Unrealized America : transforming American studies to transform America
Abstract
This dissertation asks why there is no socialism in the United States, what a realizable
socialism would be like, and how American Studies can contribute to this social
transformation. I claim that many on the American left and in American Studies have
used culturalist theories to answer these questions, but that in this use they are mistaken.
Instead we should use realist theories to help us understand and transform American
society. I conclude that the only type of realizable socialism will be a market socialism
and that a reformed American Studies could help bring this into being. The first chapter
outlines ideas about realism in science, the study of the human, and interdisciplinary
study. Then I discuss whether realist theories license oppression. After explaining the
relation of my political commitments to this framework, I criticize an article about
American Studies by Shelley Fisher Fishkin and conclude that we have assigned too
much importance to "culture" in American Studies. The second chapter discusses the
1948 Progressive campaign and Michael Denning's culturalist interpretation of the
Popular Front. I argue that the campaign failed because of its obedience to the
imperatives of Stalin rather than those of domestic politics. Denning's culturalist theory
obscures the politics of this period, misreads the media and arts, and advances mistaken
political strategies. Part I of the third chapter considers pragmatism, which Denning
claimed as part of the "cultural front." By comparing Dewey's philosophy with
Berkeley's, I show that Deweyan pragmatism represents an antirealist hostility to
modernity that has existed since the scientific revolution and that culturalism fulfils the
same role today. Part II shows that Dewey’s influence prevented Progressive supporter
Rexford Tugwell from developing a workable economic strategy in the early thirties.
Because the market socialisms of that time gave more careful thought to resource
allocation, they provided a better approach than Tugwellian planning to social control of
the economy. The dissertation concludes with consideration of the attitudes and methods
needed to begin a move to market socialism in the USA and a discussion of how those in
American Studies can satisfy political commitments without sacrifice of intellectual
integrity.
Department
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