# 162: SPECIAL — Dear GAAS, … 3 Pragmatic Suggestions
Story behind the Passage
This Special should not have been written. But I could not resist. I received a New Year’s Letter from the German Association for American Studies (GAAS) this past week that brought the entire issue to my attention again. I am not going to write about the details of this internal letter. Neither am I going to write about (personal) details going on in the organization. I simply want to use my blog again as a platform that allows me to raise my voice on a matter that is not of importance to a wide audience but to a particular one; namely the members of the GAAS and people interested in American Studies. I have been a member of the GAAS for more than a decade by now. About four years ago, I stopped being involved. I could not bear it anymore, I could not witness what was happening, and I could not help despite the efforts I had made. So, withdrawing was a means of self-protection. Nevertheless, as my entry shows today, I have been watching things from the distance and what I have been seeing keeps moving me, no matter how much I try to ignore it.
When it comes to my commitment to supporting American Studies in Germany, as with so many other things in life, I chose to walk my own path. That is the only path that I can walk, actually. Somehow, by birth and experience, I have ended up as a person who always sees alternative routes to reaching goals — to creating impact. This does not mean that all conventional paths make no sense. There is no judgement involved. But life has taught me that these are not the routes that I can contribute anything to. My strength is seeing and opening up new paths and possibilities in all kinds of fields. I am not saying that all these paths and possibilities are equally successful or meaningful. This is just my way of making a difference, of contributing something, of enacting the entrepreneurial spirit that the U.S. is famous for. If I do not do things this way, I do not do anything. So, quite early in life, I decided to focus on my strengths instead of wasting my time, energy, and passion for things that I do not enjoy or see any value in.
When it comes to the mission of the GAAS and American Studies in Germany, this means that my passion is bringing literature and intercultural knowledge and learning to people who do not know about it; to teach students and practitioners close reading who have never heard about it; to bring humanistic thinking and doing to fields where it is desperately missing. The stress in all these contexts is on the doing, not on the talking. The conventional way of advancing in scholarship is that you talk to your inner disciplinary circle. I do that sometimes when I think it makes sense, like today, or in my scholarly books. In all other cases, I prefer to write and talk to the audience that can benefit from what I have to share.
The term “benefit” already reveals my position. I am a pragmatist in the classical sense of the term. As Americanists should know but are hardly ever taught, Pragmatism is a uniquely American philosophy. Pragmatism to me means solution-oriented thinking and acting; in the spirit of William James who defined it as a “Method, Theory of Truth, and Temperament” (“What Pragmatism Means”). In my recent book which I wrote many years ago, I projected that we would be seeing a resurgence of Pragmatism. This was many years before Covid. But now that even our German President used the term in a speech yesterday, I guess, people are seeing what I meant back then. This is not a consequence of the pandemic only. Outside in the business world with the quick pace of the digital transformation and also in scholarly discourse, there have been many signs in the past few years that allowed one to see that Pragmatism will most likely rise again.
I am starting out with this more or less philosophical background in order to underline that I have no prophetic vision or any other arrogant claims of being able to predict what the future might bring. I am just highlighting this aspect to make clear from which perspective I am writing. As always when positionising yourself, you want to make sure to not be misunderstood. And, psychologically, even though I would love it to be otherwise, there is always an aspect of self-defense and/or justification involved. In the case of Pragmatism, this self-defense is rooted in a process of intellectual emancipation and rising self-confidence. Still today, in common parlance and in certain intellectual circles, “pragmatic” connotes “stupid.” When people do not trust your theoretical intelligence, they tend to use “pragmatic” as a nice of way of telling you that you are not very bright, i.e., highly capable of doing but unable of the kind of thinking they value.
Finally, this seems to be changing.
All the developments we are seeing in the world nowadays tell us that Pragmatism is a strength that is very much needed, even desperately demanded — but, unfortunately, still lacking in many areas of life and in many institutions. This concerns the current vaccination campaign debate, the bureaucratic overload in Germany and the entire EU, and, above all, the shame that our education system is currently loading on itself because children in one of the most industrialized and richest countries in the world are being taught with paper worksheets and lacking electronic equipment. All these and many more examples — not even mentioning the recent “German mask scandal”— are now making people like the President call for “more “pragmatism” (Steinmeier).
With respect to our academic organizations, I see the same need but I am afraid that many people in the university environment are still shying away from using the word (not once did the word appear in the New Year’s Letter of the GAAS). Pragmatism involves practice and practice is something that thinkers — university professors often pride themselves on theoretical competence — tend to distance themselves from. Do not get me wrong, I love theory. It has changed the way I see the world and it is the bond that will forever tie me to the university. What those ignoring or neglecting the value of practice forget, however, is that ‘our’ most influential philosophical thinkers, including William James, John Dewey, but also women like Jane Addams and Mary Parker Follett, were rooted in Pragmatist philosophy. They always combined theory and practice and they linked the (political) sciences and the humanities in their work. And “work,” above and beyond all research activities, meant: educating the future generation and teaching them how to take action.
