This is the final reaction to EASA 2014. Please look at part 1 and part 2 if you’re so inclined.
There’s nothing original I can say about the BDS movement, the ASA boycott, or the larger Israel-Palestine issue. However, it is undeniable that something has changed in the affairs of the larger American Studies community. Perhaps this has been building to a logical conclusion for a while now, but regardless, American Studies in 2014 is now different than it was just years ago. The national exposure of the boycott, alone, brought a large mainstream media spotlight onto the ASA – a move I’m frankly not convinced they were anticipating nor ready – and for weeks, national news pontificators mocked and derided our field. This panel – as evidenced in its name “Beyond the Resolution: The Future of American Studies” – was not intended to debate the merits of the boycott itself, but rather to discuss how the larger American Studies community should move forward in this new dynamic.
Let’s get this out of the way: yes, the panel participants were all very much anti-boycott. The audience was not uniform, though, and no one’s voice was stifled. There was a contingent that seemed itching for a fight over the merits of the boycott, and their mumbling was noticeable. If you have something to say, say it. If you don’t, don’t. We’re supposed to be experts at critical thinking and arguing, right? Finally, one of the group did interrupt about the role of the US government in Israeli affairs being ample justification for why this is an American Studies issue. And proud we are of all of him.
As I said, the goal of the panel was to discuss the future, not the resolution itself. Complicating this goal, though, were the participants. Sharon Musher probably shouldn’t have spoken first. She is adamantly anti-boycott and her calls to create an alternate to the ASA – “not to boycott the boycotters, but to have a space to reestablish the field” – set the wrong tone for the discussion. Musher believes that activism is now subverting the scholarship, instead of how it should be: scholarship driving activism. She pointed to the irony of those who so vehemently brought down the Myth-Symbol paradigm, replacing it with a new mythology that uses the colonial/imperial rhetoric to simplify complex relationships into binaries of good and evil. Compounding the irony, if we had more adherents to Myth-Symbol interpretations in the field, perhaps this would be more apparent to everyone.
Rowan’s Miles Orvell was next and wanted to give historical perspective on the changes he’d watched within the ASA. He told of how he wasn’t really paying attention to any of this and the resolution was a “shock,” but perhaps shouldn’t have been. He had watched a slow but steady change in ASA membership over the past twenty years as “American Studies” scholars who felt alienated and “unfit” were replaced by scholars from a multitude of different fields. For Orvell, the sad irony is in that a once-minority caucus of the ASA is now the majority, but still acts like a marginalized and embattled minority.
The election process for leadership within the ASA has been crucial for this shift. Officers are nominated by the nominating committee; new members of the nominating committee are nominated by the nominating committee. This has created a circular process and a rather restrictive, undemocratic one, that has allowed a self-selecting group of members with a narrow set of interests to run the association. (Note: I haven’t checked the ASA by-laws, so I’m describing the process as the panel described the process.)
Orvell rejected walking away and losing the “anchor” of the ASA, but did question whether ASA membership/involvement is the primary or most significant way to express one’s “American Studies” identity. The ASA is just one component to doing “American Studies” work. Even within the ASA umbrella, AQ, EAS Online, and regional conferences (like EASA) are all powerful tools for scholars. There are still plenty of outside journals, conferences, and publishers that allow scholarship on American Studies topics to thrive. Orvell ended his talk by asking “is there still common ground?” Frankly, I’m not sure anyone wants to say the answer to his question out loud…
Third on the panel was a non-American Studies scholar, but an expert in International Relations, Asaf Romirowsky. Not having an American Studies background probably helped him, as he wasn’t weighed down with all the baggage the rest were. Romirowsky gave some background on BDS tactics and the IR term “cascade the narrative” – which BDS and other political movements employ to reframe messaging in their favor. Romirowsky took issue with the way BDS has positioned the entire conflict, for instance references to “apartheid” and almost exclusive use of anecdotal stories, not empirical data. He also noted that not even PLO leader Abbas supports BDS. Instead of fighting for a two-state solution, BDS wants a one-state solution. (Note: Again, I’m presenting these arguments as the speakers did.) Romirowsky also questioned why an academic association is attempting to have a foreign policy.
