american studies forum: winter 1992

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M RC N

S -UDIES:FO~llM

January/February 1992

Confluence and Diversity:

BYU's Parochial Internationalismby Gerh ard B ac h

November, for the Da ily Un iv er se , is themonth of multi-culturalism. On 12November 1990, a front page article notedhow "Multi-cultures contribute to

diversity" at BYU. A year later, again inNovember, BYU's internationalism wasfeatured once more, in articles celebratingthe numbers of nations represented at this

university. Approaching the "hill," we arecomforted to know that "The world is Our

Campus," and as we participate inInternational Week, its theme - "The

World in Our Hands" - provides for us"internationals" a sense of shelter. Piecharts nicely illustrate how we flowtogether into a 6.5 percent segment of the

larger university community.Terminological differentiation even allowsus to ascertain our difference. Foreign

students at BYU are officially classifiedinto two groups: international students andmulti-cultural students. "An international

student not only comes from outside theUnited States, but from a culture which

differs significantly from that ofAmerica's" (Da ily Un iv er se , 12Nov.

1990).Whenever I read such things about

myself I am always left with a feeling ofnausea. Who am I, as an "international,"even a "multi-cultural," in the eyes of

BYU? The answer would greatly help meto decide which "native costume" to wearon the first day of International Week. Is

there something in my culturalcomposition that makes me significantly

different from America's culture? If so,what are the ingredients? I am even more

troubled about the "others" againstwhom/which I am identified as more or

less significantly different: what is"America's culture," and who defines it atBYU? American Heritage 1oo? The

English department's alleged "radicals?"

The cougars? VOICE? The jukebox in

the Cougareat?While, in any discussion of this latter

question, the natives would alert the

internationals that the answer is "all of theabove," and that BYU prides itself (withincertain limits, to be sure) of its diversity asrepresentational of the larger American

1

DAVID M. KENNEDY CENTER FOR INT.ERNATIONAL STUDIES



cultural spectrum (within a clearly defined

frame, to be sure), the same natives would

refer to those from foreign countries

participating in the discourse of diversity

as "international students" or "multi-

culturals." And rightly so - is there not an

"International Student Association" oncampus? Struggling with the grammatical

intricacies of the English language, we

internationals tend to assume that

"international" qualifies the Association

and not its members. Wrong again!

Common usage and practice here teach us

that it's a native BYU agency sheltering

"international students." Distraught, we

consult the dictionary: "International,

adj.: (1) between or among nations

( in te rna tional t rade) ; (2) of or pertainingto two or more nations or their citizens (a

matter o f interna tio nal con cern ); (3)

pertaining to the relations between nations

( in te rna ti ona l l aw ) ; (4) having members or

activities in several nations (a n

internat ional organiza tion) ." Apparently,

objects are international, not individuals;

apparently, it takes more than one

nationally distinct individual to make an

object or event international. Apparently,

the term contains a sense of balancebetween the participants. It is a balance

which allows for a singular identity. In

other words, calling a Mexican a "multi-

cultural" achieves exactly the opposite of

what it possibly intends to do; it strips that

person of his or her cultural, ethnic, and

national distinctness and singularity, But

then, "multi-cultural" sounds so profound,

does it not? Well, a spade, at times, is

just a spade, and a student from a foreign

country is "just" that.Why bother American Studies students

with such distant concerns? First, because

such phrases as "The World is Our

Campus" or "The World in Our Hands"

generate a parochialism which walks about

in the guise of internationalism. Far-

fetched? Picky? Perhaps. It depends on

how willing we are to stretch our

imaginations in confrontation with verbal

absolutes. Ironically, the truth behind the

guise shines through when we reverse the

particulars in these generalizations: "The

Campus is Our World;" "Our Hands in the

World." Second, because what mayappear to be -distant is actually close at

hand; American Studies, in its more recent

revisions of self-definition (H.L. Gates, L.

