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unjust social and political order; while conservatives in turn complain that
the university is complicitous with the radical critics, most of whom speak
from positions within the academic world, as do many, though fewer, of
the conservatives as well. Between the two, public support of the univer–
sity both in attitude and action has diminished.
By the late 1970s, however, the radical and even strongly liberal pro–
fessoriate was both running out of political steam and losing faith in the
ordinary day-to-day processes of politics. There followed the transforma–
tion of politics into what has been called "the work of culture." With this
alteration in perspective, increasing attention was paid to academic organi–
zation-the structures of study, the curriculum, the canon, departmental
appointments, interdepartmental committees, admissions, etc.-as new,
appropriate ideological work-what some describe as "the long march
through the institutions" or "negotiating with the Other." The politics of
culture was being called out to replace the anterior forms of direct action.
A renovated cultural populism was in formation.
It
was committed to
certain notions (of representation, for example) that could be at times
indifferent to intellect and intellectual standards. The right of course was
also reforming itself, although conservative voices largely manifested them–
selves extramurally.
At the same time, a general shuffling about took place within the aca–
demic avant-garde as it reconfigured itself vis-a.-vis the European
traditions of humanism, such as they were: an association or amalgam tend–
ed to be constructed by the academic Left between what was consensually
thought of as "the humanities," general education for undergraduates, and
the emergent triumph after World War II of so-called democratic capital–
ism, all of which came to be regarded, at the really bad moments, as
nothing more than one description of a Western-controlled racket of
world domination, colonialism, and exploitation.
These were some of the more quasi-political and social circumstances
out of which the present evolution of what has come to be called "cul–
tural studies" in the humanities evolved. But there were important
intellectual elements in this exceptionally complex genealogy as well.
1. There was a native high-level constellation of cultural-historical
criticism. This lineage descended in English from Matthew Arnold and
the British tradition, extending to
T.
S. Eliot, and was fused with European
modernism as it was translated and incorporated in America through such
institutions as
Partisan Review
and the broader-gauged members of the sev–
eral generations of New Critics, almost all of whom were academics.
It
comprehended as well such eminent figures as Edmund Wilson,
F.
R.
Leavis, and Lionel Trilling, who also stood for various renderings of
