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The Forum > Article Comments > Yanks hit homer, but Bolt strikes out > Comments

Yanks hit homer, but Bolt strikes out : Comments

By Stephen Robertson, published 15/6/2006

Australia needs the new United States Studies Centre to better understand what makes the US tick.

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Why does anybody listen to Bolt away the man is a shock jock and nothing more.
Posted by Kenny, Thursday, 15 June 2006 9:35:52 AM
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Dr Robertson seeks to discount my views re US studies by asserting that i am not an 'Americanist'(whatever that beast is). I'm pleased that US History is going so well at Sydney, but Sydney is not Australia. When i last checked a grand total of 4 people was teaching US politics in Australia--and one of those has recently retired. This is a 'disgrace' in a country where the study of US politics used to flourish.
The big issue is not whether i or Dr Robertson are correct, but can we be assured that the proposed US Studies Centre is not to be a propoganda factory and who will give that assurance George or John?
Brian Costar
Posted by ardrie, Thursday, 15 June 2006 11:08:20 AM
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We had to do US studies in high school as it was a compulsary term in civics: or what they used to call "politics" in the Victorian education system. The problem was, that I then became an exchange student to the US. I found that I knew their Government system and histroy better than they did. This made me most unpopular there, as it was embarassing for them having a foreigner know their system better than they did. It would have been easier for me to know nothing at all. They get all insecure about it and resent us being "smart asses".

Look I really believe in cultural exchange, especially between Australia and the US. It is hard to believe from my other postings on other pages, but I really do love the US just as much as I love Australia. We do have similarities. We both have fantastic people, magnificent countries and really lousy political leaders.

John Howard would have been more wise to recipricate a cultural exchange scholarship deal between Australian and US Universities, espeicially in the departments of civics, business, and culture.

Americans would really benefit knowing more about Australia, just as much as we will benefit from knowing more about them. It is a two way road. In this region, they not only learn about Australia, but Oceania, and a particular angle of South East Asia. Now this is starting to look like a credible proposal for ASEAN. But, alas, recriprical cultural exchange never crossed Johnny Howard's mind.
Posted by saintfletcher, Friday, 16 June 2006 12:51:26 AM
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Although you sneer at others for not having ‘expertise’ on the United States and claim to be an historian, you cannot even get basic facts about the United States that happened less than 10 years ago correct. You refer to “a president narrowly escaping impeachment for his sexual behaviour”. In fact, Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on grounds of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice.

Clinton was the second president to be impeached. Both were acquitted in the subsequent Senate trial. Impeachment occurs when the House of Representatives passes the articles of impeachment – a legal statement of charges, parallel to an indictment in criminal law.
Posted by Mark Harrison, Monday, 19 June 2006 1:45:27 PM
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Responding to Brian Costar:

We agree on one thing: the inattention to the US in politics departments in Australia is a disgrace. And if that had been what Prof. Costar told Andrew Bolt I wouldn't have taken issue with his comments. Unfortunately, instead he said that American Studies in Australia is a disgrace.

Politics is not American Studies; it has been one of the core disciplines in the field, but it has always shared that position with History and English. The situation with regard to scholarship and teaching on the US in those disciplines is far from the disgrace that it is in politics. While Sydney may not be Australia, the strength of American history at the University of Sydney is representative of its strength in Australia's major universities, as any member of the American studies community -- any Americanist -- could tell you.

But Prof. Costar says the real issue is whether the proposed US Studies Centre will be a propoganda factory. Surely offering a misleading characterization of American Studies in Australia, by providing a rationale for denying academics in the field a role in shaping the Centre, actually contributes to the very outcome he fears?
Posted by Stephen Robertson, Monday, 19 June 2006 4:20:11 PM
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Let's also agree to abandon ad hominem arguments.
Tell me this: which Universities in Australia offer undergraduate majors in 'American Studies'?
Brian Costar
Posted by ardrie, Monday, 19 June 2006 4:43:29 PM
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Paragraph 7, line one of my piece: "Majors in American Studies already exist at Melbourne, ANU and Flinders"
Posted by Stephen Robertson, Monday, 19 June 2006 4:53:45 PM
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Three majors in only 3 states out of 38 universities. Gee I wouldn't want to see an area study that was struggling.
Brian Costar
Posted by ardrie, Tuesday, 20 June 2006 9:33:24 AM
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To restate the obvious - American Studies is a multidisciplinary field. A major in American Studies is just one facet of teaching on the United States. My own university is only one of many with significant offerings of courses devoted to the United States that does not currently offer a major in American Studies. To use only the number of institutions offering majors in American Studies to measure the strength of teaching on the United States is to offer (yet another) misleading characterization of what is happening in Australian universities.

