Theorizing America
Barry Shank (University of Kansas)
This course is an intensive reading seminar, intended to provide an introduction to the theoretical debates regarding the study of culture that have taken place in the last twenty years. We will use the seminar format to mutually challenge, support and encourage each other in our struggles to read, think, speak, and write about these positions. You will be required to read and think about a significant bulk of material (150-200 pp.) each class meeting. As part of that requirement, you will turn in a brief 2-4 page response to each class's readings by 5:00 pm the Tuesday before we discuss that reading. You will also be expected to take an active role in the class discussion. The final will be in the form of a take-home exam that will require you to synthesize and use the material of the course.
Its [the course's] original title was AMS 998: "Introduction to Cultural Theory." When that was the title of the course, however, it was a top-level graduate seminar here at the University of Kansas. That course rather rapidly became something that many graduate students took in their first or second year in the program, however. Recognizing that, we changed the name and the number of the course to AMS 804 "Theorizing America," and I revised the course so that it could reasonably seem to represent a variety of cultural theoretical approaches to the analysis of American materials rather than an introduction to the theoretical perspectives that I had specialized in. But this course was not considered to be an "Introduction to American Studies" either.
At the University of Kansas, we have recently revised our graduate program, and we now have a four-course sequence that is required and that is intended to provide such an introduction. The four courses are to be taken sequentially, one course a semester for the student's first two years. It is possible for a student to take all four courses in one year; however, it is not recommended. The courses are expected to: (801) introduce students to the history and literature of American studies--i.e., present them with a canon (with all the potential headaches that might ensue); (802) introduce them to current theoretical positions and debates, where theory is understood as a necessary tool to be used to reflect on the assumptions that undergird one's research [this is the course that would be closest to the old "Theorizing America"; (803) provide an introduction to the variety of research methods one might use in American studies--we hope to be able to team-teach this course as it is our belief that only with team-teaching can a methods course hope to approximate the interdisciplinary aspirations of American studies; (804) provide an opportunity for the students to spend a semester using the tools that they have been introduced to in a research project driven by their own interests.
Grading: 50% weekly papers and class participation; 50% final
Weekly Schedule
Readings marked with an asterisk are recommended but not required.
Aug 28: Beginning--Gathering our Collective Breath
The course begins with one-week's worth of discussion about American Studies and how and why theory could be a part of it. I believe that cultural theory is a necessary component to the training of scholars of American materials, and I chose a variety of classic articles that support that belief. The next three weeks are devoted to introducing the class to the positions of Western Marxism, particularly the effort to demonstrate the intimate connections between ideology (or culture, I do not wish to debate the differences in these two terms here) and material conditions--connections which enable causality to travel in both directions. These three sessions move from Marx's own writings through the "Frankfurt School," to British cultural studies. I have chosen the readings in this section mostly because I feel that they are the most significant in the development of this approach. They are not necessarily the easiest to read nor the easiest to teach.
Sept 4: American Studies--Problems of Representation, Theory, and History
Leo Marx, "American Studies - A Defense of an Unscientific Method," New Literary History 1 (October, 1969) 75-90 [RESERVE]
Bruce Kuklick, "Myth and Symbol in American Studies," American Quarterly 24 (Fall, 1972) 435-50 [RESERVE]
Warren Susman, "History and the American Intellectual: The Uses of a Usable Past," in Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century. New York: Pantheon Books (1984) 7-26 [RESERVE]
Michael Denning, "'The Special American Conditions': Marxism and American Studies," American Quarterly 38:3 (Bibliography, 1986) 356-80 [RESERVE]
George Lipsitz, "Listening to Learn and Learning to Listen: Popular Culture, Cultural Theory, and American Studies," American Quarterly 42:4 (December, 1990) 615-36 [RESERVE]
Joel Pfister, "The Americanization of Cultural Studies," Yale Journal of Criticism 4:2 (1991) 199-229. [RESERVE]
*Robert J. Berkhofer, Jr. "Politics and Paradigms," in Beyond the Great Story: History as Text and Discourse Cambridge: Harvard University Press (1995) 202-42
Sept 11: Marxism I: Karl Marx and the Frankfurt School
Karl Marx, "The Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas," "The Real Basis of Ideology," "Theses on Feuerbach," in The German Ideology New York: International Publishers (1970, 1989) pp.64-81, 121-3. [RESERVE]
----------. "The Fetishism of the Commodity and its Secret," from Capital, Volume One (trans. Ben Fowkes) New York: Vintage Books (1977) pp.163-177. [RESERVE]
