|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
LR/RL Copyright © by the International Comparative Literature Association. All rights reserved.
Literary Research/Recherche littéraire 21.41-42 (2004): 310-314 Peter Uwe Hohendahl, ed., German Studies in the United States. A historical handbook. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2003; viii+576 pp.; ISBN: 0873529898 (pbk.); LC call no.: PF3068.U6G38; US$28.00 Volodymyr Vynnychenko, a prominent Ukrainian writer of the beginning of the 20th century, once quipped that “It is impossible to read Ukrainian history without bromine.” After looking into German Studies in the United States: A Historical Handbook, one may rightfully apply those words to the history of American Germanics. Essentially defined as the history of “misunderstanding and missed opportunities” (455), Germanics enjoys a variety of pessimistic tags applied to its past, present and future. Thus, Brent O. Peterson, one of the contributors, admits that “Almost from its beginning German was a discipline in crisis” (451). The present is depicted as uncertain: “Today German studies finds itself at a crossroads” (2). As to the somewhat apocalyptic future, “If tomorrow’s faculty members in Germanics are not provided some solid packaging and marketing techniques for their subject matter and some practical experience in public relations techniques […], it is entirely possible that Germanics as such will continue to lose its audience and eventually fade away” (116). It was this very despondent panorama that prompted the book’s coming into being. Peter Uwe Hohendahl, the editor of the volume, explains his project thusly: “It seems that practitioners of Germanics in this country have been interested more in solving immediate problems in their discipline than in analyzing their history. But since the present outlook of the field is not overly promising in terms of enrollments and available faculty positions, such analysis is needed” (1). In effect, the situation with German studies only reflects the current poorness of the humanities, whose existence has often been described as [end page 310] a crisis. Hence, analyzing present university concerns, Renate Schulz notes: “Crisis has been a high frequency word in American education in general and in FL [foreign language] education in particular throughout the twentieth century” (208). Therefore, the German Studies in the United States might be considered a case study of the crisis in the humanities. The numerous usages of such word combinations as “Germanics like many other disciplines in the humanities” or “all languages, German among them” indirectly proves this point. The volume comprises an introduction, seven chapters, and closing remarks. In the introduction – which provides basic definitions, discusses the goals, and sets the parameters of the project – “the editor proposes the following terms to be employed throughout in the book: the term Germanics is used exclusively for the American institution of teaching German language, literature, and culture; Germanistik is used exclusively for the profession in Germany. German studies is used for a broader view of the profession, a view that transcends language and literature. Germanist is used for both German and American members of the profession” (1-2). These definitions show that the dichotomy of German Germanics and American Germanics prevails in the nomenclature while the term German studies remains somewhat underdefined and confusing, especially given the further discussions in the book. Each of the seven chapters, comprising 36 articles written by different authors, has an introduction aiming at uniting the articles included. Therefore, German Studies in the United States is an anthology of writings on different aspects of history of Germanics rather than history of Germanics per se and it is largely structure that defines merits and limitations of the volume. Hohendahl is perfectly aware of the situation when he thusly explains his position in the introduction: The project of this volume could not be carried out along the lines of a strictly intrinsic history of science, focusing on the construction of paradigms and paradigm shifts as a mode of understanding the evolution of particular discipline […] We abandoned the narrative and chronological approach in favor of articles that cover specific topics, thereby offering a kaleidoscope of perspectives that complement one another. (2) The first three chapters generally reflect on the overall situation in Modern Language departments, while the remaining four can be regarded “purely” Germanic. The opening chapter “The German Faculty: Organization and Experience,” traces the origin, analyzes development, and examines current state of the US Modern Languages departments in general and [end page 311] German departments in particular. In “The History of the Organization of German Departments in the United States,” John A. McCarthy suggests to break the history of Germanics down into five phases: 1) From the Civil War to World War I (1861-1917), the phase of establishing Germanics as an academic discipline; 2) The Interwar Period (1917-42), a phase of decline in the context of a common anti-German sentiment; 3) From World War II to the Sputnik (1942-57), the phase of relatively stable interest in Germanics; 4) From Sputnik to the End of the Cold War (1957-90), the phase of explosive growth; 5) From the End of the Cold War to Present (1990-), the phase of gradual deterioration of the field. Along with reflection upon the history of Germanics, contributors to the first chapter attempt to answer two basic questions: “Why was German studied?” and “Why study German?” While answering those questions, such factors as a large German immigration (between 1850 and 1900 more than 4 million Germans came to the US), borrowing the German educational institutional model, and the importance of German culture for every educated person are brought into discussion. Additionally, the chapter examines certain tendencies in present-day academia that jeopardize the very existence of the humanities – the amalgamation of language departments, a