New York University
Multinational Institute of American Studies
UK Summer Institute on American Civilization
THE RECONCILIATION OF AMERICAN DIVERSITY WITH NATIONAL UNITY
Sunday, June 21
Arrival
3:00 – 5:00Tour of NYU: Visit the libraries, sports facilities, book stores, computer banks, University eating facilities, Kimmel Center for University Life, etc.
Monday, June 22
9:00 - 12:00Administrative Orientation
Disbursement of per diem allowances, registration at NYU I.D. Center, and receive accounts and/or travelers checks at Citibank.
2:00 – 5:00 New York Architecture, Urban Design and Community Planning
Tour of Mid-Town Manhattan and lecture by Carol Krinsky, Professor, Art History, NYU. The tour will begin at Grand Central Terminal, a building which reflected a new appreciation of the importance of integrating architectural design with the needs of a booming urban community, and end at Rockefeller Center, a complex that is still regarded as one of the finest examples of urban planning in the world. The focus of this tour will be local zoning regulations, the impact of technology on city planning, and the achievements of private enterprise.
7:00 - 9:00 Opening Reception
Pless Hall Lounge, 82 Washington Square East
Assigned Reading: Thomas Bender, “Strategies of Narrative Synthesis in American History,” American Historical Review (February 2002), pp. 129-153; Heinz Ickstadt, “American Studies in an Age of Globalization,” American Quarterly 54.4 (2002) 543-562; Paul Giles and R.J. Elis, “E Pluribus Multitudium: The New World of Journal Publishing in American Studies,” American Quarterly 57.4 (2005).
Suggested Readings: Robert J. Berkhofer, Jr.,“A new Context for American Studies,” American Quarterly 41 (1989); Stephen H. Sumida, “Where in the World is American Studies,” American Quarterly 55.3 (2003), 333-351; Joel Pfister, “The Americanzation of Cultural Studies,” Yale Journal of Criticism 4:2 (1991).
I. LOCAL AUTONOMY AND PLURALISM IN AMERICA
Tuesday, June 23
9:30 - 11:15Creating Successful Communities in Early America
Speaker: Karen Kupperman, Silver Professor, History, NYU
12:00 – 2:30 Lunch Discussion: “Reconciliation of Diversity with National Unity”
Discussion of central theme of program led by Philip Hosay, Professor and Director of International Education, and Director of the Multinational Institute of American Studies, NYU.
2:00 - 4:00Local Community in New York: Greenwich Village and SoHo
The focus of this walking tour, apart from a general orientation to the New York University community, will be how Americans continually root themselves in small homogeneous subcultures, even in the midst of a large metropolis like New York City.
4:00 - 5:15Computer Telecommunications: Receive NYU e-mail accounts at NYU’s Information Technology Services, and orientation to NYU computer facilities. Leonid Litvin will conduct the orientation and be available on a consulting basis throughout the program to provide individual assistance to the participants on the use of the Web-based research resources at NYU, as well as other data bases.
Assigned Readings: Karen Kupperman, "International at the Creation: Early Modern American History," in Thomas Bender, ed., Rethinking American History in a Global Age (2002), 103-23; Jane Landers, "Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose: A Free Black Town in Spanish Colonial Florida," American Historical Review, 95 (1990); James Merrell, “The Cast of His Countenance: Reading Andrew Montour” in Ronald Hoffman, Mechal Sobel, and Fredrika Teute, eds., Through a Glass Darkly: Reflections on Personal Identity in Early America (1997), 13-39.
Recommended Readings: Simon Middleton, "'How it Came that the Bakers Bake No Bread': A Struggle for Trade Privileges in Seventeenth-Century New Amsterdam," William and Mary Quarterly (2001), 347-72; David J. Silverman, "Indians, Missionaries, and Religious Translation: Creating Wampanoag Christianity in Seventeenth-Century Martha's Vineyard," William and Mary Quarterly (2005), 141-74.