Fishbein), is becoming an international

discipline where "othering," as in such

handy formulas as "we and the rest of the

world," has no place. Leslie Fishbein

warns against such "excessive

introspection": "If our field is to thrive as

a discipline, it must abandon its insularity

.and parochialism. We need to examinewhether other cultures have shared some

of our dominant myths, for example the

importance of the frontier to the

development of democracy, a fascination

with machines, a nostalgia for the Garden

of Eden - the notion that abundance has

peculiarly determined the national

character. At this juncture, we especially

need to know how other societies have

dealt with issues of race, gender, and

ethnicity; how they have coped withpopular resistance to the cultural

hegemony of their dominant classes. Only

then can we begin to know ourselves"

(C hro nic le o f H ig he r E du ca tio n, 15 Aug.

1990).

Only then, I feel the need to add, can I

stop wondering what gives me second

thoughts about my morning yogurt, whose

package advertises, in so many catchy

words, how its "multiple cultures" add zip

to the way it tastes. If I am the culture, isBYU then the yogurt?

Editor's Note: Gerhard Bach i s P ro fe ss or

of American Studies at Paedagogische

Hochschule i n He ide lbe rg , Germany.Since 1990 he has b een V is itin g P ro fe ss or

at BYU .

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AMERICAN STUDIES SPRING & SUMMER 1992 COURSES

COURSE PROFESSOR TITLE

SPRING

English 495R

(will count for AS credit

see Dr. Cracroft)

Cracroft Myth and Reality

in Western

American Lit.

Economics 110 Waters Econ. Principles

& Problems

History 121 Pearcy American History

Humanities 262 Basset t American Hum.

Political Science 110 Vetterli American Govt.

SUMMER

Economics 110 Wimmer Econ. Principles

& Problems

Geography 450 Staff Geography of

North America

History 120 York American History

Hill

Political Science 110 Daynes American Govt.

3



MYTH OF TIlE MONTH

The popular image of the frontier as a

place of violence is only partly due to the

fact that the place often was violent. Most

of it is due to hype, particularly

Hollywood hype. The truth is many morepeople have died in Hollywood westerns

than ever died on the real frontier (Indian

wars considered apart). In the real Dodge

City, for instance, there were just five

killings in 1878, the most homicidal year

in the little town's frontier history -

scarcely enough to sustain a typical two

hour movie.

Most surprisingly, there is no evidence

anyone was ever killed in a frontier shoot-

out at high noon.- Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of

Americ an H isto ry

AS JEOPARDY

1. After becoming a Supreme Court

justice, he admitted he had been a

member of the Ku Klux Klan.

2. This nation has the largestreservation and the largest

population of any other Native

American tribe.

3. This U.S. President was accused of

adultery, and in fact, fathered an

illegitimate son ten years before

becoming President.

4. Hester Prynne, in The Scarlet

Letter, named her daughter this,because she paid such a "great

price" for her.

5. This twentieth century U.S.

President later became a Supreme

Court Justice.

WHO SAID IT?

1. "From where the sun now stands, I

will fight no more forever."

2 . "The only thing we have to fear is

fear itself - nameless, unreasoning,unjustified terror which paralyzes

needed efforts to convert retreat

into advance."

3 . "I do not wish to think, or speak,

or write, with moderation ... I am in

earnest - I will not equivocate - I

will not excuse - 1 will not retreat a

single inch - AND I WILL BE

HEARD."

4 . "Ich bin ein Berliner. "

5 . "We must guard against the

acquisition of unwarranted

influence, whether sought or

unsought, by the military-industrial

complex."



Neotraditionalism: A Return to Traditional Values?by Derek E. Baird

Forget about political correctness,gender, class, and race - worry insteadabout getting back to basics and back to

Mother Earth. After all, it's part of thelatest fad to hit the baby-boom generation.Yes, those whining thirtysomethings havecome up with something better thanmaterialism, they call it Neotraditionalism.