Georg Lukacs, "The Phenomenon of Reification," in History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics Cambridge: MIT Press (1971) 83-110 [RESERVE]
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception," Dialectic of Enlightenment New York: Continuum (1987) 120-167 [RESERVE]
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," and "Theses on the Philosophy of History," in Illuminations New York: Schocken Books (1969) 217-264 [RESERVE]
*Theodor Adorno, "Cultural Criticism and Society," in Prisms Cambridge: MIT Press (1967) pp.17-34 [RESERVE]
*Fredric Jameson, "Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture," Social Text 1 (1979) 130-148 [RESERVE]
Sept 18: Marxism II: Roots of Cultural Studies
V.N. Volosinov, "Part One: Philosophy of Language and its Significance for Marxism," Marxism and the Philosophy of Language Cambridge: Harvard University Press (1973) 9-41 [RESERVE]
Antonio Gramsci, "The Formation of the Intellectuals," and "The Study of Philosophy," from Selections from the Prison Notebooks New York: International Publishers (1971) pp.5-14, 323-43 [RESERVE]
Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays New York: Monthly Review Press (1971) 127-186 [RESERVE]
Raymond Williams, "Part II: Cultural Theory," in Marxism and Literature Oxford: Oxford University Press (1977) 75-141 [BOOKSTORE]
Sept 25: Marxism III: Cultural Studies, Birmingham Style
*Richard Johnson, "What is Cultural Studies, Anyway," Social Text 16 (Winter 1986/87) 38-80 [RESERVE]
Stuart Hall, "Signification, Representation, Ideology: Althusser and the Poststructuralist Debates," Critical Studies in Mass Communication 2 (1985) 91-114 [RESERVE]
----------, "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" in Rapael Samuel, ed., People's History and Socialist Theory London: Routledge and Kegan Paul (1981) 227-240 [RESERVE]
----------, "The Problem of Ideology: Marxism Without Guarantees," "On Postmodernism and Articulation: An Interview with Stuart Hall," "The Meaning of New Times," & "For Allon White: Metaphors of Transformation," in David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen, eds., Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies New York: Routledge (1996) 25-46, 131-50, 223-37, 287-305 [BOOKSTORE]
Jennifer Daryl Slack, "The Theory and Method of Articulation in Cultural Studies," in Morley and Chen, eds. Stuart Hall 112-127
Angela McRobbie, "Looking Back at New Times and its Critics," in Morley and Chen, eds. Stuart Hall 238-61
Kuan-Hsing Chen, "Post-Marxism: Between/Beyond Critical Postmodernism and Cultural Studies," in Morley and Chen, eds. Stuart Hall 309-25
Oct 2: Theorizing Gender I
The next two weeks explore issues of gender and sex. Where the old course had a pitiful week on "feminism," this course expands that discussion not only in terms of time but also in terms of focus. Here, Kaja Silverman's directness, Judith Butler's obscure rigor, Audre Lorde's challenging honesty, and Richard Dyer's charm seemed to stand out as the most inspiring readings, those which led the students to demand from themselves the most exacting self-reflection.
Sherry B. Ortner, "Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture," in Munns and Rajan, eds. A Cultural Studies Reader: History, Theory, Practice New York: Longman Publishers (1995, article originally 1972) pp.492-508 [RESERVE]
Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "Hearing Women's Words: A Feminist Reconstruction of History," in Disorderly Conduct; Visions of Gender in Victorian America New York: Oxford (1985) 11-52 [RESERVE]
Judith Butler, "Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of 'Postmodernism,'" in Judith Butler and Joan Scott, eds., Feminists Theorize the Political NY: Routledge (1992) pp.3-21. [RESERVE]
Joan Scott, "Experience," in Butler and Scott, eds. pp.22-40. [RESERVE]
----------, "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," Gender and the Politics of History New York: Columbia University Press (1988) 28-50 [RESERVE]
Kaja Silverman, "The Dominant Fiction," in Male Subjectivity at the Margins New York: Routledge (1992) pp.15-51. [RESERVE]
Oct 9: Theorizing Gender II
Gayle S. Rubin, "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality," in Abelove, Barale, and Halperin, eds., The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader New York: Routledge (1993) 3-44 [RESERVE]
Judith Butler, "Bodies that Matter," in Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" New York: Routledge (1993) 27-56 [RESERVE]
Teresa De Lauretis, "Technology of Gender," in Technologies of Gender Bloomington: Indiana University Press (1987) [RESERVE]
Danae Clark, "Commodity Lesbianism," in Abelove, et.al., eds., The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader 186-201 [RESERVE]
Richard Dyer, "Male Sexuality in the Media," in The Matter of Images New York: Routledge (1993) pp.111-22 [RESERVE]
Audre Lorde, "The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power," in Abelove, et.al., eds. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader 339-43 [RESERVE]
Oct 16: Theorizing Race I
The next two weeks, on race, are the area I would most revise if I were to teach this course again. The ongoing paradox of American racial formation forces us to deal with the currently visible construction of new racial divisions. And students have to have the new tools to help them understand this. The important work on border theory, the expansion of post-colonial theory to considerations of Pacific immigrants and cross-Pacific relations, the intriguing overlap between critical legal and race theory and queer theory, all provide important perspectives that question the old assumptions about how race works in the United States and across our geographic borders.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism New York: Oxford University Press (1988) 44-124 [BOOKSTORE]