Suggested Readings: Sumner C. Powell, Puritan Village (1963), chps. 5-l0; Joseph S. Wood, “‘Build, therefore, your own world:’ The New England Village as Settlement Ideal,” The Annals of the Association of American Geographers (March, 1991); Frances FitzGerald, Cities on a Hill (1986), pp. 203-245.
Wednesday, June 24
9:30 – 12:00Individual Research Interests
Roundtable discussion with staff of Multinational Institute of American Studies on major issues in American Studies in the U.K., and on identifying individual research interests. Staff will assist the you in locating scholarly resources and establishing contacts with relevant academics and other scholars in the New York metropolitan area. You will also have an opportunity to indicate what sorts of civic organizations and other associations - political, religious, environmental, economic development, educational, etc. – you may wish to visit.
12:00 – 2:00Lunch
Tap Room of the Torch Club for Faculty
2:00 – 3:45The Search for Community in the American Imagination
Speaker: Rene Arcilla, Professor, Philosophy and Humanities Education, NYU.
6:00 -8:00 Tour (free and optional): Visit to Ground Zero (World Trade Center site).
Assigned Readings: Richard Rorty, Achieving Our Country (1998).
Recommended Readings: Sacvan Bercovitch, The Rites of Assent: Transformations in the Symbolic Construction of America, chp. 10; Toni Morrison, "Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature," The Tanner Lecture on Human Values, University of Michigan, October 7, 1988.
Suggested Readings: Charles Newman, The Post-modern Aura: The Act of Fiction in an
Age of Inflation (1985); Philip Fisher, "American Literary and Cultural Studies since The
Civil War" and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "African American Criticism," in Stephen Greenblatt and Giles Gunn, eds., Redrawing the Boundaries.
Thursday, June 25
9:30 – 11:15 American Federalism and Local Governance
Speaker: Richard Pious, Ochs Professor of American Studies, Barnard College and Columbia University.
1:00 – 5:00 Individual Research
Free for individual appointments
7:00 – 11:00Theater (required): “XXX”
6:30 -9:00 Movie (free and optional): Bryant Park – film to be announced.
Assigned Readings: Gary Wills, Explaining America (1981), pp. 1-93; The Federalist Papers, nos. 10, 78, 81; Norval White, New York: A Physical History (1987), pp. 111-129; Neil Harris, Building Lives (1999), chps. 1, 3.
Recommended Readings: Alexander Garvin, The American City: What Works, What
Doesn’t (1996); William Jordy, American Buildings and TheirArchitects (1972), vol. 5, pp.,
221- 227; Daniel J. Elazar, "Opening the Third Century of American Federalism: Issues and
Prospects," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (May
1990).
Suggested Readings: Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. by Richard D.
Heffner, pp. 49-58, 95-142, 189-220, 289-317; Robert P. Inman and Daniel L. Rubinfeld,
“Rethinking Federalism,” The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 11, No. 4. (Autumn, 1997), pp. 43-64; David B. Walker, "The Advent of an Ambiguous Federalism and the Emergence of New Federalism III," Public Administration Review (May/June 1996).
II. INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY AND THE AMERICAN CREED
Friday, June 26
9:30 - 11:30The Constitutional Basis for Individual Rights in America
Speaker:Thomas Halper, Professor, Politics, Baruch College.
2:00 – 4:00Religious Liberty and the American Creed
Panel discussion moderated by Gabriel Moran, Professor, Philosophy of Education and Religion, NYU. Members of the panel are: Courtney Bender, Professor, Religion, Columbia University; Robert Seltzer, Professor, History, Hunter College, CUNY; Alyshia Galvez, Professor, Latin American Studies, Lehman College, CUNY.
5:00- 8:00MoMA (free and optional): Target Free Fridays.
Assigned Readings: Daniel Boorstin, The Americans: The National Experience (1965), pp. 325-390; Richard J. Arneson, “Perfectionism and Politics,” Ethics (Oct., 2000), pp. 37-63 ;
Winthrop S. Hudson, "Liberty, Both Civil and Religious," in Jerald Brauer, ed., The Lively Experiment Continued; Leonard W. Levy, "The Original Meaning of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment," in James E. Wood, Jr., ed., Religion and the State: Essays in honor of Leo Pfeffer (1985).