I know that teaching is among the last things that people care about when they pursue academic careers. In this respect, the humanities are still doing a bit better than other fields in which teaching counts as this thing that “you have to do” but nobody cares about when you apply for a professorship. The reason why I am mentioning this is because I also think that we will be seeing a return to pedagogy as one, if not the, only way of implementing “science transfer” and “application-oriented humanities.” Teaching is the most direct means of creating impact in the real world by equipping individuals with the power of knowledge and the skills to acquire this knowledge themselves. Usually, we focus on students in this context but from my perspective, we should think of anybody outside the university classroom as our potential target group. “Lifelong learning” is the keyword here and if professors and university teachers do not embody this credo, the students will naturally turn towards other role models which are just one click away in the age of digital education.
This explains why Pragmatism as the philosophy that combines theory and practice to solve real-world problems is related to education. And education always involves communication. One of my choices is to use the power of writing to communicate ideas for creating impact in the world. But this is only one way of doing it. An academic organization such as the GAAS was founded to create impact in many different ways. By the way, this is what insitutitons are there for in the first place. By institutionalizing interests you want to create more impact than one single person is capable of creating. This is also the reason why I am raising my voice today. I do not care that much what exactly who exactly does in this organization as long as the overarching goals of the organization are met or at least not neglected.
And this is what I am worried about.
When I say “worried,” I tend to go back to my very holistic approach of looking at academic fields. To me, it is not even a matter of American Studies only. American Studies is one field among many in the humanities that share common aspirations and are struggling with similar problems; including the lack of funding, the supposed lack of social recognition (which actually looks very different if you look at it from the perspective of practice), and various concerns regarding the future of junior scholars. These issues are not only things that the humanities are struggling with, these are concerns that relate to the overall higher education system in Germany, Europe (post Bologna), and the world. But the reason why I am pointing out these things is to explain my way of looking at the GAAS. And for me, the GAAS is one institution among many others that can actively bring change to the higher education system by using the power that institutions are endowed with.
If they know how to do that.
This is the actual pain that drives me when looking at how academic organizations are wasting resources that are desperately needed in order to bring about change; to fulfil the purpose they were created for in the first place. Instead of doing things, they talk about what should and potentially could be done. As a humanist, I understand that this discourse is important. It is the same on the level of the democratic state as it is on the level of individual organizations. But we need to remind ourselves of what the priority is in a given moment. Dialogue, which I define by means of the classical Socratic principle, is a process that fosters learning in individuals. When applied to groups, it triggers a very important process of deliberation that is the basis of democratic decision-making. No doubt, all this creates value.
But it takes a long time.
As we are very well seeing in the current international discourse on the speed of vaccination campaigns, in some moments, time is desperately lacking. We cannot wait because we are losing lives. And if you transfer that to the realm of an academic association such as the GAAS, you can very well say: We cannot wait because we are losing members, we are losing potential, and we are (mis)using many young talents who are getting frustrated and/or wasting their important personal resources for fighting against windmills. In addition, we should not only think of the members we already have in our field and our association. In my field of vision are also the potential members we could already have won or which we could easily attract if we were able to implement solutions faster instead of just talking about them.
When I talk about implementing solutions this sounds pretty arrogant. So, let me clarify this as well. Usually, there is not the one and only way of doing things. This erroneous belief in 100% solutions (perfectionism) is actually what is holding innovation back because a culture of “trial and error” cannot unfold— especially in Germany. Still, there is one way of preventing unnecessary mistakes. And the way you do this is very simple: You look to the left and to the right. It does not even take much brain or creativity, it only takes the openness to look at the best practices of others in other fields, in other organizations, and possibly in other countries. It takes the willingness to listen, learn from, and appreciate what others outside your own bubble have to share. This will not necessarily give you the ultimate solution but it saves you much time before reinventing the wheel. You will have to modify that wheel according to your own needs, no doubt. Still, you pick up so much speed if you are simply willing to walk the pragmatic path instead of insisting on the dogmas: “talking is the ultimate sophistication“ and “we have to be a 100% sure before moving one finger.” I am sorry, this is not the path to solving problems soon and people are increasingly realizing this. They are in need, they are suffering, they are reaching their limits — in society and in academic associations.
