Assessing the Field: An Oral History Interview

Canadian Review of American Studies Volume 23, Number 1, Fall 1992, pp: 1-14 Assessing the Field: An Oral History Interview Bruce Tucker 1 The launching of a new editorship seemed like an opportune time to assess past achievements, current questions, and future research agendas in the field of American studies. In the following interview, Associate Editor Bruce Tucker asked American Quarterly's editor, Gary Kulik, for his views on recent rends in American studies scholarship. Kulik's remarks primarily address American studies in the United States, but the interview raises questions for CRAS readers. Are there identifiable patterns to the practice of American studies scholarship in Canada? Have Canadian scholars replicated the same generational differences in scholarship as their American counterparts? As the Canadian Association for American studies prepares for its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1995, we invite readers to think about theses questions and send us their views. The following interview took place in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians on 2 April 1992. Bruce Tucker (BT): What do you think are some of the more significant trends that have been taking shape in American studies in the last fewyears? 2 Canadian Review of American Srudies GaryKulik (GK): The field is still in the middle of what is now a long-term trend toward a scholarship that is both more inclusive of people-so that the subject matter of American studies has expanded-as well as expanding the subject matter of literary analysis in history to include working people, women, and ethnic minorities. And in addition to that, the field is still in the midst of a long-term trend toward the expansion of its subject matter to include a greater attention to areas that have not traditionally been central to American studies. There is a growing interest in architecture (vernacular architecture, in particular), folklore, art history, and material culture studies. It seems to me that this has been part of a very substantial long-term trend. We're still moving in both those directions. BT: When would you say this got started? GK: Some people in American studies would argue that the field was open from the very beginning. And, I think there's an argument to be made for that. Some of the the early pioneers in American studies, I'm thinking in particular of Carl Bode, were really quite far out there in the fifties in encouraging a substantial expansion in the direction in which the field ultimately moved. However, there were other tendencies that narrowed the field unnecessarily, largely through an emphasis on the lead literary figures, most of whom were from the east coast. Certainly that kind of emphasis was very evident when I was a graduate student. BT: That would have been in the early seventies? GK: Late sixties, early seventies, that's right. And, it was only then in the process of being pushed further. But, it's important to have some historical perspective on this. I mention this because there's a tendency on the part of some younger scholars of American studies, particularly those who have grown fascinated with and take very seriously trends in literary analysis and who think that all this movement toward expansion of subject matter is a new phenomena, and that they're at the centre of it. The field itself was far more catholic, far more open than that kind of interpretation has it. So, I'd Bruce Tucker I 3 actually be more generous to the early practitioners of American studies than some recent scholars have been. BT: There is a sort of a generational conflict that one can see at times in American studies. But, with regards to the people that you're talking about in the fifties, this is really a change of view about them, isn't it? I mean, they were mostly rejected by American studies specialists in the seventies. For example, people like Henry Nash Smifh? GK: Yes. Smith, Leo Marx. I'm not sure I'd use the term rejected, but there's no question that the myth and symbol school of thought came under concentrated attack in the late sixties and...