So Brian, why are you so determined to misrepresent American studies in Australia? I'm still waiting to hear how undermining the academic field can be reconciled with your avowed concern that the US Studies Centre could become a propoganda vehicle.
Posted by Stephen Robertson, Wednesday, 21 June 2006 11:18:53 AM
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Stephen,
Don't you know the meaning of 'ad hominen'?
Brian
Posted by ardrie, Thursday, 22 June 2006 10:01:44 AM
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Where is the ad hominem attack Brian? I'm asking you to justify your position, to explain your argument, such as it is. Why not just answer my question?
Posted by Stephen Robertson, Thursday, 22 June 2006 5:23:32 PM
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All right I give up. American Studies flourishes in Australia like the proverbial bay tree-- along with Pacific studies South and East Asian Studies, Middle East Studies and all the other area studies we used to be good at.

I have it on good authority that the American Studies Centre will be awarded to the University of Vulcania. Some faculty have all ready been approached.
Patron--Prof Leo Strauss (dec)
President--Prof Dick Cheney ( he gets the top job at last)
Dean Of Rhetoric--Prof George W Bush
Dean of Business Ethics--Prof Jack Abramoff
Dean of Political Science-- Prof Tom de Lay
Dean of Science-- Emeritus Prof Billy Graham

God! It will be magnificent
Brian Costar
Posted by ardrie, Friday, 23 June 2006 9:47:11 AM
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Thanks Brian - another comment as productive and as engaged with my arguments as your previous posts.

I was hoping you might make a contribution that drew on the expertise that you do have. For example, why, alone among the core disciplines that make up American Studies, has politics turned away from the study of the United States?
Posted by Stephen Robertson, Friday, 23 June 2006 11:06:57 AM
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Stephen,
I see that irony is not big in American studies.
On a serious note I do not know why Pol Sc has dumped US politics. Once upon a time it was big in Oz.My point is that how can US studies be strong when such an important component (Politics) is so weak? After all US politics is the biggest game in town and it is impossible to make it boring. What is to be done? Support the proposed US Studies Centre? I'm wary of doing that because I am suspicious of the motives of the proponents--hence my smart alec remark re the University of Vulcania.
We have now had enough fun at each others' expense and tested the patience of Online Opinion. Why doesn't someone write a piece on why US politics has died in Aust. and see what it flushes out?
Brian
Posted by ardrie, Friday, 23 June 2006 11:32:06 AM
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It is interesting that this online session deals with the problem of our failing Australian interest in America when John Howard has just about copied American Republican politics to a T with his cracking down on unionism as well as in our foreign policies, especially regarding today's Middle East schemozzle.

Maybe it is because our social scientists have had the nounce to have had a gutfull of it all. Moreover, Costello's talk last year of looking into some of the university courses because they are wide away from Aust' US government policies, could be further proof.

And after all, the mess that is now Iraq, and with the US having allowed little Israel to install 200 hundred atomic rockets at the ready way back 15 years ago, is still given reminder to students about US ramblings about how to keep peace.

It is the sort of American decisionmaking that makes one shudder to think about, and glad that our univerity humanities courses bring out the truth of the matter, an ungodly American socio-political schizophrenia trying to play cards of wisdom and understanding with one hand and missile dplomacy and oil strategem with the other.

Hasn't changed much from the WildWest with Bible in one hand and six-gun behind the back.
Posted by bushbred, Tuesday, 27 June 2006 7:09:11 PM
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Just finished reading an excellent book entitled "Why Do People Hate America" by Ziauddin Sardar, Merryl Wyn Davies, The book is very well written and makes its points succinctly.
Posted by billie, Tuesday, 27 June 2006 7:29:40 PM
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