Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 208

February 11, 2019: Movies I Love: Thunderheart

[For this year’s Valentine’s series, I wanted to highlight and contextualize some of the movies I most love. Leading up to a weekend Guest Post from one of our most impressive scholarly FilmStudiers!]On three of the many reasons I love Thunderheart (1992).I’ve written about Michael Apted’s mystery thriller Thunderheart as part of two prior posts: one of my very first posts, on collective memories of the American Indian Movement (AIM); and a more recent one on cultural representations of Wounded Knee. More than 26 years after Apted’s film was released, I’d say that it still holds up (alongside Longmire and Tony Hillerman’s novels, both also mysteries interestingly enough) as one of the best mainstream pop culture representations of such Native American histories I’ve ever encountered. Partly that’s an indictment of mainstream pop culture, which certainly still needs more and more varied representations of Native American histories and communities (while of course we also need to engage more with works created by Native American artists). But partly it’s a reflection of just how well Apted and his collaborators weave those histories and themes throughout their film while maintaining its genre pleasures and appeal, aided by some incredibly talented Native American actors and one exceptionally talented non-actor (Chief Ted Thin Elk, in one of my favorite film performances of all time; slight SPOILERS in that clip).Those historical and cultural threads would likely be enough all by themselves to make Thunderheart a film I love. But it’s got a lot else going on as well, and one central thread is pretty much perfectly constructed to hit this AmericanStudier’s sweet spot. I wrote my college senior thesis on historical fictions in which sons research the past and their fathers, learning more about their own identities in the process. Thunderheart’s central mysteries don’t involve Ray Levoi (Val Kilmer)’s father or family in any direct way, exactly; but at the same time, his Sioux ancestry and heritage on his paternal side, and more specifically his evolving perspective on and recovery of those elements of his identity, become inextricably interwoven with the plot developments, climax, and overall arc of the film. Without spoiling any of its particulars, I’ll just say that the seemingly simple line, “I knew my father, Maggie” becomes one of the most important and moving in the film, and to my mind prompts one of pop culture’s most striking moments of self-awareness, -reflection, and –analysis. And it does so by forcing its protagonist and its audience to consider the complexities, meanings, and legacies of a mixed-race, cross-cultural identity, which, again, kind of constructed in a lab for this AmericanStudier.Finally (for this post—I could go on, I assure you!), there’s the compelling ways Thunderheart both uses yet complicates notions of genre. [More overt SPOILERS in this paragraph.] As I’ve said already, it’s a very successful mystery thriller, yet at the same one in which the respective roles of detective and criminal/villain are, to put it mildly, not at all what they seem to be. It’s also heavily indebted to the genre of the Western, but likewise complicates that genre’s traditions through a number of fascinating choices. To name two of the best: Apted casts , one of American cinema and culture’s most iconic Western/cowboy types, in a role that seems to be a white hat but ends up being a very, very black one; and he ends his film’s climax (one more time, major SPOILERS follow, especially in the hyperlinked scene) with a moment that entirely upends one of the most prominent visual clichés of the Western genre, that of menacing Native Americans emerging over a hill to threaten our heroes. These choices and moments become all the more meaningful if we’re aware of genre traditions, yet at the same time push us to confront the prejudices inherent in those traditions and to imagine alternative images and stories. One more reason why I love love love Thunderheart.Next movie tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Beloved movies you’d highlight?