They call themselves, "Neotrads. "Neotraditionalism is the cultural wave of

the nineties. Being a Neotrad meansgetting back to basics - eighties style -with a Range Rover, $350 hiking bootsfrom Nordstrom, a Williams-Sonoma

bread machine, and wearing the latest intweed, plaid, and denim from the Ralph

Lauren "country weekend" line. Don'tforget the crown jewel ofNeotraditionalism - a country home full ofShaker inspired furniture. In short,Neotraditionalism means reveling in the

old without having to give up one singlething of the new.Neotraditionalism can trace its roots back

to the 1950s. The parents of the Neotrads,

who themselves were raised during thedepression and World War IT, found littleto be nostalgic about. Therefore, as they

raised their children in the brand new VAfinanced suburbs of the '50s, theyencouraged their little Neotradsto look

towards the future, not the past.Now as the Neotrads become parents and

look back on their Childhoods, they findthat they don't, in fact, have anysubstantial memories to fallback on. So,

they are referring to a mythicagrarian past- with a bit of Reaganesque materialism

thrown in to make agrarian life morebearable. Perhaps R.alphWhitehead, a

social historian at the University ofMassachusetts explains it best:

"Contemporary American culture has theability, we're so communicationsintensive, that we can dredge up any

historical experience and ransack it." Thisnew cultural trend has, naturally, led to adebate as to whether Neotraditionalism is asign that American society is moving

"away from self-fulfillment, towards a

greater concern for others. "The Institute for American Values(IA V),

in June, 1991, compiled a report on atrend they titled "The New Familism." Intheir report, the institute pointed to anumber of factors which support their

.hypothesis of this new trend of familism.For example, they stated that the birth rate

in 1990 was at its highest number since1964. The divorce rate, it appears, hasalso leveled off. In addition, the institutereports a "leveling off of women's

participation in the work force." This newfamilism, the IAV concluded, "wouldcombine individualism and careercommitment for both sexes with a strongsense of family obligations. "

Norval D. Glenn, a sociology professorat the University of Texas, has his doubts

about the future of the Neotraditionalist

movement. "They (the Neotrads) wantstable families, and they want the freedomto renegotiate the roles within the family.They want things that are basicallyunattainable." Some experts feel,however, that Neotraditionalism is not just

another yuppie obsession, but, in fact,signals real desire for change. Richard

Vigilante, editor of The New Yorker

magazine, who has tracked the baby

boomers for years, feels that "people don'ttake three hours out of their Sunday (forchurch) for superficial reasons. I thinkthere are deep and powerful reasons for

5



it." Inferential Focus found, in a recent

marketing report for the Hilton Hotel chain

that 63 % of Hilton employees said they

would sacrifice a day's pay if they could

have that day off. Time is becoming more

valuable than money.

Perhaps the baby boom generation has(at last) found itself in Neotraditionalism.

Or maybe Neotraditionalism is an attempt

by the baby boomers to bury their sins of

materialism under the guise of a return to

traditional American values. Or maybe,

just maybe, they are just following the

lead of their icon Ronald Reagan, who

back at his own "ranch II in Santa Barbara,

is himself getting back to nature. Perhaps,

as the Neotrads sit in their country homes

eating their gourmet muffins and sippingtheir imported French roast coffee, they

will be able to reconcile their past with

their children's future - or maybe they

won't get it all.

AS JEOPARDY ANSWERS

* Remember, all correct responses must be

phrased in the form of a question!

1. Hugo Black

2. The Navajo Nation

3. Grover Cleveland (oppositionists

chanted at rallies, "Ma, Ma,

Where's my Pa?")

4. Pearl

5. William Howard Taft

WHO SAID IT ANSWERS

1. Chief Joseph, of Nez Perce Indians

upon surrender to U.S. troops.

2. Franklin D. Roosevelt, First

Inaugural Address 1933.

3. William Lloyd Garrison,

_ abolitionist, in The Liberator, 1831.

4. John F. Kennedy, speech at the

Berlin Wall, 1963. ("I am a

Berliner. ")

5. Dwight D. Eisenhower, farewell

address, 1961.

