American Studies: Method and Theory

Professor Richard Meckel
Brown University

Course Schedule

  1. FROM AMERICAN MIND TO AMERICAN CULTURE(S)
    Origins and early practice of American Studies
    Read:
    • Smith, Henry Nash. Virgin Land.
    • Wise, Gene. "Paradigm Dramas in American Studies: A Cultural and Institutional History." American Quarterly 31 (1979): 293-337.
    • Sklar, Robert. "The Problem of American Studies Philosophy: A Biography of New Directions" Ibid. 27 (1975): 245-62.
    • Lenz, Guenther H. "American Studies and the Radical Tradition: From the 1930s to the 1960s." Prospects 12 (1987): 21-58.

  2. NEW AND OLD DIRECTIONS IN AMERICAN STUDIES
    From American Studies to Cultural Studies (almost)
    Read:
    • Lenz, Guenther H. "American Studies-- Beyond Crisis?: Recent Redefinitions and the Meaning of Theory, HIstory and Practical Criticism." Prospects 7 (1982): 53-113.
    • Lears, T.J. Jackson. "The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities." American Historical Review 90 (June 1985): 567-93.
    • Grossberg, Lawrence. "Strategies of MarxistCultural Interpretation." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 1 (Dec 1984): 292-41.
    • Hall, Stuart. "Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms." Media, Culture and Society 2 (1980): 57-72.
    • Lears, T.J. Jackson. "The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities." American Historical Review 90 (June 1985): 567-93.
    • Palmer, Bryan. "The Discovery/Deconstruction of the Word/Sign in idem." Descent into Discourse: The Reification of Language and the Writing of Social History. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990: 3-47.
    • Berkhofer, Robert J., Jr. "A New Context for American Studies." American Quarterly 41 (1989), 558-613.

    Workshop: Preparing 190 Proposals
    • Due:
      Book Review (800 words) of Leo Marx's Machine in the Garden
    • Consult:
      Berkhofer, Robert F., Jr. "Suggestions for an Analytical Book Review"

  3. DE(RE)CONSTRUCTING SOCIAL/CULTURAL CONSTRUCTIONS: THEORY AND PRACTICE
    The Literary Americanists, Part I
    Read:
    • Crews, Frederick. "Whose American Renaissance?" New York Review of Books 35 (Oct. 27, 1988): 68-81.
    • Wilson, Christopher. "Containing Multitudes: Realsim, Historicism, American Studies." American Quarterly 41 (1990): 466-495.
    • Lawrence Buell. "It's Good, But is it History?" American Quarterly 41 (1990): 496-500.
    • Richard Bernstein. "When Parantheses are Transgressive." New York Times Sunday Magazine, 29 July 1990, p.29.
    • Reising, Russel J. The Unusable Past: Theory and the Study of American Literature.

    The New Literary Americanists, Part II
    Read:
    • Buell, Lawrence. "Literary History without Sexism? Feminists Studies and Canonical Reception." American Literature 59 (March 1987): 102-14.
    • Bayn, Nina. "Melodramas of Beset Manhood: How Theories of American Fiction Exclude Women Writers." American Quarterly 33 (1981): 123-39.
    • Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860.

    Workshop: Formulating Prlim Field Proposals
    • Review Essay due: 2000 words
    • Compare and contrast Leo Marx's Machine in the Garden and Tompkins' Sensational Designs

    4. Historians and the (De)Construction and (De)Naturalization of Gender
    Read:

    • Palmer, Bryan. "Gender", in The Descent into Discourse, pp. 145-86.
    • Scott, Joan W. "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis." American Historical Review 91 (1986): 1053-75.
    • Smith-Rosenberg, Carol. Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America. pp 11-52.
    • Gordon, Linda. "What's New in Women's History." In Theresa deLauretis, ed. Feminist Studies/ Critical Studies. pp 20-30.

    The Social Construction of Race and Ethnicity
    Read:

    • Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1980s.
    • Fields, Barbara J. "Ideology and Race in American Histroy" in Kousser, J. Morgan and James M. McPherson, eds. Region, Race and Reconstruction: pp 143-77.
    • Peterson, William. "Concepts of Ethnicity" in William Peterson, MIchael Novak and Philip Gleason, eds., Concepts and Ethnicity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1982), pp 1-26.
    • Sollors, Werner. "Theory of American Ethnicity..." American Quarterly 33 (Biblio. Issue, 1981): 257-83.
    • Wald, Alan. "Theorizing Cultural Difference: A Critique of the Ethnicity School." MELUS 14 (1987): 21-33.

    The Social Cultural Construction of Disease
    Read:

    • Burbick, Joan "Intervals of Tranquility: The Language of Health in Antebellum America." Prospects 12 (1987): 175-99.
    • Rosenberg, Charles. "Disease in HIstory: Frames and Framers." Millbanj Quarterly 67, suppl 1 (1989): 1-15.
    • Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa.

    Workshop: Conceptualizing, Researching and Writing the Dissertation

    • List of three books for final review esssay.

    Popular (Dehiearchical) Culture as Communication and Politics
    Read:

    • Buhle, Paul. "Introduction: The 1960s Meet the 1980s." In his Popular Culture in America: pp. ix-xxvii.
    • Hall, Stuart. "Notes on Deconstructing the Popular." In Ralph Samuel, ed. People's History and Socialist Theory: pp.227-39.
    • Fiske, John. Understanding Popular Culture.

    The Politics of Post- (Past?) Modernism(s)
    Read:

    • Huyssen, Andreas. "Mapping the Postmodern", New German Critique 33 (1984): 5-52.
    • "Introduction." IN Aric, Jonathan ed. Postmodernism and Politics, pp. ix-xliii.
    • Jameson, Frederic. "Ideology and Theory: Ideological Positions in the Postmodernism Debate. New German Critique 33 (1984): 53-65.
    • Bromwich, David. "The Professor of Necessity" [Review Essay of Frederick Jameson's Ideologies of Theory] The New Republic, 19 Feb., 1990, pp. 34-39.

    De(Re) Constructing a Conclusion
    Reread:

    • Berkhofer, "A New Context for American Studies?"

Requirements

  1. Read carefully and be able to discuss critically all assigned readings.
  2. Prepare and lead two class discussions.
  3. A short critical book review (800) words of Leo Marx's Machine in the Garden.
  4. A short review essay (2,000 words) comparing and contrasting Marx's Machine in the Garden and Jane Tompkins Sensational Designs.
  5. A substantial review essay (approx. 15 pages) on three books of your choice. Ideally, these should be recent and important works in one of your planned prelim. exam fields.

Required Readings

  1. Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. Fasting Girls: A History of Anorexia Nervosa.
  2. Fiske, John. Understanding Popular Culture.
  3. Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden.
  4. Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1980s.
  5. Reising, Russel J. The Unusable Past: Theory and the Study of American Literature.
  6. Smith, Henry Nash. Virgin Land.
  7. Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860.