February 9-10, 2019: The Philippine American War: Legacies

[On February 4th, 1899 Filipino rebels launched an attack on American troops in Manila, the opening salvo in what would become the Philippine American War (or Philippine Insurrection—see Thursday’s post for more on that distinction). So this week I’ve AmericanStudied a handful of contexts for that largely forgotten, brutal turn of the 20th century conflict, leading up to this weekend post on the war’s legacies for 20th and 21st century histories!]On some significant ways the Philippine American War has echoed down through subsequent histories.I feel like I’ve written variations of this sentence about as often as any in this space, but I like repetition, and I also like saying the same thing more than once, so: first and foremost, the Philippine American War stories and histories deserve better remembering because they happened, because they affected so many people (in both nations), and because they have been far too under-remembered in our collective memories to date. I know it’s a typical historian’s move to argue for how one historical event or moment affects and informs others (and I’m about to do so, to be clear), but at the same time each such event and moment is plenty complex and multi-layered enough to need engagement and analysis on its own terms. I hope I’ve offered starting points for such engagements and analyses in the course of this week’s posts, and of course each of them—and many other details and contexts besides—has plenty of room for further investigation and thought. Sounds like a future Guest Post for any interested PhilippineAmericanStudiers…But another reason to better remember specific histories is that, yes, they do in fact affect and inform others, both past and ongoing. For one thing, recognizing that the war was in many ways (as I’ve argued throughout the week) one of both invasion and occupation of a foreign nation by U.S. forces has a great deal to tell us about foreign policy in the 20th and 21stcenturies. That’s true of the many other, largely forgotten such invasions and occupations, including those in Nicaragua in the same years as the Philippine war and the Dominican Republic in the early 1960s. But it’s also true of other declared wars (or in some cases “police actions”), from Korea and Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq. Each of those conflicts had its own complex origins and contexts, but in each case the U.S. forces became (whether immediately or over many subsequent years) occupying armies, fighting against “insurgencies” that could just as easily be defined as opposing forces contesting authority in those nations. Linking all these conflicts into an overarching pattern shouldn’t flatten their specifics and distinctions—but it should make us recognize and question the pattern nonetheless, a troubling history of occupation that the Philippines presaged to be sure.Better remembering the Philippine American War also helps highlight more positive and inspiring legacies, however. For one thing, it reminds us that American identity has always been constructed in direct conversation with international relationships—of course the relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines was a dark and fraught one for much of this period; but nonetheless the islands became a political and legal part of the U.S. in the era and would remain so until after World War II, and that relationship shaped the U.S. just as much (if in less overtly destructive ways, again) as it did the Philippines. And for another thing, those interconnected histories and identities led to the early 20th century’s significant increase in arriving Filipino Americans, a burgeoning American community that featured striking stories like the military and social ones I highlighted yesterday, the political and activist ones of figures like Pablo Manlapit and Antonio Fagel, and the literary voice and career of Carlos Bulosan, among many others. While each of those figures has his own individual identity and story, each also represents one part of the ongoing legacy of the relationship (including but not limited to the war) between the U.S. and the Philippines.Valentine’s series starts Monday,BenPS. What do you think?

February 8, 2019: The Philippine American War: Filipino Americans

[On February 4th, 1899 Filipino rebels launched an attack on American troops in Manila, the opening salvo in what would become the Philippine American War (or Philippine Insurrection—see Thursday’s post for more on that distinction). So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of contexts for that largely forgotten, brutal turn of the 20th century conflict, leading up to a weekend post on the war’s legacies for 20th and 21st century histories!]On a few complex yet inspiring examples of wartime and post-war Filipino American stories (along with the great Carlos Bulosan).1)      Vicente Lim: In 1910, a 22-year old immigrant named Vicente Lim entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; although he faced significant prejudice, illustrated most succinctly by the nickname “Cannibal” bestowed upon him by his classmates, Lim would in 1914 become the first Filipino American West Point graduate. Upon graduation he was commissioned as the first Filipino officer for the Philippine Scouts, a U.S. military branch organized in the islands; through the Scouts Lim would be assigned to one of the three Filipino brigades mobilized during World War I, would pursue further military education over the next two decades, and during World War II would serve heroically as a Brigadier General in the Philippine Army during multiple conflicts with the Japanese. After the islands fell to the Japanese Lim helped lead the Filipino resistance until his capture in 1944; he died while imprisoned by the Japanese. Lim was posthumously awarded both the Legion of Merit and a Purple Heart by the U.S. Army, in recognition of the crucial wartime contributions of this pioneering Filipino American officer.2)      Medal Winners: During the same years that Lim was attending West Point, two other Philippine Scouts received their own groundbreaking, distinguished service medals from the U.S. Army. In February 1913 José Balitón Nísperos became the first Asian American to receive the Medal of Honor; the honor was awarded for his courageous service during the Moro Rebellion (on which see yesterday’s post). And in April 1915 Telesforo de la Crux Trinidadbecame the first Asian American sailor to receive the Medal of Honor; his was awarded for heroic actions during a January 1915 boiler explosion and fire onboard the U.S.S. San Diego in Mexican waters. Nísperos received his medal in the Philippines and lived there for the remainder of his life; Trinidad received his in the U.S., the nation for which he subsequently fought in both World War I and World War II. Those divergent stories, as well as the fact that Nísperos was fighting against fellow Filipinos, illustrate the different sides to Filipino and Filipino American communities in this complex early 20th century period.3)      The Filipino Association of Philadelphia: In 1912, Agripino M. Jaucian, a Filipino immigrant and former naval sailor living in Philadelphia, organized 200 fellow discharged U.S. Navy men into the Filipino Association of Philadelphia, Inc. (FAAPI). Jaucian had experienced exclusionary racism, and believed that such a communal association could both offer solidarity for members of the community and help them become a more thriving part of American society. After a few years of meeting informally in Jaucian’s home, in 1917 FAAPI drafted a constitution and applied successfully for formal incorporation; the following year, it performed some of its most significant and heroic work, as Jaucian and his wife Florence (a registered nurse) provided free medical supplies to Philadelphia residents fighting the devastating Influenza Epidemic of 1918. One hundred years after that moment, FAAPI remains in operation, the longest continually operating Filipino American organization; its work on the 2010 Smithsonian Exhibition Singgalot, the Ties that Bind—Filipinos in America, From Colonial Subjects to Citizens illustrates the group’s commitment to preserving and strengthening collective memories of Filipino and Filipino American history across the centuries.Next war context tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?

