American Values – Contested Values
2007 Fulbright American Studies Summer Institute
for German University Teachers
September 16 - 29, 2007.
The Departments of History and English at San Francisco State University are pleased
to co-sponsor the 2007 Fulbright American Studies Summer Institute for German University
Teachers on the topic “American Values.”
In recent years, American politicians have often appealed to voters in the name of values, and commentators have adopted the term “values divide” to characterize an alleged “values gap” between the two major parties. For example, many Republicans have proclaimed their
devotion to “family values,” and many Democrats have countered with their own statements of
allegiance to such principles, sometimes offering alternative definitions of what those values
may be. Last June, Republicans announced an “American Values Agenda” as part of their
campaign to hold their majority in Congress. In the closing weeks of the 2006 campaign, House
Speaker Dennis Hastert pointed to Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat most likely to succeed him if the
Democrats were to win a majority, and denounced her “San Francisco values,” which he implied
were contrary to “American values.” Pelosi struck back, insisting that her own “San Francisco
values” were every bit as rooted in the American mainstream as those of her Republican opponents.
When the rhetoric of values is a strategy to achieve political ends, it may not be an accurate reflection of values either in politics or in American life more generally. Scholars have long
disagreed about the extent to which a “values divide” or a “values gap” in fact constitutes a significant feature of American political culture. The current scholarly ferment about the role of values in politics can perhaps be traced to 1977, when Ronald Inglehart, a political scientist at the
University of Michigan, published The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles in
Advanced Industrial Society.1 Thirty years later, the debate continues about whether “culture
wars” have produced a “great divide,” whether there is a “diminishing divide” or even “one nation, after all.” Perhaps there have always been “contested truths” vying with one another
throughout American history. Perhaps the “civic ideals” of Americans have always reflected
“conflicting visions” that have included the values of white supremacy, Anglo-Saxon ethnocentrism, and sexism as well as liberalism, republicanism, equality of opportunity, innovation, and
progress.2
The program we propose seeks to bring institute members into this discussion at a high
level that reflects both current debates in the public sphere and ongoing disagreements among
scholars researching American values. To do so, we will provide institute participants with a list
of readings to be completed before they arrive, and we will organize lectures and discussions in
such a way as to provide a chronological and analytical framework that will enhance the coherence of the experience for the participants. During the two weeks in San Francisco, we are
planning for eight days of seminar and four days outside the classroom, in tours of relevant sites
in and near San Francisco.
For the eight days of seminar, we are planning that there will be a lecture of 50-75
minutes each day, following by discussion of that topic. We hope to schedule these presentations and discussions in the mornings. For the afternoons, we are planning roundtable discussions by San Francisco State faculty members on topics that will analyze the debates about
American values from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.
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On the first day of the institute, September 17, we shall begin with a tour of the campus
of SF State and a short introduction to the history of San Francisco. September 17 is Constitution Day, when all educational institutions that receive federal funds are required, as of 2005, to
offer a program dealing with the Constitution. At SF State, we have scheduled speakers or panels addressing the Constitution, its historical development, and its current meaning for the lives
of Americans. Last year, the theme of the day was “Identity”. This year we are considering "Values in Conflict" as the theme for the day. Institute participants will attend the sessions and take
part primarily by listening to the various presentations and asking questions or offering comments. We plan to have Laura Kalman, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, as a keynote speaker, most likely on current meanings for the Brown v. Board of Education decision that
started the process of dismantling school segregation. These events for Constitution Day are
open to all SF State students and faculty members, so it may be difficult for seminar participants
to focus questions or comments directly. Therefore, Professor Christopher Waldrep will follow
up with an informal discussion of the Constitution Day presentations as well as provide his own
lecture on racial violence and the law.
