The "New American Studies"
By Katherine Yungmee Kim
"When I was an undergrad studying American literature,” says John
Carlos Rowe, a professor of English and American Studies, “I studied
what was within the borders of the United States, what was distinct
about being ‘American.’ It was a very exclusive model.”
But after the Sixties and Seventies—with civil rights and feminism,
Chicano and Asian American Studies—“the older model of American
literature no longer represented us,” Rowe says. “It was excluding a
huge number of valid forms of expression.”
Rowe is one of the nation’s foremost Americanists. He is widely
regarded as helping spearhead the “new American studies,” as well as
the rise of international American studies programs.
His fall arrival at USC College will cement a traditionally strong
Americanist program in the English department. Of 33 professors, more
than one-third specialize in U.S. literary studies, six of whom have
joint appointments with the Program in American Studies and Ethnicity
(PASE), and five others who are considered “affiliated” faculty.
Rowe discusses the change that has taken place in the study of American
literature. What was once the history of ideas—e.g., how
transcendentalism gave way to realism—now examines literature as an
index of social and historical change.
He is teaching Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Dred, a novel about a revolutionary African-American who flees slavery and sets up a marooned community in a swamp.
“Why not Uncle Tom’s Cabin?” Rowe asks the obvious question. “Because Dred is about resisting and overturning slavery.”
He claims to look not necessarily at the most famous or best writer,
but one who gives access to different cultural questions—like racism,
slavery, women’s rights or civil war.
Regional and Historical Approaches
Judith Jackson Fossett characterizes herself as an African Americanist.
“I am primarily committed to the study of the literature, history,
culture and politics of people of African descent in the
Americas.”
Fossett is an associate professor of English and PASE, as well as the Director of African American Studies.
But she also sees herself as an Americanist whose work on the 19th
century and the American South sheds light on both regional and
historical approaches to American literary studies.
As a teacher, she is motivated to show students the relevance of key
19th century issues—race, slavery and freedom, the relationship of the
colonizer to the indigenous, questions of immigration and the expansion
of the frontier.
Regional American literary studies is also a strong component of the
program. Associate Professor Bill Handley teaches courses on the
literature of the American West. His California course begins in 1854
with the first novel written by a Native American (and the first
California novel), John Rollin Ridge’s
The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California
Bandit and ends with Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,
which dramatizes the Rodney King riots.
Similarly, Associate Professor Tim Gustafson offers popular courses on Angelino and southern California literature.
The Here and Now
Department Chair Joe Boone notes a postcolonial cluster within the
Americanists. Associate Professor Viet Nguyen is in Saigon completing
research on a project concerning the perception of America through the
eyes of the Vietnamese.
Such postcolonial emphases are complemented in the department by David
Lloyd’s work on empire and race from the Irish perspective.
Says Assistant Professor Cynthia Young, “We’re in a moment of
hyper-transnationalism. Patterns of migration and global trade affect
us. There are all kinds of shifts in political power. People, ideas,
commodities, cultural practices can all move at lightning speed.”
Along with the rest of the department, the Americanists are using pop
culture and other media in their examination of American literary
history. In this fall’s American literature survey, Professor David
Román will use the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein to study America in
the 1920s and 1930s. Rowe sees no conflict in studying “I Love Lucy”
alongside his critical analyses of Henry James.
Román credits the English department for its strength in opening up the
curriculum to new, alternative, and even oppositional voices to
traditional literary history. But he stresses the importance of having
knowledge in the history of American literature.
American literary studies must address the changing face of America,
says Rowe. “If we do not respond to changing social and cultural
circumstance, then we’re not fulfilling our responsibilities as
teachers and scholars.”
|
|
|