February 7, 2019: The Philippine American War: War or Insurrection?

[On February 4th, 1899 Filipino rebels launched an attack on American troops in Manila, the opening salvo in what would become the Philippine American War (or Philippine Insurrection—see Thursday’s post for more on that distinction). So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of contexts for that largely forgotten, brutal turn of the 20th century conflict, leading up to a weekend post on the war’s legacies for 20th and 21st century histories!]On why what might seem to be a semantic distinction is anything but.Between its February 1899 starting point and its July 1902 close, the military conflict between Filipino and U.S. forces would take more than 4000 American and more than 20,000 Filipino soldiers’ lives, and contributes to the deaths of another 200,000 Filipino civilians. To use the words of A Few Good Men’s Captain Jack Ross (Kevin Bacon), “Those are the facts, and they are undisputed.” In the light of such clear and horrific historical details, it can seem mighty silly to quibble over whether to call that conflict the Philippine American War or the Philippine Insurrection (or Rebellion, or whatever similar term one might employ). There’s no doubt that debates over historical frames or lenses can and too often do obscure the human experiences (and, too often, horrors) at the heart of those histories; whether we call the forced transport of African slaves to the Americas the Middle Passage or the Triangle Trade or the Transatlantic slave trade, for example, the tens of millions of Africans affected by it—and the millions of them who died aboard those ships—comprise the stories and histories on which we should most fully focus. That lesson holds true for many if not all histories, and is certainly the case when it comes to the turn of the 20thcentury military conflict in the Philippines.Yet as an English Professor (I know I’m also and in this space chiefly an AmericanStudier, but Professor of English Studies is my official job title and a central part of my identity), I know that language matters a great deal, and indeed is not just a frame for reality but a principal method through which reality (or at least the human experience of it) can be constructed. Among the many such effects of calling the Philippine American War an “insurrection” instead would be a clear vision of the Philippines themselves as under United States control in the era. That is, an insurrection or rebellion is always an attempt to battle and overthrow an existing regime, the power structure in that particular place and time. Yet as I’ve noted throughout this series, the U.S. Senate didn’t approve the Treaty of Paristhat ended the Spanish American War until four days after the opening shots of the Philippine American War—so even if we don’t see the two conflicts as inextricably intertwined (as I argued on Monday we should), or don’t recognize the validity of Emilio Aguinaldo’s June 1898 Philippine Declaration of Independence, it makes very little sense to consider the United States as the clear authority in the islands as of February 1899. And if the U.S. wasn’t that authority at that time, then there’s no reason not to see the conflict that began in that month as a war between two equal forces for control over the islands (or even, if you want to go further, as a continued U.S. invasion of the islands and attempt to overthrow the established First Philippine Republic).Moreover, thinking of the conflict as a war in those ways also significantly challenges our sense of when it ended. It’s true that Aguinaldo was captured and surrendered in March 1901, and his fellow general Miguel Malvar did so in April 1902, leading to President Theodore Roosevelt’s July 4, 1902 peace amnesty. But many Filipino forces (especially Muslim Filipinos in the islands’ southern, Moro region) continued fighting for more than a decade after that; this conflict has come to be known as the Moro Rebellion, and is said to have ended with the June 1913 Battle of Bud Bagsak. But here again, calling this conflict a “rebellion” gives credence to the U.S. as an established authority in the Philippines; and if we’re able to question that authority when it comes to the first years of this war, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to do so throughout the conflict. At the very least, there’s significant value in thinking about all 14 years of the conflict as a series of battles between opposing forces seeking control of the islands, and reframing the war in that way starts with a semantic shift.Last war context tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?

