The Cultural Politics of the New American Studies

Preface

This book proposes that we consider the relationship of our many different activities as scholar-teachers in terms of our work for greater social justice and equality. Although this goal is not limited to scholars in the humanities and social sciences, it is more obviously related to our work than to other disciplines. Our scholarship is tested primarily by our students and occasionally by legislators and others framing public policies. We both study and practice “cultural politics”, especially as I define this phrase in this book. My claim contradicts those who argue that knowledge must be “free” of politics. Knowledge is never free of political values, and it is wisest for us to encourage our students to debate the political connotations of whatever field they study. When such political implications are ignored or denied, they continue to operate but in secret, more dangerous ways. Of course, we must “teach the conflicts”, not just advocate for our own political positions, however persuasive we may find them. [1]

I also believe that in many academic disciplines there is a necessary continuity between academic and public debates, as well as between scholarly and social activism. In this book, I offer examples of how I have engaged these debates and pursued activist goals since 1991. I am not an important or influential political activist, and it is one of my central arguments that ordinary scholars do make a difference in the public sphere and can be even more influential once they recognize their abilities to do so. The monumental changes in world history are built upon very small acts, whose coordination may be both the result of profound organization and historical fortune. It is easy to be discouraged today by the marginal positions so many academics appear to occupy amid the broader social, political, and economic forces of globalization. It is more difficult, but far more hopeful and productive, for us to find the points of intersection where our work complements labor by others in the interests of achieving greater equality for all.

All of the chapters in this book are based on essays published in journals, scholarly books, and newspapers in the U.S., Germany, Egypt, and the United Kingdom. Each chapter differs greatly from its first publication, in most cases because the history separating its original publication and its appearance in this book is addressed. I have made specific efforts in several chapters (chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and 9) to retain the historical contexts prompting their original publication and to comment on the intervening history. Sometimes these changes are specifically indicated, as in chapters 2, 3, and 8; in other cases, these changes are integrated into a unified argument, as in chapters 1, 5, and 9. I am trying to represent the historical dimension of scholarship when it enters explicitly the political and public spheres. In one sense, scholarship must be timely; in another sense, scholarship must mark and record the passage of historical time.

I am grateful to many friends who have inspired me with their own activism as scholar-teachers. This book is dedicated to Edward Said, who continues to teach me. When I first came up with the idea for publishing this book in digital format, my good friend, Mark Poster, introduced me to Gary Hall, whose work has also had a profound influence on me. Randy Bass at Georgetown University, Reinhard Isensee at the Humboldt University (Berlin), and Matthias Oppermann at Bielefeld University have led the way in digital scholarship and encouraged me to complete this book. Other friends have set a very high standard for me to follow with regard to activism: Colin Dayan and Hortense Spillers at Vanderbilt University, Ruth Wilson Gilmore at the City University of New York, Henry Giroux at McMaster University, Abdul JanMohamed at the University of California, Berkeley, Curtis Marez and Shelley Streeby at the University of California, San Diego, Donald Pease at Dartmouth College, Wilfried Raussert at Bielefeld University, Marita Sturken and Dana Polan at New York University and Winfried Fluck at the Free University (Berlin). My colleagues in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California are well-known for their abilities to connect scholarship, teaching, and activism. Sarah Banet-Weiser, Richard Berg, Philip Ethington, Macarena Gomez-Barris, Sarah Gualtieri, Jack Halberstam, David Lloyd, Tania Modleski, Tara McPherson, Maria Elena Martinez, Manuel Pastor, Laura Pulido, Leland Saito, George Sánchez, and Janelle Wong have taught me more about “cultural politics” than I can ever repay.

My thanks to the editors and publishers for permission to reprint significantly revised versions of the essays first published by them: Chapter 1, “Edward Said and American Studies”, first published by American Quarterly 56:1 (March 2004), 33–47; Chapter 2, first published as “The ‘Vietnam-Effect’ in the Persian Gulf War,” Cultural Critique, special issue, “The Economies of War,” 19 (Fall 1991), 121–39; Chapter 3, first published as “Images from Fallujah Will Stir Debate, But... Won’t Alter Policy”, Op-Ed, Newsday (April 2, 2004), A49; Chapter 4, “Areas of Concern: Area Studies and the New American Studies”, first published in Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics (Egypt) 31 (2010), special issue on “The Other Americas”; Chapter 5, “Culture, U.S. Imperialism, and Globalization”, first published in American Literary History 16:4 (Winter 2004), 575–595; Chapter 6, “Reading Reading Lolita in Tehran in Idaho”, first published in American Quarterly 59:2 (June 2007), 253–275; Chapter 7, “The Death of Francis Scott Key and Other Elegies: Music and the New American Studies”, Cornbread and Cuchifritos, eds. Wilfried Raussert and Michelle Habell-Pallán (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2011), 27–40; Chapter 8, “Visualizing Barack Obama”, first published in Journal of Visual Culture 8:2 (August 2009), 207–210; Chapter 9, first published as “The Dramatization of Mao II and the War on Terrorism”, South Atlantic Quarterly 103:1 (Fall 2003), pp. 21–43 and “Global Horizons in Don DeLillo’s Falling Man (2007)”, Don DeLillo: Mao II, Underworld and Falling Man, ed. Stacey Olster (London: Continuum, 2011), 121–134.