American Studies Program takes on high-, middle- and low-brow culture

Professor Glenn Altschuler's Day Hall office contains some of his own Americana, including baseballs autographed by major league baseball "giants" Orlando Cepeda, Willie Mays and Willie McCovey. Robert Barker/University Photography

By Paul Cody

What do Betty Boop cartoons, Woody Guthrie ballads, Norman Rockwell paintings and TV Guide have in common? They're all American icons, and they can tell us a great deal about American culture and values, says Glenn Altschuler, professor of American studies and dean of Cornell's School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions.

"Some people think that studying such things is a trivialization of our culture, but the United States is a democracy, and if we want to understand this country and the people in it, we have to begin with where the people are," said Altschuler. "And when people buy millions of copies of a certain book or flock to certain movies or buy certain things in great numbers, in some complicated way they're responding to specific messages of our culture. And we ignore that at our peril.

"So," he continued, "while the core of American Studies remains American literature, history and government, and we read and study Moby Dick and the U.S. Constitution, we've enlarged the tent to include popular culture as well."

The American Studies Program is designed exclusively for undergraduates, and it is the fastest-growing program in the College of Arts and Sciences.

"We have 65 American studies majors right now," Altschuler said, more majors than many large departments have. And though he is the only professor of American studies at Cornell, more than a dozen professors from other academic departments teach in the program, and its courses are cross-listed in the departments of English, History, Government, Women's Studies and Family Studies.

Nick Salvatore, professor of industrial and labor relations, who divides his time between ILR and American studies, teaches an American studies course on "work" and another on "dissent." Joan Jacobs Brumberg, professor of human development and family studies, teaches a course on the Family In Historical Perspective, and Lois Brown, assistant professor of English, teaches a course on African-American women writers. Altschuler's course American Popular Culture regularly draws between 100 and 300 students.

American studies has existed at Cornell for a half-century, but only in the last seven years -- in part through the generosity of several alumni donors, Altschuler says -- have funds become available for curriculum development, teaching assistants and visiting lecturers.

"Now that students know that American studies exists," Altschuler said, "they're flocking to it."

During the weekend of Nov. 14 and 15, President Hunter Rawlings and his wife, Elizabeth, hosted a series of events to introduce Cornell alumni and friends to what Rawlings called the "burgeoning" program in American studies.

The events included a discussion of religion in America with Isaac Kramnick, the Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government, and R. Laurence Moore, professor of history, the co-authors of The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness; a reception and dinner hosted by the Rawlingses, followed by a talk by Dan McCall, professor of English, on "Novels Into Movies: What Happens When Words Become Pictures"; and a presentation of artifacts, "American Studies and Popular Culture," by Mark Dimunation, curator of rare books, and junior American Studies major Jessica Flintoft. Joel Porte, the Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters, lectured on teaching the American Renaissance. Shirley Samuels, associate professor of English and director of the Women Studies Program, was joined by Salvatore in a panel discussion on race, ethnicity and gender issues in American studies; and Joel H. Silbey, the President White Professor of History, lectured on the life and legend of Abraham Lincoln.

"Some of Cornell's most innovative thinkers teach courses in American studies," Rawlings said. "They are drawn by its potential to create fundamental new understandings of our culture. This confluence has resulted in a show of intellectual 'fireworks' that has, in turn, generated extraordinary interest among students."

"Because there are no graduate students in American studies," Altschuler said, "faculty energy in this program goes exclusively to undergraduates, and that's a wonderful thing."

Altschuler served as associate dean and director of advising at Cornell from 1985 to 1991, and he is currently faculty adviser to no less than 43 undergraduates.

"I see virtually all of them regularly and know them well," he said.

Altschuler has helped oversee student projects on everything from a biographical treatment of Gen. George S. Patton to a study of women in the American Civil War to a study in the shift from the cultural emphasis on character to personality in early 20th-century America.

A historian by training, Altschuler earned his Ph.D. at Cornell in 1976 and has written and co-authored such books as Changing Channels: America In TV Guide; Andrew D. White -- Educator, Historian, Diplomat; Revivalism, Social Conscience and Community in the Burned-Over District, and he is working on a book with history Professor Stuart Blumin, tentatively titled Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the 19th Century.

"Studying American culture from a multidisciplinary perspective is extremely important," Altschuler said. "The old modular approach taught in high schools, where students focused on one particular theme, say, a unit on American Indians followed by a unit on World War I, encouraged the breakdown of narrative and of narrative coherence. Now we can weave history, religion, politics, literature, advertising and film together and pick up all kinds of crucial narrative threads. That in turn can give us a much deeper and fuller understanding of the tapestry of American culture."

Is Altschuler optimistic about the future of American culture, something so many people seem to decry?

"I do hope that, in our exuberance and our claim that we've won the Cold War, we'll not fail in matters of self-examination," he cautioned. "And that in our celebratory mood, we won't be only celebratory but that we'll seek new understanding of ourselves and of our country.

"But you can't teach and talk with and be around our undergraduates without feeling optimistic about our future," Altschuler said. "They're fantastic -- in their intelligence, their curiosity and their social commitment."