Stuart Hall, "Gramsci's Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity," & "New Ethnicities," in Morley and Chen, eds. Stuart Hall 411-449 [RESERVE]
Anthony Appiah, "The Uncompleted Argument: DuBois and the Illusion of Race," Critical Inquiry 12:1 (Autumn, 1985) [RESERVE]
bell hooks, "Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination," in Grossberg, et.al., eds. Cultural Studies 338-46. [RESERVE]
Oct 23: Theorizing Race II
Gayatri Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" in Nelson and Grossberg, eds., Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture Urbana: University of Illinois Press (1988) 271-308. [RESERVE]
Homi Bhabha, "Postcolonial Authority and Postmodern Guilt," in Grossberg, et.al. eds., Cultural Studies 56-68. [RESERVE]
Cynthia Willett, "A Slave Narrative of Freedom," in Maternal Ethics and other Slave Moralities New York: Routledge (1995) 129-56 [RESERVE]
Gloria Anzaldua, "How to Tame a Wild Tongue," in Munns and Rajan, eds., A Cultural Studies Reader 402-11 [RESERVE]
Doris Sommer, "Resisting the Heat," in Kaplan and Pease, eds., Cultures of United States Imperialism Durham: Duke University Press (1993) 407-32 [RESERVE]
Oct 30: Foucault
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol 1: An Introduction (French title: La Volente de Savoir) New York: Vintage (1980) [BOOKSTORE]
----------, "The Discourse on Language," in The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language New York: Pantheon Books (1972) 215-37 [RESERVE]
----------, "The Means of Correct Training," and "Panopticisim," in The Foucault Reader New York: Pantheon (1984) pp. 76-100, 188-213 [RESERVE]
----------, "Sexual Choice, Sexual Act," in Foucault Live: Interviews, 1966-1984 New York: Semiotexte (1989) 211-231 [RESERVE]
Nov 6: Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu, "Part I: The Field of Cultural Production," in The Field of Cultural Production NY: Columbia University Press (1993) 29-141. [BOOKSTORE]
----------, "The Aristocracy of Culture," Media, Culture, Society 2 (1980) 225-54 [RESERVE]
Nov 13: Habermas
I am not sure that I would still have a week on Foucault or Bourdieu or Habermas. These theorists still seem foundational to me, but I wonder if it might not work better to find texts that have already applied these theoretical concepts to American materials. Perhaps the chief weakness of this course as it has been taught in the past was that many students would come out of it able to cite chapter and verse on the abstract models created by each of these men, but without a firm sense of how the students themselves would use these models in their own work.
Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society Cambridge: MIT Press (1991) pp.27-88, 141-80. [BOOKSTORE]
Nancy Fraser, "Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy," in Craig Calhoun, ed. Habermas and the Public Sphere Cambridge: MIT Press (1992) 109-42. [RESERVE]
Michael Schudson, "Was There Ever a Public Sphere? If So, When? Reflections on the American Case," pp.143-63 in Calhoun. [RESERVE]
Mary P. Ryan, "Gender and Public Access: Women's Politics in Nineteenth Century America," pp. 259-288 in Calhoun. [RESERVE]
Nov 20: Further Investigations into the Public
Tony Bennett, "Putting Policy into Cultural Studies," in Grossberg, et al, eds., Cultural Studies New York: Routledge (1992) 23-33 [RESERVE]
Drucilla Cornell, "Gender, Sex, and Equivalent Rights," in Butler and Scott, eds., Feminist Theorize the Political 280-96. [RESERVE]
Joan Scott, "Deconstructing Equality Versus Difference: Or, The Uses of Poststructuralist Theory for Feminism," Feminist Studies 14:1 (Spring 1988) 33-50 [RESERVE]
Henry Giroux, "Resisting Difference: Cultural Studies and the Discourse of Critical Pedagogy," in Grossberg, et.al. eds., Cultural Studies 199-212 [RESERVE]
Houston A. Baker, Jr., "Critical Memory and the Black Public Sphere," in The Black Public Sphere Collective, The Black Public Sphere Chicago: University Press of Chicago (1995) 7-37 [RESERVE]
Ellen Messer-Davidow, "Manufacturing the Attack on Liberal Higher Education," Social Text 36 (Fall, 1993) 40-80 [RESERVE]
Nov 27: No Class, Thanksgiving Break Begins
Dec 4: Theorizing Consumption
The final two weeks of the course encouraged the students to think about two compelling issues of the day: the question of the public and the responsibility of intellectuals to that public; and the question of consumption and the relation of consumption to identity and to unequal relations of production. These last two weeks often provoke some of the most intense conversation as the course tends to build a momentum of its own, and students find themselves with strong opinions that they are eager to articulate.
Martyn J. Lee, Consumer Culture Reborn: The Cultural Politics of Consumption New York: Routledge (1993) 3-55, 160-79 [BOOKSTORE]
Daniel Miller, Material Culture and Mass Consumption Cambridge: Basil Blackwell (1987) 19-49, 158-217 [BOOKSTORE]
Example for your personal edification: Theorizing 1950s America Alan Nagle, Containment Culture Durham: Duke University Press (1995)
Final: Read something, or view something, or listen to something, and tell me about it, using the materials of the course that help you make the most sense of what you have read, seen, heard. Take about ten pages to do it. No more than fifteen. Final due Dec 11 at 2:00 PM.