February 6, 2019: The Philippine American War: Mark Twain and Imperialism

[On February 4th, 1899 Filipino rebels launched an attack on American troops in Manila, the opening salvo in what would become the Philippine American War (or Philippine Insurrection—see Thursday’s post for more on that distinction). So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of contexts for that largely forgotten, brutal turn of the 20th century conflict, leading up to a weekend post on the war’s legacies for 20th and 21st century histories!]On a couple ways to contextualize a complex, important essay.I wrote one of my earliest blog posts, just a week into this blog’s existence back in November 2010 (ah, how young we all were!), on Mark Twain’s turn to anti-imperialism (and specifically to the Philippine question) in his 1901 essay “To the Person Sitting in Darkness.” I had the chance to re-read the essay when I taught my Mark Twain Special Author course in Fall 2017 (more on that course in a moment), and felt then even more strongly what I had already thought was the case about “Person”: that it walks a very fine line between critiquing the kinds of paternalistic and patronizing attitudes that underlie imperialistic enterprises and ironically furthering those attitudes. That is, when Twain opens his essay with the sentence “Extending the Blessings of Civilization to our Brother who Sits in Darkness has been a good trade and has paid well, on the whole,” he is clearly satirizing the motivations behind those who extend such “blessings,” and thus implicitly criticizing the notion of the “blessings” themselves; but I’m not as sure that he is using “darkness” entirely satirically, here or at any point in the essay. In any case, it’s a complex essay, and one that deserves extended reading beyond my brief engagement here!Like all literary texts Twain’s essay also benefits from contextualization, however, and here I want to highlight a couple particular such contexts. For one thing, “Person” was part of an organized, unified turn of the 20th century anti-imperialist movement. Twain’s essay was published through the New York Anti-Imperialist League, a local branch of the American Anti-Imperialistic League. Founded in June 1898 in direct response to the ongoing Spanish American War—in the same month that yesterday’s subject, Emilio Aguinaldo, declared Philippine Independence from both Spain and the U.S.—the League gathered an impressive array of political, social, and cultural voices in opposition to precisely the kinds of imperial ventures that the war helped extend. Twain was a particularly prominent member of the League throughout its existence, and his 1901 essay should thus be read in the context of both his own many anti-imperalist statements from 1898 on and the voices and ideas of his fellow anti-imperialists over those same years. A text always speaks in part on its own terms, of course, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and these contemporary contexts are vital ones for understanding “Person.”So too are contexts related to Twain’s half-century writing career. As I detailed in this post, one of the most enlightening discoveries I made through teaching the Twain-focused class was of his early efforts at social satire and critique. I had always thought that those genres were part of the final decade and stage of Twain’s career; but while he certainly turned to them more fully in the early 1900s, they had been a part of his journalistic and writing repertoire since at least 1866’s masterful satire “What Have the Police Been Doing?”As that piece reflects, Twain tended to maintain his satires straight through (a la Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”), meaning that it is entirely up to the readers to read between the lines and understand the authorial perspective and arguments behind the voice being both employed and satirized. I don’t know if that’s necessarily the case for “Person,” and again any piece has to work to at least some degree on its own terms as we can never know with what contexts an audience would be familiar; but at the same time, we can’t read a satirical essay from an author who frequently worked in the genre as entirely separate from those career-long efforts. Just one more layer to reading Twain’s complex and crucial contribution to the debate over the Philippines and U.S. imperialism.Next war context tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?