Recommended Readings: Ronald Dworkin, "Affirmative Action: Does it Work?" and "Affirmative Action: Is it Fair?" in Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (2002); David P. Forsythe, “United States Policy toward Enemy Detainees in the ‘War on Terrorism’,"Human Rights Quarterly ( May 2006), pp. 465-491; Michael V. Angrosino, “Civil Religion Redux,”Anthropological Quarterly (Spring 2002), pp. 239-267; Noah Feldman, “From Liberty to Equality: The Transformation of the Establishment Clause,” California Law Review (May, 2002), pp. 673-731.
Suggested Readings: Richard Kluger, Simple Justice (1975); Judith Baer, Equality Under the Constitution: Reclaiming the 14th Amendment (1983), chps. 2,6,10; Linda Krieger, "Civil Rights Perestroika: Intergroup Relations After Affirmative Action" California Law Review 86 (1998), pp. 1251-1333; Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: The Christianizing of the American People, chps. 1-2; Martin E. Marty, "Religion: A Private Affair, in Public Affairs," Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation (Summer, 1993); Linda Pritchard, "The Spirit and the Flesh: Religion and Regional Economic Development," in Philip R. Vandermeer and Robert P. Swierenga, eds., Belief and Behavior: Essays in the New Religious History (1991); Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, “Muslims in U.S. Politics: Recognized and Integrated, or Seduced and Abandoned?,” SAIS Review (Summer-Fall 2001), pp. 91-102.
Saturday, June 27
9:00 – 3:00The Fusion of Regional Cultures: The New England Townin the Midland
Tour of Litchfield County, Connecticut, to examine the spatial configuration of eighteenth century New England towns (Salisbury, Cornwall, Sharon, etc.), and the changing relationships of human inhabitants and the environment, including such areas as the Cathedral Pines stand of woods near Cornwall. Subsequently resettled by migrants from New York City, this part of Connecticut is an archetypal example of a hybrid culture that is now part of the Midlands.
Sunday, June 28
Free Day
Some of the free and optional activities you may wish to pursue include the following: the Gay Pride Parade, which begins at 11:00 a.m. at the intersection of 5th Avenue and 52nd Street, and continues to Christopher and Greenwich streets; tour of the military history of Governors Island (ferries leave from Battery Maritime Building at 10:00 a.m.); Central Park SummerStage: Mosh Ben Ari, Rupa and The April Fishes, Y-Love DJ Diwon, from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM; Chess in Bryant Park, from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.; Farmers' Market, 12:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m., Greenstreet; Harlem Meer Performance Festival.
Monday, June 29
9:30 – 11:15Individualism, Entrepreneurship and American Business Enterprise
Speaker: George David Smith, Professor of Economics and Entrepreneurship, Stern Business School, NYU.
2:00 - 4:00Class Consciousness and Organized Labor in America
Panel discussion moderated by Joshua Freeman, Professor, History, Queens College, CUNY. Members of the panel are: Ida Torres, Secretary-Treasurer, United Storeworkers Union, Local 3; Bill Henning, Vice President, Communications Workers of America, Local 1180; Heather Beaudoin, Political Director of the New York City Central Labor Council.
7:00 – 9:00 Author Presentation (free and optional): Philip Gourevitch, of the New Yorker, on
his book Standard Operating Procedure- Barnes & Noble, 82nd & Broadway.
Assigned Readings: Melvyn Dubofsky, Hard Work: The Making of Labor
History (2000); Thomas K. McCraw, Prophets of Regulation(1984), pp. 300-309; Paul
Krugman, “Crony Capitalism,” in The Great Unraveling:Losing Our Way in the New
Century (2003).
