In the first half of the twentieth century, Theodor Adorno (1984, 25) could define art as the process through which the individual gains freedom by externalizing himself, in contrast to the philistine “who craves art for what he can get out of it.” Today, it is nearly impossible to find public statements that do not recruit art and culture either to better social conditions through the creation of multicultural tolerance and civic participation or to spur economic growth through urban cultural development projects and the concomitant proliferation of museums for cultural tourism, epitomized by the increasing number of Guggenheim franchises. At the same time, this blurring of distinctions between cultural, economic, and social programs has created a conservative backlash. Political scientists such as Samuel Huntington have argued (once again) that cultural factors account for the prosperity or backwardness, transparency or corruption, entrepreneurship or bureaucratic inertia of “world cultures” such as Asia, Latin America, and Africa (Huntington 1996; Harrison and Huntington 2000), while the Rand Corporation’s policy paper Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate about the Benefits of the Arts has resurrected the understanding of culture as referring to the “intrinsic benefits” of pleasure and captivation, which are “central in . . . generating all benefits deriving from the arts” (McCarthy et al. 2005, 12). The challenge today for both cultural studies and American studies is to think through this double-bind. Beyond either the economic and social expediency of culture or its depoliticized “intrinsic” benefits lies its critical potential. This potential is not realizable on its own, but must be fought for in and across educational and cultural institutions.

This is an excerpt from George Yúdice’s entry in Keywords for American Cultural Studies (pp. 75-76).