We have confirmed the following presentations, though we have not yet assigned them
to particular days:
 Rodger Birt, Professor of Humanities, SF State, will lecture on "With a Camera in Harlem:
James VanDerZee, Photographer of Black New York"; VanDerZee’s photographs of Harlem
during the 1920s and 1930s have been described as defining “a people in the process of
transformation and a culture in transition”;
 Albert Camarillo, Miriam and Peter Haas Centennial Professor in Public Service and
Professor of History, Stanford University, will lecture on historical and contemporary immigration from Mexico, and how immigrants and the second generation view American society
and its values;
 Philip Dreyfus, Assistant Professor of History, SF State, will lecture on “The Wilderness
and the Garden: Conflicting Views of Nature and the Emergence of Modern American Environmental Values”;
 William Issel, Professor Emeritus of History, SF State, and Visiting Professor of History,
Mills College, will lecture on “Religion and Politics: Continuity and Change,” surveying the
debates since the Bill of Rights (1791) over how to interpret the concept of “separation of
church and state”;
 Jacquelyn Kegley, Professor of Philosophy, California State University, Bakersfield, will
lecture on "Josiah Royce - A Representative American Philosopher," treating issues of race,
community, individualism, religious experience and religious community, self as moral agent
and actor, democracy, cultural pluralism, and pragmatism in classical American philosophical thought;
 Beverly Voloshin, Professor of English, SF State, will lecture on “Violence and the Sacred
in Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” analyzing the role of sacred violence in the thematic and structure of
the Uncle Tom’s Cabin and relating this violence to eschatological and millennial ideas of
the mid-19th century;
 Christopher Waldrep, Jamie and Phillip Pasker Professor of History, SF State, will lecture
on "Lynching and the Law," surveying efforts to pass legislation against racial violence in
varying political climates and evolving historical circumstances from the Civil War era to the
present.
For each of the afternoon round-table discussions, we expect to involve one to three San
Francisco State faculty members from different departments and disciplinary perspectives to
discuss such topics as the following:
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Race and ethnicity, involving faculty members from ethnic studies, history, and literature;
Gender and sexuality, involving faculty members from women studies, human sexuality
studies, and sociology;
Sports, involving faculty members from history, literature, and kinesiology;
Politics, involving faculty members from political science, history, and ethnic studies;
Business ethics, involving faculty members from business, economics, and philosophy (ethics);
Religion, involving faculty members from religious studies, Jewish studies, and history;
Disability, with a history professor who is one of the pioneers in disability studies;
History of San Francisco and/or current issues in San Francisco politics, with faculty members from history, humanities, and political science.
We are planning four tours, each taking one day, and have tentatively planned the fol-
lowing:
 Downtown San Francisco (e.g. Waterfront, Martin Luther King memorial, Mission Dolores)
 South Bay (e.g. Stanford University; "Silicon Valley"; San Juan Bautista mission)
 North Bay (e.g. Muir Woods, Sonoma historic sites)
 University of California, Berkeley, and Bay Area Tradition Architecture
Finally, we have planned two afternoons when institute participants may hold individual meetings with faculty members, visit an area institute or think-tank, or visit one of the area libraries or
museums.
The planning committee is Robert Cherny, Professor of History, chair; William Issel, Professor of History Emeritus at SF State and Visiting Professor of History at Mills College; and
Beverly Voloshin, Professor of English. Issel will attend all presentations and round-table discussions and will moderate and facilitate discussions in addition to lecturing on American religion and politics. Cherny will be primarily responsible for institute logistics and will also lead the
tour of downtown San Francisco and the tours to San Juan Bautista and Sonoma. Voloshin will
assist with logistics and will also lecture on aspects of American literature in the mid-19th century.
(Princeton, 1977). Inglehart’s more recent cross-national survey results indicate that the United States is
more “traditional” in its values than all the nations of Europe except Poland and Ireland, and more committed to self-expression than all other nations surveyed but Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland,
New Zealand, Canada, and Australia. The chart is available at
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/library/main_illustrations.asp, accessed Nov. 21, 2006.
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James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (Basic Books, 1991); Geoffrey
Layman, The Great Divide: Religious and Cultural Conflict in American Party Politics (Columbia, 2001);
Andrew Kohut, et al, The Diminishing Divide: Religion’s Changing Role in American Politics (Brookings,
2000); Alan Wolfe, One Nation, After All (Viking, 1998); Daniel T. Rogers, Contested Truths: Keywords in
American Politics since Independence (Harvard, 1998); Rogers M. Smith, Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions
of Citizenship in U.S. History (Yale, 1997). One of the drafters of this proposal, William Issel, participated
in a panel on this topic at the 2005 Second World Congress of the International American Studies Association in Ottawa, Canada.
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