TM Far Sitk, copyriahl 1992, Univenal Preu 8yDdicaIc,

6



Mak ing V is ib le th e Inv isib le :

Our Imagin ed In te lle ctu al Commun ityby David Pulsipher

Editor's Note: David Pulsipher is a recent

BYU American Studies Grad. He is

currently working on a Ph.D.in AS at the University of Minnesota. The

following essay is an edited version of a

paper David wrote at Minnesota last

semester. This article is the first in a

series written by former BYU American

Studies Students who are pursuing

graduate degrees in AS.

The other day in our American Studies

seminar someone remarked, "The Right

often attacks The University." I've beenintrigued by these kinds of comments all

quarter, because they imply The

University is a cohesive community, and

that this cohesive community is "us" - that

as members of The Academy (often

synonymous with The University) we

belong to a common community called,

"The Intellectual Community. "

The idea of an Intellectual Community

(as with every imagined community) is

fraught with inconsistencies andcontradictions. It is a flexible concept.

The boundaries expand and contract,

according to the specific circumstances

under which the Intellectual Community is

being imagined.

The dynamics of this elastic imagining

are intriguing to watch, as individuals

posture themselves within or without the

Intellectual Community according to the

situation. The boundaries of this imagined

community are so loosely defmed, and socontingent on circumstance and one's own

position within the Intellectual

Community, that it is important for me to

define my position as a "participant

imaginer" of the community. When I

speak of the "Intellectual Community," I

am speaking from my position within

American Studies (which may be

considered an intellectual sub-community).And in general, I am speaking to other

members of the American Studies

Intellectual Sub-Community, as well as the

several other sub-communities that "we"

consider friendly to "our" agenda. What I

am suggesting is that this position within

American Studies colors and shades the

way I imagine the larger Intellectual

Community.

It will be obvious to most American

Studies readers that my ideas refer toBenedict Anderson's book, Imagined

Communities. I am not trying to apply his

whole analysis of how nations imagine

themselves to the Intellectual Community,

but I am taking as a point of departure

several ideas from his introduction, where

he outlines his concept of an "Imagined

Community. "

Just as the German has a certain "sense"

of what it means to be German, and the

non-German also has a "sense" (orstereotype) of what it means to be German

(it might even be called "the essence of

German-ness"), the Intellectual

Community has a certain "sense" of what it

means to be intellectual ( or "the essence

of Intellectual-ness"), and non-intellectuals

have their stereotypes about intellectuals.

Almost any German will tell you that

his/her country is anything but

homogenous, and yet we persist in

analyzing "What is German aboutGermany?" Likewise, I am certain almost

any graduate student or faculty member

would refute the suggestion that our

Intellectual Community enjoys any

semblance of solidarity. Yet there seems

to be, nonetheless, a certain sense of what

7



constitutes "Intellectual-ness," and thatintuitive sense makes it surprisingly easy

to determine who is part of the IntellectualCommunity and who is not.What is this Intellectual-ness? What is

the common bond that we intuitively feel?

To quote Anderson: "The members ofeven the smallest nations will never knowmost of their fellow-members, meet them,or even hear of them, yet in the minds ofeach lives the image of their communion. "Maybe the communion of the Intellectual

Community is more actual than imagined.But the Intellectual Community is still toolarge for a member to be aware of even ahandful of other Intellectuals, and there are

still too many Intellectual books for

everyone to read.What then is the essence of Intellectual-ness? IfAnderson is right andcommunities are distinguished "by thestyle in which they are imagined," what

then is the "style" of the IntellectualCommunity? Certainly the answer is acomplicated one, and is the source of

constant intellectual debate. I am not

going to attempt a complicated answer, butI would like to propose one characteristic

