unifying national
    culture but looks at the many different cultures
    contained within America and how these are
    related to each other
  • Looks at commonalities but also looks at where
    conflicts and tensions exist.

22
V. New American StudiesSEVEN Major
Characteristics
  • 5. Emphasis on the PARTICULAR and the ORDINARY
  • Instead of examining heroic figures or great art,
    the focus is on
  • Common Americans (farmers or laborers)
  • Popular art forms (collectibles or music)
  • Ordinary material culture (farm implements or
    daily life).

23
V. New American StudiesSEVEN Major
Characteristics
  • 6. Rejection of universal essences, universal
    truths or absolutes
  • While these may exist, they are not fully
    knowable and not the domain of intellectual
    inquiry
  • Whatever America may be, we cannot assume that
    it is universal for all people.

24
V. New American StudiesSEVEN Major
Characteristics
  • 7. Comparative Approach
  • No longer is the focus just on America or even
    America and Europe
  • Understanding American through a dialogue with
    other countries and cultures
  • Third or Developing World Nations
  • Africa and the Caribbean
  • The Muslim World.

25
V. New American Studies Characterized by the
shift from myth . . .
  • MYTH a fixed story used to normalize and
    regulate our social life
  • Everything is read through the myth and it makes
    all things familiar
  • Often a form of non-critical, self-interpretation
    .

26
V. New American Studies to Rhetoric . . .
  • RHETORIC attempts to question and analyze
    culture rather than affirm or deny it.
  • its purpose is to reveal the interests that
    reinforce myths and culture
  • the power of words, things, images, and ideas to
    create and subvert culture.
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