“Paradigm Dramas" in American Studies: A Cultural and Institutional History of the Movement Gene Wise American Quarterly, Volume 31, Issue 3 (1979), 293-337. ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at nip ftw, jstor-orglaboutterms.tml. ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in pat, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of @ journal or multiple copies of articles, and ‘you may tse content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use, Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, ‘Amertcan Quarterty is published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Please contact the publisher for further permissions regarding the use of this Work. Publisher contact information may’ be obtained at fpf tor opyjournalsfp hea. American Quarterty ©1979 Johns Hopkins University Press ISTOR and the ISTOR logo are trademarks of ISTOR, and are Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. For mote information on ISTOR contact jstor-inio@umich edu, ©2001 JSTOR hup:thrwwjstor.orgy Sat Oct 13 13:45:22 2001“PARADIGM DRAMAS” IN AMERICAN STUDIES: A CULTURAL AND INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT GENE WISE Universicy of Marylond [American Studies] has thus emerged aot 2s 2 discipline, but as an arena for disciplinary encounter and staging ground for feesh tapical pursuits. It em- braces Amecica in a Whitmanish hug, excluding nothing and always beginning. Stanley Bailis, “The Socal Sciences in American Studies: An Integrative Conception,” AQ (August, 1974) Ifyou want to understand what a seience is, you should look inthe firs instance not at its theories or its ndings, and certainly not a¢ what its apologists say about it; you should look at what the practitioners of it da. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures Ie we have a “method,” it is the approach to ideas and consequences in the. round—a total approach something like the “total theatre” of Bertolt Brecht From the communication point af view, American Studies wants more than most disciplines to include its audiences. Tay Guian, “American Studies and the Creative Present," Midcontinent American Studies Journal (Spring 1969) FOR A MOVEMENT $0 CRITICAL OF THE CULTURE AROUND IT, AMERICAN Studies recapitulates America in revealing ways. Both began as revolts against the established order—for America, the Old World, for American,294 American Quarterly Studies, the traditional disciplines. In contesting the old, both have articu- lated visions of a new and better order; and the insecuiity of identifying with an ought rather than an is has compelled each to continue asking, “Who are we?” and “Where are we heading?" In seeking answers to these questions, neither has been particularly informed by history. Or rather, America has been informed more by fables of its past than by intimate communion with its actual past, and until lately American Studies has had little sense of its own history at all. Almost nowhere, until recently, could anything be found in print de- seribing how American Studies began, or seeking to explain either the evolution of consciousness and institutions within the movement, or the impact on American Studies of cultural forces outside, Like Americans, ‘Americanists have been too busy building to pause and reflect much on their own roots. Of late, however, this trend shows signs of reversing—in the culture at large and in the movement too. Within the past decade, several articles have been published on the history of American Studies, plus one book already in print, and at least two others in the works.* ‘The present essay is part of this recent trend. Itis also an effort to place that trend in a context. In the essay, I suggest that for perspective on our present situation and for guidance on our future direction in the move- ment, we should journey back over the history of American Studies during the course of the twentieth century. [also suggest that we try to understand ‘our own movement as we would any other experience in America—that is, eritically, in cultural and institutional context. As culture critics of American Studies, we should ask, “What imperatives are there in the larger American culture and social structure, and in the culture and social " Watl dhe eaey 1970s, only a hand of essays inthe field had been coacerned with the past of American Studies. Among these were Tremsice MeDowell's American Studies Minnesota, 1948), 26¢F; Robert Spillers cetrospective, “American Studies, Past, Pres and Future," in Joseph Kwiat and Mary Turpe, eds. Studies in American Cultre: Dam ‘hat Fdeas and Images (Mingesota, 1960), 207-30; Leo Marx's “American Studies: Defense ‘of an Unscienife Method," New Literary History, (Ell 1969), 75-90, and Robert Sklar's theo entiques, “American Studies and the Realities of America,” AQ, 22 (Summer 1970), 597-605, and" Cultural History and American Studies: Patt Present ang Putire.” Amer cam Studies: An Tauernatonal Newsetter, U1 (Autumn 1971) 3-9, Since 1972, however, several aticles have crealy ceviewed (adiions of American ‘Swudies. This tend wa launched with Bruce Kullck's influential piece, “Myth and Symbol in American Sudies,” AQ. 24, (Fall 1972), 435-50, Ocher works is this vein include Robert Berkhofer, "Clio and the Culuire Concept: Some Impressions of Changing Relalionship in American Histodography,” Social Science Quarterly, $3 (Sept. 1972), 297=320; Jay Mech- ling, Robert Merideth, and Davia Wilson, "American Culture Studies: The Discipline wad ‘the Curriculum," AQ, 28 (Oct. 1973, 363-88. Rober: Spile, "Unity ard Diversuy in the ‘Study of American Culture: The American Studies Association in Perspective,” AQ, 25 (Dee, 1978), 611-18; Gordon Kelly, "Literature and che Historian.” AQ. 26 (May 1974), : Robert Sklat, “The Problem of an American Studies Philosophy": A Bibliogsaphy