I've observed, at least within my own sub-community, the American Studies

Intellectual Community. It might even be

described as a "style of thinking" whichsets our Intellectual Community apart fromother communities. It is a tendency (orstyle) that I call "making the visible the

invisible."David Levernz begins M anhood and the

American Renaissance with this quote: "In

1980, when my book on the Puritans had

just come out, one of my more well-known colleagues sat down in my office toread the jacket flap. 'Oh,' he said, with a

touch of disdain, 'You're actually saying

something. '"This "actually saying something" is

another way of phrasing the style of the

Intellectual Community. If someone is

"actually saying something" it usuallymeans that he/she is not saying anything

that has been said before. By thisstandard, a member of the IntellectualCommunity should not state the banal orobvious - it is better to describe the

exciting or unobvious. "Actually sayingsomething" might be translated then, as"saying something original."This valorization of "originality" often

leads 'to the Intellectual Style I am trying

to describe. To recant former wisdom (asa Native American elder might recite atraditional story) is to be "flat" and"unexciting." Exciting scholarship, on theother hand, focuses on "new insights" and"different angles" on old subjects - or

maybe even creating "new subjects.II

Thisattitude is embodied in the concept of a"thesis." An essay or academic book must(as we are dutifully taught) have a"thesis"- an idea that sets it apart from any

other essay or book - and a doctoral thesisis, by definition, a piece of purely

"original" scholarship.Fortunately for the Intellectual

Community, technology is constantlycreating "new" communities, "new"

perceptions, and "new" problems. "Old"problems are transformed, giving them

"new" nuances and manifestations. It

becomes the passion then, of theIntellectual Community to bring these"new" situations to light, to make thegeneral public (or at least other

Intellectuals) aware of the "new-ness" ofour current situation. This is what I meanby "making the visible the invisible. II

While this task of perceiving an all-

pervasive substance is regarded as nearlyimpossible, it certainly is not completely

impossible. And it is charged with that

quest that I see the Intellectual Community

often embarking on ambitious projects to"make the visible the invisible II - to

uncover all-pervasive ideologies or mythicbeliefs (virgin lands, manifest destinies,

8



gender constructions, racial biases, social

distinctions) that have hitherto remained

unperceived, but now, under "new"

circumstances and with "new" scholarly

tools, will be laid bare.

The unfortunate arrogance of this

perspective is that once the "invisible has

been made visible" (via "rigorous

scholarship"), this attitude often translates

into "We (the Intellectual Community) see

more clearly than you. We understand

black-ness or German-ness or Indian-ness

(or even Intellectual-ness) better than

anyone else. "

I think this happens because the usual

pattern (or style) of the Intellectual

Community is to first question basic

assumptions or explanations of the world,

and then (often with dramatic flourish)

uncover the "real" cohesive or dynamic

forces behind a particular literary style,

historical movement, or some other item

under intellectual scrutiny. This

movement from one set of beliefs to a

"new" and "better" set of beliefs is often

characterized as a "conversion," and while

most scholars today try to acknowledge

that they don't expect their "new" position

is the "ultimate answer," it is still assumed

that this"new" position is "better" than

their former beliefs or the beliefs of most

people. In other words, they have been

"enlightened." And as is typical of

religious converts, the "enlightened"

scholar often seeks other converts to this

"new" and "higher ground."

The thing that is most fun about this kind

of analysis is to watch how my own

writing (and "scholarly analysis")

participates in this style of the Intellectual

Community. This essay considers itself

(speaking of these words as if they are

somehow detached from me) an "original"

piece of writing - although there may be

many Intellectuals who have said what I

have said, but far more eloquently (or in

other words, more "originally"). The

ironic illusion, of course, is that I

somehow stand outside the Intellectual

Community and that I can perceive and

"make visible the invisible. "

So, in the end (if there is an end), this

essay (as the Deconstructionists would

gladly point out) implodes on itself. It is a

circular argument. Author Nina Baym's

final word is also my condemnation: "As

in the working out of all theories, its

weakest link has found it and broken the

chain." My only hope then, as a member

of the Intellectual Community, is that

someone will find it to be "original."

Works Cited

Anderson, B. Imagined Communit ies.Verso, 1983.

Baym, N. "Melodramas of Beset

Manhood: How Theories of

American Fiction Exclude Women

Authors." American Quanerly, 33

(Summer, 1981), 123-139.

Levernz , D. Manhood and the

American Renaissance . Ithaca:

Cornell Press, 1989.

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american studies forum: winter 1992

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