Recommended Readings: Anisya S. Thomas and Stephen L. Mueller, "A
Case for Comparative Entrepreneurship: Assessing the Relevance of Culture,” Journal of
International Business Studies (2nd Qtr., 2000), pp. 287-301; Eric Foner, “Why is There No
Socialism in the United States?” History Workshop Journal 17 (Spring 1984).
Suggested Readings: Glenn Porter, The Rise of Big Business: 1860-1920 (1973); Charles Riley, Small Business, Big Politics: What Entrepreneurs Need to Know to Use Their Growing Political Power (1995); Gary Marks, Unions in Politics: Britain, Germany, and the United States in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (1989); Herbert Hill, “The Problem of Race in American Labor History,” Reviews in American History (1996), pp. 189-208; Bruce Nissen, “Alternative Strategic Directions for the U.S. Labor Movement: Recent Scholarship,” Labor Studies Journal (Spring 2003), pp. 133-155.
Tuesday, June 30
9:30 - 11:15Gender and Individualism in American Culture
Speaker: Lisa Stulberg, Professor, Sociology of Education, NYU,
2:00 – 4:00Electronic Media, Censorship, and Individual Privacy
Panel discussion moderated byFrank Moretti, Professor, Communication and Education, Columbia University. Members of the panel are: Ralph Engelman, Chairman, Department of Journalism, Long Island University, and former Chairman of the Board, WBAI; Norman Siegel, civil rights attorney and former Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union; Marilyn McMillan, Chief Information Technology Officer, Information Technology Services, NYU.
7:00 -9:00 Concert (free and optional): Son Volt, country-punk flavored rock songs,
World Financial Center Plaza
Assigned Readings: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Feminism without Illusions: A Critique of Individualism (1991), chps. 6, 8; Laura R. Winsky Mattei, “Gender and Power in American Legislative Discourse, The Journal of Politics, (May, 1998), pp. 440-461; Richard Lanham, The Electronic Word (1993), pp. 98-137; Rosemary J. Coombe, “Culture Wars on the Net: Trademarks, Consumer Politics, and Corporate Accountability on the World Wide Web,” The South Atlantic (Fall 2001), pp. 919-947.
Recommended Readings: Nancy F. Cott, The Grounding of Modern Feminism(1987), chps. 3-4; Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers (1991), pp. 271-308; Lawrence Grossman, The Electronic Republic (1996), pp. 50-68; Daniel J. Solove and Marc Rotenberg, Information Privacy Law (2003).
Suggested Readings: Virginia Sapiro Women in American Society: An Introduction to Women's Studies (1998), chp. 8; Theresa de Lauretis, "Queer Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities, an Introduction," in Differences, No.2, 1991; Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "Writing History: Language, Class, and Gender," in Teresa De Lauretis, ed., Feminist Studies/Critical Studies (1986), pp. 31-54; bell hooks, Feminism Is For Everybody (2000); Esther Dyson, "If you don't love it, leave it" New York Times Magazine, July16, 1995; David E. Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940 (1990), pp. 339-391.
Wednesday, July 1
10:00 - 12:00 Poverty in America: Social Responsibility and Individual Self-Reliance
Panel discussion moderated by Lawrence Mead, Professor, Politics, NYU.
Members of the panel are: Marc Scott, Professor, Applied Statistics, Humanities and
the Social Sciences, NYU; Nancy A. Rankin,Director of Research, Community
Service Society; David Chen, Executive Director, Chinese American Planning
Council.
1:00 – 5:00 Individual Research
Free for individual appointments
7:00 -9:00 Concert: Metropolitan Opera (free and optional): Great Lawn, Central Park.
Assigned Readings: James T. Patterson, America's Struggle Against Poverty in the Twentieth Century (2000), pp. 171-184, 210-223; Douglas J. Besharov, “The Past the Future of Welfare Reform,” The Public Interest (Winter 2003): 4-21.
Recommended Readings: Alberto Alesina, “Why Doesn't the United States Have a European-Style Welfare State?,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (2001, 2), pp. 187-277.
Suggested Readings: Michael Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse (1996), pp. 251-292; Martin Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy (1999), chps. 2, 8.