The last speaker was Robert Snyder, from Rutgers. He made it very clear that was speaking for himself, not Rutgers, not his colleagues, but only as himself. Snyder immediately rejected the idea of a new American Studies organization as a “logistical nightmare” and one that would unnecessarily cause a divide between those leaving for the new organization and those staying within ASA to try to work from within the system. He laid out four big ways in which he had seen the ASA shift over the past decades. First, instead of scholarship driving politics, now politics is driving scholarship. Some within American Studies are looking for justifications for their beliefs, not allowing the research to do the driving. Second, the history of progressivism – a topic all Americanists should be versed in, at least a little – should warn and remind us that judgments made today can be proven wrong in history. Third – and this is a point Snyder would come back to again – Snyder questioned the relationship between individuals and organizations. An individual scholar can be as political as he or she wants – Snyder himself is an activist who has protested against intervention in Nicaragua, Iraq, etc. – but an organization should not be making binding political statements without a settled consensus, a near impossibility, especially in a broad, interdisciplinary field like ours. His last point was to remind everyone that debates need to embrace academic freedom and academic pluralism. Just because some in a field think one way, doesn’t mean everyone does, and we should be using conferences to argue those perspectives, not declare one side is right, one is wrong. Snyder reiterated that he loves going to ASA conferences as they represent the breadth of the “broad and fertile” work of the rank and file membership. However, echoing Orvell’s point about the nominating process, Snyder lamented that the leadership was now not representative and did the wrong thing with regard to the boycott.
The first question from the audience addressed a topic every panelist had referenced: Why is “American Studies” getting involved in the dynamics of the politics of the Middle East? The turn to transnationalism and analysis of the United States’ role in the world was not rejected. Both Snyder and Orvell reaffirmed their liberal credentials and had no issue with questioning the government or the government’s actions. The key for them was the role of the ASA in that process. It was noted that this was not the first political statement the ASA has made: the Iraq War, Apartheid, Vietnam were all cited. Again, though, the panel made the distinction between an association making binding resolutions representing only one perspective and individual scholars acting on their beliefs. To this extent, it was good that Robert Snyder was a participant. Snyder bent over backwards to prove his activist credentials and kept attempting to refocus the question on the role of the ASA, not the merits of the issue. Orvell had a much more pragmatic view of the topic, even asking at one point, “Why would anyone care what the American Studies Association thinks [about Israel-Palestine]?”
An inescapable observation, from the rumblings before ASA2013, to the resolution, to EASA’s panel was that this is a generational issue within the field. This is not unexpected. Cultures of US Imperialism is over twenty years old now. Most of the essays in The Futures of American Studies were written over fifteen years ago. An entire generation of American Studies scholars and practitioners has grown up in this environment and within this critical orientation. The turn from Myth-Symbol was a necessary step in the evolution of the field. However, in shedding the ideological impetus for Myth-Symbol, American exceptionalism, etc., during the Cold War, the field threw out all of the good parts, as well. As I noted above, it is interesting that the New Americanists have simply replaced the pro-America Cold War myths with anti-America postcolonial myths. In theory, what they want to do is act on their beliefs and critical interpretations of American culture. In reality, they’re limiting discourse within the field to what adheres to the dominant ideology. The word “ironic” barely covers it.
The overarching question comes back to “what is the role of the ASA?”. Is it merely a professional association that puts on conferences and publishes a journal, or is it a political party? No one, especially in a liberal academic field like American Studies, is going to stifle individual political action. But should an association like the ASA be passing such divisive resolutions and “putting up boundaries” (in Snyder’s words)? At a time when liberal arts education is being cut and questioned and the very nature of universities and higher education are being reimagined, can the field of American Studies afford to have a sizable portion of its membership alienated? This resolution was not a necessary act, it was a voluntary one. All of the negative press the ASA has received is due to its own actions. If the ASA is fine with that, so be it. It would be easier on the field, though, if those who felt so strongly ran for Congress instead.
The goal of the panel was to look for ways to conduct American Studies scholarship in the wake of the boycott. There was a general consensus among anti-boycott voices that leaving the ASA is not productive. Working within regional conferences, like EASA, seemed a more well-liked option than outright secession. As Snyder pointed out a few times, the ASA conference itself is a rewarding experience and showcases the best of the field. The panel made a division between the “leadership” and the “field” many times. It is also important to note that there are two different forms of ASA membership: individual and institutional. Penn State Harrisburg got rid of its institutional membership, but individuals within the program (like me) are free to be members of any association. A full list of institutional comings-and-goings can be found at Mark Rice’s blog.
The other major consensus among the group was to try to change how the ASA election process works. Based on how the panel described the process – “the Nominating nominate the Nominating” – it sure does seem to need a bigger spotlight of attention. The idea of an “alternative slate” of officers was floated, but not expanded upon, as was the concern that this boycott is simply the first in what will become a more involved and polarizing association. Critiquing and analyzing American culture and America’s role in the world was not the issue for these presenters. Even Sharon Musher admitted that if the ASA wanted to pass a censure, she’d personally oppose it, but it wouldn’t have been as big a deal. It will be interesting to see how this evolves in the coming years. This may be a generational divide, but it’s not a uniform generational divide, and I suspect those younger scholars not emotionally and practically tied to the ASA will simply abandon it in favor of other groups.
The theme of the conference was “The Body of America, the Health of America: Taking the Pulse of American Culture.” For its part, the panel wanted to take the pulse of American Studies. Unfortunately, I’m not sure we have the answer yet.