February 5, 2019: The Philippine American War: Emilio Aguinaldo

[On February 4th, 1899 Filipino rebels launched an attack on American troops in Manila, the opening salvo in what would become the Philippine American War (or Philippine Insurrection—see Thursday’s post for more on that distinction). So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of contexts for that largely forgotten, brutal turn of the 20th century conflict, leading up to a weekend post on the war’s legacies for 20th and 21st century histories!]On three telling 1890s stages in the career of the Filipino revolutionary leader.1)      Freedom fighter: Born in 1869 to a Spanish colonial official father and a mixed-race Chinese Filipina mother in the town of Cavite el Viejo, Aguinaldoinitially followed in his father’s footsteps and became the town’s “Municipal Governor-Captain” at the age of 25. But just four years later, in March 1895 he joined the Katipunan, a Masonic-inspired secret society dedicated to overthrowing Spanish rule and establishing Filipino independence; and in August 1896 he helped lead Filipino forces in the Philippine Revolution against the Spanish. If we see the Philippine American War as tied to the Spanish American War (as I argued in yesterday’s post that we should), then it would make sense to define those interconnected military conflicts as originating with the Philippine Revolution (along with, for example, efforts in Cuba). And Aguinaldo’s revolutionary leadership was a key ingredient to those vital historical origins.2)      U.S. ally: The Philippine Revolution failed, and in late 1897 Aguinaldo and other revolutionary leaders went into voluntary exile in Hong Kong. But almost immediately Aguinaldo organized a “Hong Kong Junta” to carry on the revolutionary agenda, and so when the Spanish American War began the following year he was ready and willing to serve as a U.S. ally against the Spanish forces on the islands. The U.S. was clearly just as ready, as only two weeks after the May 1st Battle of Manila Bay, Commodore George Dewey transported Aguinaldo on the USS McCulloch from Hong Kong back to Cavite el Viejo. By the end of May Aguinaldo was leading nearly 20,000 Filipino troops against the Spanish in the Battle of Alapan (this less than half a year after the end of the Revolution, so it seems clear that many of the same forces took part in both), and his military leadership and victories would prove vital to the U.S. triumph over the Spanish on the islands and in the war overall. 3)      Insurgent enemy: Aguinaldo saw his efforts as working toward a different goal, however. After that victory at Alapan he raised the Philippine flag for the first time, and shortly thereafter he issued the Philippine Declaration of Independence and installed himself as the first President of the Philippine Republic. Aguinaldo’s leadership and troops were crucial to the U.S. war effort, and so the U.S. military leaders did not challenge these political steps; but they foreshadowed, and indeed in many ways began, the divisions that would explode into the Philippine American War just half a year later. For more than two years Aguinaldo would lead the Filipino forces in that war, first in his official role as president and then (after U.S. forces chased him from Manila) as the leader of an insurgent resistance to the U.S. occupation. In March 1901 Aguinaldo was capturedby U.S. forces, and in April signed an oath of allegiance to the U.S.; but fellow revolutionary leaders would carry on the insurgency for another year (and, by some measures, another decade after that), extending this final 1890s stage to Aguinaldo’s complex and crucial legacy. Next war context tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?

February 4, 2019: The Philippine American War: Spanish American War Origins

[On February 4th, 1899 Filipino rebels launched an attack on American troops in Manila, the opening salvo in what would become the Philippine American War (or Philippine Insurrection—see Thursday’s post for more on that distinction). So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of contexts for that largely forgotten, brutal turn of the 20th century conflict, leading up to a weekend post on the war’s legacies for 20th and 21st century histories!]On how remembering the Philippine conflict drastically reframes another American war.I’m not sure the 1898 Spanish American War figures much at all in our collective memories, but the few details that do seem to stand out emphasize American interests (“Remember the Maine” as a battle-cry) and heroism (Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders charging up San Juan Hill). Those are both understandable and typical ways to remember a war, of course, and both do reflect complex but undeniable sides to the conflict (its fraught origins and its clear climax, respectively). Both also closely parallel an earlier military conflict, the Mexican American War, a war that similarly began with hazy justifications and ended with a decisive victory in enemy territory. As a result, it’s easy to see the Spanish American War, the nation’s first international military conflict since the Civil War, as a sort of return to form, a more unifying military battle and victory after the divisive horrors of the Civil War and its aftermaths (and the similarly brutal late 19thcentury “Indian Wars”).Yet when put in context of the Philippine American War, our understanding of the Spanish American War changes significantly. For one thing, the two conflicts overlapped so fully that it’d be fair to say that American military action never really ceased: it’s true that outright hostilities between the U.S. and Spain ended with an August 12, 1898 Protocol of Peace, but the Treaty of Paris which formally ended the war wasn’t signed until December 10, and it wasn’t ratified by the U.S. Senate until February 6, 1899—two days after the battle that began the Philippine American War. The two conflicts certainly pitted the U.S. against different adversaries (and I’ll have more to say about the Filipino ones in the coming posts), but the same war can feature distinct fronts and theaters, and given that U.S. troops were only in the Philippines because of the Spanish American War, I believe a strong case could be made that the subsequent conflict with Filipino forces represented a second front in an ongoing conflict. If so, the Spanish American War would shift from one of our shortest conflicts to something far more long-lasting and destructive.Even if we see the Philippine American War as a follow-up to, rather than an extension of, the Spanish American War, the subsequent conflict reminds us of a crucial element to the earlier one: that however we categorize its origins, the Spanish American War became an excuse for the United States to expand into and occupy imperial territories. In that way, and in all the concurrent histories it featured and that I’ll discuss in this week’s series (wars of occupation against local insurgents, debates at home over these imperial ventures), the Spanish American War foreshadowed quite potently (as John Sayles makes clear in his masterful historical film Amigo) 20th and 21st century conflicts such as the Vietnam and Iraq Wars. And reframing this side to the Spanish American War can even help us rethink the Mexican American War—the U.S. might not have stayed in Mexico after that conflict ended, but the territories added to the U.S. by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo certainly could be seen as imperial extensions, and the subsequent conflicts with both Mexican and Native American communities could be read as wars of occupation in their own right. Next war context tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?

