American Cultural Studies

314 Pages·2005·5.3 MB·English

American Cultural Studies
The question of American national identity has been a key theme in the culture
and history of the United States. American Cultural Studies by Neil Campbell
and Alasdair Kean offers an introduction to American culture for students
through interdisciplinary study. The authors examine the tensions that exist
within the multi-faceted and multi-cultural mix of American life and explore a
range of approaches to key themes and topics.
Organised around central issues in the development of modern America,
American Cultural Studies includes specific considerations of issues such as
gender, sexuality, youth, race and religion. Each of these topics is approached
from a range of critical perspectives. By exploring art, literature, film,
architecture and music, the book employs techniques and arguments from
traditional analysis and from the field of cultural studies. Chapters on the
American city, the regions of the South and West and consideration of foreign
policy emphasise the value of using interdisciplinary methodologies to
understand key areas of American life. In this way, the book also provides
discussions of a variety of approaches to study and encourages students to
develop fresh ways of understanding American culture.
By examining forms of cultural expression in relation to their historical and
political context, the authors apply cultural studies approaches to events and
debates in American life. American Cultural Studies offers a variety of case
studies and suggestions for further research for all those interested in American
Studies, culture and history.
Neil Campbell and Alasdair Kean teach American Studies at the University
of Derby.
American Cultural Studies
An introduction to American culture
Neil Campbell and Alasdair Kean
London and New York
First published 1997
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Reprinted 1999, 2000
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of
thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 1997 Neil Campbell and Alasdair Kean
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by
any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-97749-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-12797-1 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-12798-X (pbk)
Contents
List of plates ix
Acknowledgements x
Introduction 1
An exceptional place or what is America? 1
What is American Studies? 4
Using the book 7
Critical approaches 8
A culture of many voices 11
Cultural politics/cultural studies 11
Power and position 13
Dialogism 14
The continuous ‘play’ of culture, history and power 15
Notes 16
References and further reading 17
1 New beginnings: American culture and identity 20
Reading Columbus 22
The American dream of identity: The Great Gatsby 23
Maybe this is Heaven: Field of Dreams (1989) 25
‘The surface of an identity’: The past as presidential discourse 27
Counter-cultural dreams 30
Multiplicity, difference and re-vision 33
New Age possibility: Grand Canyon (1992) 34
v
Conclusion: new interrogations—Gloria Anzaldua, Barry Lopez and 36
Trinh T. Minh-ha
Notes 40
References and further reading 40
Follow-up work 42
2 Ethnicity and immigration: between many worlds 43
Ethnic America: ‘A vast ingathering’ 43
Native Americans: assimilation and resistance 45
Reinscribing the tribe: writing ethnicity 47
Immigration and Americanisation 50
The crucible of difference 54
Immigrant stories: Jewish Americans 56
The future belongs to the mixture: melting pot, mosaic or hybrid? 62
Conclusion 64
Notes 66
References and further reading 67
Follow-up work 70
3 African Americans: ‘I don’t sing other people’s voices’ 71
Out of slavery 71
New black histories 73
Imaginative cultural retrieval 78
Links in the chain: music and speech 83
New black voices 88
Conclusion 90
Notes 92
References and further reading 92
Follow-up work 95
4 In God we trust?: religion in American life 97
The eyes of all people shall be upon us 99
Changing patterns in American religious life 102
vi
Contemporary evangelicalism 105
African-American religion 112
Conclusion 116
References and further reading 117
Follow-up work 118
5 Approaches to regionalism: the West and the South 120
Case study 1: revising the American West 121
Imagined Wests 122
Land and the West 124
Masculinity and the land 126
Women and the West 129
A new feminine West: Willa Cather’s O Pioneers 132
Conclusion: the contested landscapes of the contemporary West 133
Case study 2: the South—beyond comprehension? 135
A diverse South 136
Documentary reportage 140
Writing the South 143
Southern music 145
Film and the South 147
Conclusion 150
Notes 150
References and further reading 150
Follow-up work 155
6 The American city: ‘the old knot of contrariety’ 156
Can we read the city? 156
Competing versions of the city 158
Theoretical city: the desire for control and order 160
The undivulged city: Poe’s ‘The Man of the Crowd’ 162
The ‘persuasive light’: commerce and the city 165
vii
The spaces of the city: architecture, art and ambivalence 166
Collage city 172
Living with the city: rap music 177
Conclusion, or no conclusion possible? 178
Notes 178
References and further reading 179
Follow-up work 181
7 Gender and sexuality: ‘to break the old circuits’ 183
Nineteenth-century roots: cultural politics 184
Nineteenth-century roots: literature and the ‘First Wave’ of feminism 187
Gender and the 1950s’ ‘Second Wave’ 191
Out of the 1950s: Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (1963) 195
Sexuality and gender 198
Conclusion 202
Notes 204
References and further reading 205
Follow-up work 207
8 Representing youth: outside the sunken nursery 208
Youth/history/representation 209
Boundaries and youth spaces 211
Housing the self 213
A model youth text?—The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 216
The dream of Eden 218
The spaces of self-creation 221
At the edge: the dark mood 224
Conclusion: Generation X—an ironic, but enchanted space 228
Notes 230
References and further reading 231
Follow-up work 232
viii
9 Beyond American borders 234
The will of Heaven: themes in the ideology of American foreign 235
policy
The Vietnam experience: understanding the war 243
Remembering the war I: other voices 248
Remembering the war II: the Vietnam Memorial 250
Remembering the war III: the Vietnam syndrome 253
The transmission of American culture 256
Conclusion 258
References and further reading 259
Follow-up work 261
10 Technology and media cultures: ‘the uncertain trajectory’ 263
Media power: the television family 264
Sit-coms: ‘models of appropriate domesticity’? 266
From suburban home to global village 271
American media imperialism 272
The corporate voice - case study: Viacom 276
Imagining the present: cyberpunk 278
New alliances 279
‘Hello, you’re talking to a machine...’: the Terminator films and 281
cyborg culture
Conclusion: ‘a powerful infidel heteroglossia’ 284
Notes 284
References and further reading 285
Follow-up work 286
Epilogue 288
References 289
Index 291
Plates
1 Easy Rider’s landscape: approaching Monument Valley, Arizona 32
2 Tourists at the Grand Canyon, Arizona. 36
3 Native American Histories: Newspaper Rock, Canyonlands National 48
Park, Utah.
4 Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, ‘Westward the course of empire takes its 127
way’, 1861
5 George Caleb Bingham, ‘Daniel Boone escorting settlers through the 132
Cumberland Gap’, 1851–2
6 A Nashville skyline 163
7 Chicago skyline from Lake Michigan 168
8 Chicago Sears Tower from the street 169
9 Edward Hopper, ‘Office at night’, 1940 169
10 Edward Hopper, ‘Nighthawks’, 1942 169
11 Robert Rauschenberg, ‘Estate’, 1963 175