When I say all these things about where people are standing right now, again, I am doing so from the distance of an observer. This is the double-bind that writers, some call them public intellectuals, always find themselves in. They talk about actions based on personal observations which are not more than speculations due to the limits of their subjective perspective. And all they do is write about their views, so, in the end, they are just as good or bad as the non-pragmatists they are writing about. I still use this instrument because it is one way of reaching the hearts and minds of people directly and individually. If people prefer to go to townhall meetings, write e-mails or newsletters, organize events and conferences, and whatever else can be done in public forums, this is their choice and all of these things are just as legimate and potentially effective. The only difference I want to make with my writing is to ensure that problem discussions are followed or at least complemented by hands-on pragmatic solutions that are based on my theoretical and practical experience.
As I pointed out above but have to underline again, I have not been participating in any of the recent events and meetings. Thus, all of my suggestions might already be outdated or completely missing the point. From what I am seeing in the written exchanges within the association, I do not assume this is the case. If it is, however, this would actually be great. I would be wasting my time now but that is my risk. If the simple pragmatic suggestions I am making below are already a thing of the past because they have already been or are on the way of being implemented, I am totally happy. If not, I just want to make sure that people have the chance to read about them. This is one of the major reasons why pragmatists like me write: writing is a means of multiplying knowledge. This sounds very simple but it is fundamental when it comes to the issue of implementation. So, instead of me solving something for one person, I can share my knowledge to empower more people to solve more problems. This is also very important when it comes to writing as a means of documentation. I am thereby avoiding the trap that many politicians are particularly famous for, unfortunately also in the current crisis management mode: “X months ago, we should have done Y.”
You know what I mean?
By sharing my observations right now in the public space of my blog, I make sure that people can do something with my suggestions TODAY without wasting more time and personal resources. This is a matter of a decision, of course, and this decision is not my business. Neither is it my business to convince anyone of these solutions. I am simply offering them so people can use them to create value. Solutions are tools and tools only unfold their power if you apply them to solving a given problem. This is the same — for the plumber and for the American Studies scholar. The difference between the two, unfortunately, still is that the plumber often looks up to the scholar and admires his/her intellect and social status while the scholar looks down at the plumber due to his practical mind-set, thereby not noticing that he/she is slowly drowning in the water running from a pipe that only the plumber can fix.
Compared to my long introduction, my three suggestions for pragmatic action will be quite short. They are meant as screwdrivers and pipe wrenches for stopping more water from running down the drain. To each and every tool, a long list of devices and examples could be added, but I do not want to go there. It is the task of the people using the tools to research and learn more about them to gain more knowledge and inspiration. In the internet age, you can find all the relevant information and cases studies online. The only thing I can do with my writing is to make sure that members of the association are aware of the solutions that already exist and of the observations that triggered them. There will be pros and cons to each and everyone but my contribution is not to provide ultimate answers. My suggestions serve as entry points for looking at problems from a solution-oriented perspective; one that opens up new horizons; one that breaks the circle of self-referential crisis discourse which often tends to be driven by the longing to be heard and seen but not by the actual focus on helping others.
Instead of providing a comprehensive problem analysis for each tool, I will therefore jump right to a brief explanation of the solution. This move is tricky because I am running the risk of causing misunderstanding. You, my readers, might not see how a solution I am giving refers to a particular problem you are struggling with. There is a possible benefit of this, however. You are free to look at this “solution” with a free mind. I am allowing you the possibility to decide where and how this solution might fit in best. In all cases, let me make sure that these solutions aim at achieving one thing which, according to my perspective, has gotten out of focus: strategic organizational change is not a goal in and of itself. It is there to ensure that the core goals and activities, as depicted in the passage above and in the remaining articles of the association’s Statutes, can be reached more effectively.
3 Pragmatic Suggestions
- Communication Technology
Tools: e.g., Mattermost (Open Source), Slack, intranet
Benefits: More direct exchange among members, easy networking with colleagues, knowledge and document sharing for collaborative research projects, funding proposals, simple onboarding for new members, matching for career mentoring
Instant internal communication networks ensure that members of organizations can communicate frequently and in a protected space. There are numerous studies on how this improves the effectiveness of organizations and improves interaction. The software is super easy to roll out and integrate into existing or new intranet solutions. It can be tailored according to the needs of the association and members can continuously develop it. The biggest benefit is not only that the management of the organization, including the decision-making processes, gets improved. The platform itself becomes an asset for all the members because it fosters participation and the initiation of joint (research) projects.
