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Literary Review
Let there be commerce
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American Studies needs to redefine itself and get interdisciplinary, says INDRAN AMIRTHANAYAGAM.
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The great melting pot or market driven atomisation? The floor of the New York Stock Exchange,
TO review the work of scholars is no Sunday hop, skip or dash, a few vigorous and amateur phrases hard run in the beginning to dazzle the reader with a burst of speed before sending her off on her own journey through American history and literature, its international relations and its democracy. Neither am I scholar nor sprinter but the director of Public Affairs at the American Consulate, Chennai and a poet and American citizen; and in this capacity I assert the right to a few observations and images about the nature of American Studies and whether indeed the examination of America is synonymous with analysis of the 48 contiguous states and Alaska and Hawaii.
I suggest at the outset that American Studies encompasses a geography far greater than any 50 states. It is indeed the study of interaction between the countries of the globe and these 50 states. It reflects encounters in airports such as Kennedy or O'Hara and their attendant cities; it includes a dizzying range of meetings, between immigrant inspector and visitor, policeman and young man on roller-skates, the multi-coloured mix of students on campus, the various interest groups that hyphenate with and within the two mainstream political parties.
It is a wonderfully elastic and hybrid phrase: American Studies. It refreshes like a window open to the sea breeze, and the air currents are full of nutmeg and apple as well as cinnamon and ginger; and the ears sweeten to the Calypso All Stars and the Mambo Kings, Bob Dylan and Jimmy Hendrix. In every field, literature, music, dance, theatre, politics, history, the visual arts, American Studies is the examination of ferment, languages jostled up, skin-turned and made new. I have mentioned some disciplines that are not yet reflected in the syllabi of American Studies in India. This must change. At least, we must allow the elastic band to stretch and engage in conversations and performances with arts and democracies throughout the globe.
In one sense, American Studies explores the benefits of free speech and movement. In another, American Studies can meet such disciplines as Indian, European and Australian Studies and engage in a circular dance that whirls and delights and gives all its participants a shot in the arm and leg, a dose of hope in the fruitfulness of the cross-cultural encounter.
Now, as we consider American Studies, which I define as the encounter in America of the world's cultures, we should, at the very least, stretch the geographic elastic to include Central and South America and Canada. From Ellesmere Island to Tierra del Fuego, let us focus energies on the American Continent and its varied intellectual, political, social, and ecological topography. Let us fiddle with our, at times, maddening divisions of study. In the post-September 11 world, let us encourage students to understand the margins between categories and to find intellectual comfort and delight in the very complexities that result from malleable divisions. In other words, let political science include the novel, and the study of late 20th-century New York painting discuss the relationship of a canvas to the political discourse in which it occurred. However, if indeed, we believe that we should divorce painting entirely from its social and political environment, then let us debate the essential question about art and its role as we engage in American Studies. Let us not forget that artists, granted free studio space on various high floors of the Twin Towers, were killed along with their creations. The "terrible beauty" of that particular assault on civilisation was its absolute and broad swath. The terrorist meant to say: no one is exempt. American Studies must respond by celebrating the symbolic wealth of world trade centres. I speak of a wealth that is not only financial. I think of Pound as he challenged Whitman in "A Pact": "let there be commerce between us."
Let there be commerce between the diverse classes, conversations and essays that comprise explorations in American Studies. Let the political scientist visit the poet within the pages of a study and in the classroom. Let American Studies go on road shows to institutions of higher learning both laic and religious. Americans are proud of their separation of church and state, but that is not to say they wish one to dominate over the other. Religious freedom along with political and sexual and ecological freedoms: the right to create and to preserve, to build and to rebuild with renewable wood — these are ideals governing contemporary conversations in the 50 states. They are also found in other parts of the globe. Thus, we need to focus on the site-specific particularities of American discourse and their relationship to human concerns elsewhere.
Let us spotlight the here and the elsewhere. Why American Studies? Are we enthralled by the United States' economic and military prowess? Are we captivated by the Declaration of Independence, the Civil Rights movement, the practical expression of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Are we impressed by the advances of women and its rich ethnic mosaic? Let us examine our motives. We must not only study America, or rather the United States, because it is a superpower, or because of the inspiring advances of its women, or because it has engendered the dream world of Hollywood. Let us focus as well on the idea of America, the notion of rebirth and shedding of old conflicts and dilemmas. Let us also remember that whether we engage in the study of Hollywood or Bollywood, Ealing Studios or the Cannes Film Festival, whether we are specialists in American, Indian, English or French studies, we are enticed by the same goal, to identify, dissect and reconstruct the idea that inspires the enterprise, to understand its founding principle. Martin Luther King found that idea in the promissory note of the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights. He helped the African-American cash the cheque written on that promissory note. I invite all readers to reflect on American, and yet universal and democratic, questions of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The writer is Consul for Public Affairs at the American Consulate General, Chennai. He is a poet who writes in English and Spanish and his latest book Ceylon R.I.P., was recently published in Sri Lanka.
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