III. CULTURAL AND SOCIAL HETEROGENEITY
Thursday, July 2
9:30 - 11:15Immigration and Cultural Conflict
Speaker: Thomas Kessner, Professor, History, City University of New York Graduate Center
12:00 - 5:00Pluralistic Integration
Tour of Sunnyside Gardens and the surrounding area in Queens, New York, conducted by Susan Meiklejohn, Professor of Urban Affairs and Regional Planning, Hunter College, CUNY. Sunnyside Gardens, a 16-block enclave in western Queens, was one of the first planned communities in urban America. It is now one of the most ethnically diverse middle class neighborhoods in the United States, home to a largely immigrant population from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Korea, China, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, Columbia, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Argentina, and a host of other countries.
8:00 - 11:00 Theater (required): “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”
Assigned Reading: David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (1999), chps. 1 and 7; Lawrence H. Fuchs, The American Kaleidoscope (1990), pp. 1 34, 384-404.
Recommended Readings: Roger Sanjek, TheFuture of Us All: Race and Neighborhood Politics in New York City (1998); Stephen Thernstrom, The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880-1970, pp. 220-261.
Suggested Reading: John Higham, Send These to Me: Immigrants in Urban America (1984).
Friday, July 3
9:00 – 11:00Baseball Practice
12:00 – 5:00Baseball (required): The New York Yankees vs. Toronto Blue Jays
Suggested Reading: Roger Angell, Once More Around the Park: A Baseball Reader(2001).
Saturday, July 4
10:00 – 1:00July 4th: Celebration of American Pluralism
Brian Deimling, historian of Brooklyn and teacher at St. Ann’s School, will lead a tour of New York's July 4th festivities, including Brooklyn Heights, a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and various patriotic public performances in lower Manhattan. This session will focus on the ceremonial homage to American pluralism and the American democratic creed.
3:30 – 5:00 Concert (free and optional): Yo La Tengo, Lawn of Battery Park.
7:00 – 10:004th of July Fireworks Spectacularat the East River
Suggested Reading: Ralph H. Gabriel, The Course of American Democratic Thought (1956), pp. 99-104, 315-318, 439-450; Homer Calkin, “The Centennial of American Independence ‘Round the World,’” Historian (1976); Robert Andrews, “The Real American Independence Day?,” New-England Galaxy (1975); Ray Privett, “Independence: An Intercultural Experience in North America,” The Drama Review (2000).
Sunday, July 5
Free Day
Among some of the free activities available on this day are the River to River
Festival’s “Wall Street Walking Tour - a 90 minute guided walking tour weaving
together the history, events, architecture and people of Lower Manhattan – and
the Summergarden Concert,which begins at sunset at the Rockefeller Sculpture
Garden at MoMA. The music director of this series is Joel Sachs, who will lecture
later in the program on contemporary American art music.
Monday, July 6
9:30 - 11:15Recreating Community: The Black Migration from Farm to City
Speaker: Gunja SenGupta, Professor, History Department, Brooklyn College.
12:00 - 2:00Lunch Discussion in Harlem: Charles’ Restaurant in Harlem
2:00 - 5:00Diversity in West Harlem
Alexandra Wood will lead a tour of Harlem, including a meeting with the staff of Congressman Charles Rangel, the offices of the Inner City Broadcasting, WLIB/WBLS. W.P. Mohammed at the Masjid Malcolm Shabazz Mosque, an orthodox Muslim center, and the Community Association of Progressive Dominicans. The tour will also look at the recent gentrification of West Harlem. The focus of this tour will be the diverse communities that make up Harlem.
8:00 - 10:00Theater (free and optional): Public Theater Shakespeare Festival, Central Park
Assigned Readings: Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land: TheGreat Black Migration and How It Changed America.
Recommended Readings: Adam Fairclough, Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890-2000, chps. 9-15; Larry L. Hunt, “Hispanic Protestantism in the United States: Trends by Decade and Generation,” Social Forces (June, 1999), pp. 1601-1624; William Julius Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race (1978), pp. 155-182.