American studies
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American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the study of the United States. It incorporates the study of economics, history, literature, art, the media, film, urban studies, women's studies, and culture of the United States, among other fields.
American civilization may also mean the United States, and its culture and people.
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[edit] Founding notions
Vernon Louis Parrington is often cited as the founder of American studies for his Pulitzer Prize-winning Main Currents in American Thought, which combines the methodologies of literary criticism and historical research. In the introduction to Main Currents in American Thought, Parrington described his field:
- I have undertaken to give some account of the genesis and development in American letters of certain germinal ideas that have come to be reckoned traditionally American--how they came into being here, how they were opposed, and what influence they have exerted in determining the form and scope of our characteristic ideals and institutions. In pursuing such a task, I have chosen to follow the broad path of our political, economic, and social development, rather than the narrower belletristic.
The "broad path" that Parrington describes formed a scholastic course of study for Henry Nash Smith, who received a Ph.D. from Harvard's interdisciplinary program in "History and American Civilization" in 1940, setting an academic precedent for present-day American Studies programs.
The first signature methodology of American studies was the "myth and symbol" approach, developed in such foundational texts as Smith's Virgin Land and Leo Marx's The Machine in the Garden. Myth and symbol scholars claimed to find certain recurring themes throughout American texts that served to illuminate a unique American culture. Later scholars such as Annette Kolodny and Alan Trachtenberg re-imagined the myth and symbol approach in light of multicultural studies. In recent years American Studies scholars have focused on issues of race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and transnational concerns.
This transformation in approach, with a renewed emphasis on the perceived failure of America to live up to its purported ideals, has led to criticism within some quarters of the academic community, especially among scholars who feel that the de-emphasis of American exceptionalism, and corresponding robust critique of American progress, has gradually, but inexorably, morphed into an equally unrealistic, and at times obsessive, scrutiny of the perceived flaws of the American experience.
In 2003, liberal scholar and distinguished professor of Political Science at Boston College Alan Wolfe published an extensive, and withering critique of this new dynamic in the field of American Studies.
In an essay for The New Republic, entitled "Anti-American Studies," Wolfe examined the foundation of this academic discipline, traced its growth in postwar academe, and most importantly set forth a polemic that argued that the original purpose of this field-as envisioned by scholars such as Leo Marx and Henry Nash Smith-had been appropriated by a group of overly politicized academics-exemplified in his essay by Professor David W. Noble, a former colleague of the two noted scholars-who critically dissect the American literary canon with a view towards discrediting venerated writers, e.g. Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, among others, and attempt to refocus the sweep of American history from one of halting progress, e.g. abolition, emancipation, universal suffrage, successful legislative and judicial battles for civil rights, to one of unalloyed wrongs, e.g. institutionalized racism and discrimination, belligerence towards non-hostile nations and foreign policy aggression, etc...
Wolfe concludes his essay with a plea to return to a more sophisticated American Studies, where nuanced, justifiable criticism of America is balanced with recognition of its remarkable achievements, and contributions to civilization.
It is taught, for example, at the Center for American Studies in Brussels, Belgium.
[edit] Further Readings
- Locating American Studies: The Evolution of a Discipline, edited by Lucy Maddox, Johns Hopkins University Press 1998, ISBN 0801860563
- The Futures of American Studies, edited by Donald E. Pease and Robyn Wiegman, Duke University Press 2002, ISBN 0822329654
[edit] Associations and scholarly journals
The American Studies Association was founded in 1950. It publishes American Quarterly, which has been the primary outlet of American Studies scholarship since 1949. The British Association for American Studies supports American Studies in Britain and publishes the Journal of American Studies. [American Studies http://www2.ku.edu/~amerstud/], sponsored by the Mid-America American Studies Association, is, alongside American Quarterly, the second major American Studies journal
[edit] See also
- Academic discipline
- American culture
- American history
- American literature
- American Studies in Britain