shift from transmitting values to producing knowledge, and a shift from the profession as calling to the profession as performance. Because of the above-mentioned tendencies, language teaching while still remaining “a cash-cow for enrollment-starved departments” (85) turned into a “volatile commodity” (83) and, as a result, “today, anyone hoping to become a German teacher should seriously consider having a second field for which there is a greater demand” (86). The next chapter, “Instruction,” explores the history and present shape of undergraduate and graduate programs, the peculiarities of the German teacher’s profession, the German literary canon, and the role of textbooks and interdisciplinary studies. Expanding further the definition of Germanics, Wolfgang Natter proposes to distinguish between German studies and German Studies. According to him, German studies is “the study of German language, literature, and culture in departments of German” (175) while German Studies are inter- and trans-disciplinary non-departmentally based form of Germanics. His classification, however, has not been utilized in other essays of the volume. Continuing the tradition of listing the problems, the contributors spell out certain threats that German departments experience nowadays, namely the lack of interest in Germanics, “the lack of proper agencies for training […] of teachers” (120), and a shortage of textbooks for upper level students and majors. The third chapter, “Approaches and Methods,” deals with theoretical aspects of teaching the language and conducting research in German [end page 312] studies. As for teaching German, Renate Schulz provides a brilliant account on history of using different approaches (grammatical, natural, communicative, etc.). The other authors analyze dominant methodological research approaches in different time periods. Thus, Hohendahl inspects the uses of positivism, historicism, and New Criticism in the exploration of German-related topics. Sara Lenox discusses Marxism and feminism, approaches popular in 1970-80, and Irene Kacandes looks at the reflections of deconstruction, new historicism, queer theory, and postcolonial criticism in German studies. To the somewhat rhetorical question “Has Germanics in the United States finally developed its own methodology?” Peter Hohendahl claims that “the answer remains open” (213). The forth chapter, “Research in Historical Perspective,” focuses on shifts in scholarly research interests during the years. The chapter analyzes the following areas: literary history, literary theory, medieval studies, linguistics, German Jewish studies, and folklore. John A. McCarthy, the author of the introduction to the chapter, summarizes the material as follows: “Research foci in Germanics are like waves washing up on the shore: they rise to a crest, then come crashing down just to flatten out and listlessly ebb away. They come and go in erratic yet steady patterns. And they are dependent on external forces: wind, current, position of the moon, and so on” (260-1). The bulk of the fifth chapter, “Organizing the Profession,” concentrates on German professional organizations (the Lehrerbund and the MLA), journals (Monatshefte, the German Quarterly, Die Unterrichtspraxis, the Germanic Review, and New German Critique), and on the role of conferences and scholarly societies (Lessing Society, the Goethe Society of North America, the International Brecht Society, etc.). While the chapter essentially regards Germanic matters, the information about the foundation of the Modern Language Organization can be useful for everybody involved in the North American study of modern languages. The sixth chapter, “The Changing Profile of the Professoriate,” analyzes the demography of German departments. Such issues as origin (German, Jewish, American, other), gender, race, and professional ranks (full, associate, and assistant professors) are brought into discussion. The last chapter, “Sociopolical Dimensions,” addresses intrinsic (American) and extrinsic (German and international) social and political processes that have been influencing Germanics in the United States. The essays discuss a role of immigration, German Kulturpolitik, and relations with foreign organizations (Goethe Institute, European Studies Centers). In the closing remarks, Frank Tommer briefly reflects on writing a history of German studies in the United States and reviews the entire volume, which he rightly praises for being “both a [end page 313] comprehensive account of the institutional developments and a window into American-German intellectual relations” (478). The book closes with an extensive forty-page bibliography and index. Certainly, as contributors often indicate, given the scope of the project and the scarcity of analyzed information available, it is almost impossible to provide an all-inclusive report on the history of the US Germanics. Even though mentioned, certain topics are not discussed in the volume (for instance, the challenge posed by the new electronic technologies, or the role of Europe’s unification and its influence on German studies). The publication also lacks a larger frame which would surpass the borders of the discipline. Thereupon, while the volume shows the influence of external factors on Germanics, comparatively little attention is drawn to counter-influences, i.e., to the question how professors and alumni of German departments contributed to American society. However, despite these largely unavoidable shortcomings and regardless its manifested pessimistic mode, the German Studies in the United States is an excellent source of information about the development and current status of German departments. The pessimism of the book, in fact, works constructively and makes invited the reader to conceive of adequate answers rather than mourn Germanics’ lot. Beyond doubt, the volume can be successfully used for different professional workshops and fundamentals classes not only in German departments but also in the departments of foreign language acquisition, comparative literature, and modern languages.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||