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

Bryson, Bethany

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804751641 ISBN 13: 9780804751643

Publisher: Stanford University Press, 2005

Synopsis

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.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"...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

About the Author

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

About this edition

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0804751641
• ISBN 13: 9780804751643
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232