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What's in a Name? Presidential Address to the American Studies Association, 20 November 1998

IN THE SPRING OF 1960, LESS THAN TEN YEARS AFTER THE founding of the American Studies Association, its first President, Carl Bode, of the University of Maryland, sat down to recall the moment of the Association's founding. Assuming that the members of the American Studies Association might be interested in the story of how he started the organization, Bode intended his tale to provide guidance for the future.' He hoped his narrative would point to both the strengths and the weaknesses of the American studies movement and of the American Studies Association itself. Although this short piece was not Bode's presidential address-at the time, such addresses were not required of ASA presidents-it was, nonetheless, one of the first instances of the now familiar American studies genre, the genre conceived in response to the question, "does American studies have a distinctive method?" Like so many others who have since followed his lead, Professor Bode sought to define American studies, to specify its peculiar method, and to lay out an argument for why American studies might, in his words, "lead a counter-reformation in college curriculums."2