Resistance to Theory: American Studies and the Challenge of Cultural Studies

Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue canadienne d'etudes americaines Volume 28, Number 2, 1998, pp. 1-36 Resistance to Theory: American Studies and the Challenge of Cultural Studies Randolph Lewis In 1990, George Lipsitz issued an eloquent challenge to American studies scholars. Diagnosing the latest in the never-ending series of crises confronting the field, Lipsitz announced that American studies was in a "period of creative ferment and critical fragmentation. "1 In this state of flux, Lipsitz identified an important opportunity: American studies scholars could revamp their approach to culture and bring "theory" into a discipline long noted for its resistance to European intellectual imports more recent than de Tocqueville. With a note of optimism, Lipsitz predicted that the early 1990s would offer an "opportunity to reconnect with some of the important aims and intentions of our field in new and exciting ways." In essence, he was calling for American studies to overcome its ongoing resistance to theory, which was preventing the field from engaging broader issues in the manner of the more theoretically driven cultural studies (Lipsitz 1990a, 615). Seven years have passed and American studies has taken some small strides to bring theory into its analyses. Nowadays it is not surprising to see American studies scholars citing Michel Foucault or Pierre Bourdieu in the pages of American Quarterly, where such names were rare as late as the mid1980s , and well-regarded American studies scholars can claim their field has 2 Canadian Review of American Studies Revue canadienne d'etudes americaines "rapidly incorporated the theoretical and methodological strategies of British cultural studies" (Shank 1997, 95). Lipsitz's challenge appears to have been met. But when we look past the journals and the conference papers, which are the loftiest and most visible portion of American studies, and scrutinize what happens in the classroom, a very different picture emerges. As this article will demonstrate, little evidence of American studies' supposed engagement with cultural theory is reaching undergraduates who enroll in introductory American studies courses, very few of which convey the relevance of sociocultural theory to the subjects at hand. 2 How is this possible in a field which claims to have "rapidly incorporated" theory? The answer is complex, but I would suggest that American studies continues its long tradition of ignoring theoretical paradigms, American or not, Marxist or not. Simply put, the vast majority of American studies scholars are not using theory in their work, neither in their research nor in the undergraduate classrooms that will attract (or repel) future generations of American studies scholars. Even when theoretical concerns inform an American studies research project, as is becoming more common among the younger generation, a profound disjuncture exists between intellectual theorizing and pedagogical practice, between what happens in the journals and what happens in the classroom. Only if we acknowledge the rupture between the theoretical content of the journals and its absence in the classroom can we gain an accurate sense of what is happening in American studies. My portrait of the field is not going to set well in some quarters, though I suspect that many scholars will recognize it as part of their own experiences . Indeed, "it has become commonplace in recent discussions of cultural studies to refer to American studies as an unsuccessful predecessor, something born in a burst of postwar enthusiasm about 1945 and then collapsed by the mid-1960s," as Brian Attebery ( 1996, 316) wrote in his recent defence of the American studies tradition. While cultural studies now seems to have pushed aside American studies as the place with a reputation for innovative research and teaching, the older field is far from moribund if membership in itsprofessional association is any measure-the American Studies Association (ASA)grew from 1,800 in 1984 to about 5,300 in 1998 (Davidson 1994, 123; Stephens 1998, personal communication). Yet among scholars and students there is a growing sense of frustration and disappointment with Randolph Lewis I J American studies. What Giles Gunn said a decade ago remains true today: American studies is in considerable trouble (Gunn 1987, 147). In some ways the field has always been in trouble; American studies scholars have said as much since the inception...