More: Mattermost Customer Case Studies and User Stories
2. Agile Project Management
Tools: Learning by Doing, agile project management trainings
Benefits: Less work overload for single individuals, faster decision-making, transparent communication, high membership involvement, merit-based and non-hierarchical responsibility sharing
Agile management thinking has been on the rise for several years now. It is a philosophy, not just a single tool. It allows organizations to break up silo thinking and work project-based and outcome-oriented. As could be seen in the past months, there seems to be a rising workload for general management tasks in the GAAS, particularly in the field of communication. An agile mind-set speeds up processes and can trigger a rethinking of traditional role descriptions to respond to changing demands more flexibly and with fairer workloads for all members of the leadership team. By the way, since diversity is a big issue: this might also lead to a critical assessment of the current role distribution between male and female members on the leadership team.
More: 7-Pavle.pdf (epmj.org)
3. Diversity Leadership (Teams of Two)
Tools: Introduce shared 50/50 positions across all “status groups” and diversity dimensions
Benefits: Shared workload, early leadership training for young scholars, more innovation, overcoming of many problems that hold back “traditional” power structures in the academy, become a beacon for change in academia
Shared leadership is known from some progressive political parties and companies. In academia, I find it nowhere yet. Where are the professorships which are held partly by a senior researcher and partly by a postdoc? This is what I envision and the association can create a blueprint for the university organization of the future. The solution is very simple: Instead of having one general manager and two presidents (all senior) with the younger people (especially PGF) present in non-executive committees and advising positions, here is my very pragmatic point: General Manager (1 senior / 1 junior), President (senior or junior), Vice President (senior or junior). So, what do I mean by “senior and junior”? Very easy: Seniority in this case indeed means age (i.e., experience) and academic status group (diversity dimensions). It does not merely mean “Professor.” I am aware that the Statutes (for different legal reasons) call for tenured professors in these positions. While this is outdated and not in line with merit-based requirements, we could still keep it but split the positions. There is always a “team of two” filling one position and they can subdivide tasks according to their strengths. Hence, they contribute to the organization, they learn from each other and others can learn from them — this is what diversity is all about.
More: Unleashing the Power of Diversity Through Inclusive Leadership (harvard.edu)
The order of these three measures runs from “very easy and fast” to implement to “a little more difficult.” However, as with any changes, it takes a clear decision in the first place. As soon as that decision has been made, action follows easily. And it is no accident that all of these measures actually target the way how decisions are being reached and communicated in the organization. This is because these aspects have been on the table for a long time but have increasingly been covered underneath debates on other topics which have taken the shape of proxy wars for the actual problems. The reason why I am putting them first is because they create the infrastructure for a much more important, serious, and longer strategic process of organizational transformation which each and every organization in the world is nowadays undergoing. This process will start with one simple but foundational question that needs to be answered from today’s perspective, not from the perspective of 1953 when the GAAS was founded:
What is our purpose?
This strategic change process can only be guided with a strong leadership that is able to initiate and leverage the participatory approach it takes to answering the big questions. This will take time and you might argue that the GAAS is already in the middle of it. I do agree but by bringing up these very pragmatic steps above I am arguing that it takes more of a pragmatic setup to speed up this process. In order to do this and more things that are needed now, it takes the willingness to let go of old principles and processes. The credo “we have always done it this way” is what is killing many organizations nowadays and by getting rid of this toxic and innovation-blocking mindset we can prevent this from happening to the GAAS.
The benefit is not only limited to individual members. The benefit is much larger. By taking these and many more steps, we can really strengthen American Studies again, we can make it attractive because we are not only talking about what the American spirit is and was, no, we are actually showing what American Pragmatism can do at its best. And by doing this and by communicating it properly, we can move ahead and we can show that our core strength, our interdisciplinary and intercultural openness and expertise, is what really sets us apart from other academic fields and which allows us to move ahead — so others can learn from us, others can look at our example of which value academic associations can create, even in times of severe change and uncertainty.
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Finally, there is one message that I personally hope this organization will be able to live up to and communicate again: Our biggest strength are our people. It is that simple. And every hour, e-mail or meeting that does not take us ahead, is an hour that we are stealing from our people, especially from the younger ones. PhDs, postdocs as well as all others involved in the current debates who are spending time on things that either technology (Mattermost et al.) or differnet management processes (agile mind-set) can make more efficient, are hours lost — irreversibly. I wish that our young scholars spend time on working on their projects, not wasting emotional and operational resources on things that they are not responsible for. The same applies to the “senior” scholars. Your job is not writing newsletters or taking care of online meeting tools. Your job is to advance our research contribution to society and your job is to be role models for the younger ones — students, young scholars, and members of the GAAS. So, embrace the tools above and many more out there, so you can focus again on what matters most: the people — here and across the Atlantic.
Reflection Questions
1) How do you feel right now after reading this?
2) Which of the three measures spontanesouly triggers your interest? Why?
3) If you were to rewrite the mission statement of the GAAS. What would the first sentence state?