Making Multiculturalism: Boundaries and Meaning in U.S. English Departments

Multiculturalism was a hot issue on college campuses in the 1990s, and it was a confusing issue, especially for English professors. Making Multiculturalism ventures into four college English departments to explore how professors made sense of multiculturalism. Their answers provide important insights into the "canon wars," multiculturalism, and cultural change. Defining meaning as a system of boundaries, Bryson uncovers specific mechanisms through which social institutions preserve themselves by imposing old meanings on new ideas. She connects those insights to some of today's most difficult cultural policy challenges, including campus (or workplace) diversity, individual responsibility, and the policy pitfalls of defining culture as something separate from social life. Bryson contends that cultural policy should abandon the "norms and values" definition of culture as individual beliefs and focus instead on the cultural implications of structure.

Table of Contents:
@fmct:Contents @toc4:List of Tables and Figures iii Acknowledgments iii @toc2:1 Introduction: Culture to the Rescue 0 @toc3:The Myth of Omnipotent Culture 0 The Research 0 A Road Map for Cultural Change 0 @toc2:2 Professors and the Press: Definitions of Multiculturalism 00 @toc3:Multiculturalism in the National Arena 00 My First Interview 00 Making Sense of Multiculturalism 00 Four Themes 00 Meaninglessness 00 Diversity 00 Non-Diversity (Literary Value and the Anti-Canon) 00 Connections 00 The Heart of the Multicultural Lotus 00 Fighting Words 00 @toc2:3 Abstraction in Action: Departmental Multiculturalism 00 @toc3:Ivory Towers 000 State Star 00 Multicultural State 00 Cathletic 00 Organized Culture 00 @toc2:4 Taking Sides in Quicksand: Meaning, Abstraction & Ambiguity 000 @toc3:The Role of Meaning and Ambiguity in Stancetaking 000 Abstraction, Responsibility & Opinion 000 Prestigious Complexity and Public Support 000 Refinement: Multiple Meanings Lead to Mixed Opinions 000 @toc2:5 Boundary Disputes: The Cultural Territories of Academe 000 @toc3:The "crisis" in English literature 000 State Star 000 Ivory Towers 000 Multicultural State 000 Cathletic University 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:6 Managing Multiculturalism: Curriculum Strategies for Reducing Conflict 000 @toc3:Curricular Battlegrounds 000 Ivory Towers 000 State Star 000 MC State 000 Cathletic University 000 Conflict and the Curriculum 000 @toc2:7 Conclusion: Culture to Blame 000 @toc3:A Policy Response to Bad Culture 000 Powerful Abstractions 000 Radical Change Requires Structure 000 Racist Structures 000 Beyond Socialization: Speaking Truth to Structure 000 Translating Cultural Change 000 @toc4:Notes 000 References 000 Index 000

About the Author :
Bethany Bryson is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia.

Review :
"...Bryson's book is an incisive and provocative account of multiculturalism in action, told in a style that never strains for academic pomposity. In an important way, hers is a telltale reminder that multiculturalism, when it remains as empty talk, can easily become a cover for the deeper structural problems that reproduce social inequality." - American Journal of Sociology "Bethany Bryson steps into the heart of the multiculturalism battle. She offers a compelling book that directly challenges some of the common ideas, arguments, and conclusions about culture, cultural change, and higher education that have become dominant themes in the 'culture wars.'" - Alford A. Young, Jr., University of Michigan "Bethany Bryson makes an extremely interesting and unusual intervention in what has to-date been a debate conducted in the abstract terms of cultural criticism. Making Multiculturalism will be influential and, in the best sense of the word, controversial." - Elizabeth Long, Rice University