Challenging Formalism: The Implications of Contemporary Cultural Theory for Historic Preservation

Abstract

Contemporary cultural theory has taken hold in a wide range of academic disciplines such as literary studies, anthropology, and history, and has succeeded in challenging conceptions of “culture” that once circumscribed these disciplines' intellectual endeavors. No longer do we hear literary critics indiscriminately expound on “culture” as “the best that has been thought and said in the world” (to recall Matthew Arnold's phrase) or insist on this notion of “culture” as the universal basis of their criticism. Instead, academia now operates with a growing awareness of multiculturalism, forcing disciplines to engage the histories and identities of groups heretofore not recognized as contributing to history. In the field of historic preservation, however, attempts to embrace multiculturalism are hindered by a continuing desire to valorize a canon: a static group of cultural products considered to be “great.” “High” cultural assumptions still predominate as the basis of discourse in historic preservation; theorists and practitioners consciously and unconsciously continue to insist on the canon as a standard.

Historic preservation therefore is left with a dilemma: it tries to expand the canon to include the once ignored places, but at the same time desires to leave unquestioned the assumptions that originally led to the exclusion of these places. This essay seeks to elucidate these assumptions, showing how high cultural ideas have persisted in the field and more generally within discourses of the built environment. Challenging formalism in these discourses, the essay sets the stage for further critical work, especially regarding the theory and practices of historic preservation.