February 2-3, 2019: January 2019 Recap

[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]December 31: 2019 Anniversaries: The Moon Landing?: A series on upcoming 2019 anniversaries starts with 50th anniversary moon landing conspiracy theories.January 1: 2019 Anniversaries: The Palmer Raids: The series continues with the 100thanniversary of the wartime raids that helped inaugurate federal surveillance and intrusions.January 2: 2019 Anniversaries: President Grant: The 150th anniversary of one of our more corrupt but also more inspiring presidencies, as the series rolls on.January 3: 2019 Anniversaries: The Panic of 1819: A short- and a long-term legacy of one of our biggest financial crashes on its 200th anniversary.January 4: 2019 Anniversaries: Slaves in Jamestown: The series concludes with what we’ve learned about America’s first enslaved Africans on the 400thanniversary of their arrival.January 5-6: 2019 Predictions: A special weekend post offering a trio of predictions for the year ahead.January 7: Cuban and American Histories: Fidel Castro: A CubanStudying series kicks off with two ways to AmericanStudy Castro on the 60th anniversary of his assumption of power.January 8: Cuban and American Histories: José Martí: The series continues with the cross-cultural life, writings, and legacies of one of the island’s most inspiring figures.January 9: Cuban and American Histories: Remington and the Spanish American War: What happens when the pen and the sword work together, as the series rolls on.January 10: Cuban and American Histories: Fulgencio Batista: Remembering two sides to a Latin American despot beyond the most overt histories.January 11: Cuban and American Histories: The Marielitos: The series concludes with three ways to contextualize the 1980 exodus of 125,000 Cubans to the US.January 12-13: Cuban American Literature: A special weekend post on three recent Cuban American literary works that expand and enrich our histories.January 14: Spring Previews: 20th Century African American Literature: A Spring semester series kicks off with three texts I’m excited to teach for the first time in a new (to me) course.January 15: Spring Previews: Ethnic American Literature: The series continues with what’s always been and remains complex and crucial about a long-time favorite course.January 16: Spring Previews: American Literature II: Three short texts I’m adding to one of my most frequently taught courses, as the series rolls on.January 17: Spring Previews: The (Short) Short Story Online: The newest twist in my ongoing evolution as an online educator.January 18: Spring Previews: English Studies Capstone: The series concludes with the possibility of flipping a classroom, and a request for input!January 19-20: Books Plans: A special weekend post on goals and hopes for my forthcoming book, We the People: The 500-Year Battle over Who is an American.January 21: The Real King: My annual MLK Day special post on the limits to how we currently remember King, and some ways to start moving beyond them.January 22: African American Life Writing: Olaudah Equiano: An MLK week series kicks off with a controversial autobiography that should be required reading whatever its genre.January 23: African American Life Writing: Nat Love: The series continues with an autobiography that captures both the myths and realities of the frontier and the American Dream.January 24: African American Life Writing: Sojourner Truth: A voice captured in a famous speech and a life lived well beyond it, as the series rolls on.January 25: African American Life Writing: Three Recent Works: The series concludes with a trio of recent works that reflect 21st century African American autobiography.January 26-27: Crowd-sourced Af Am Life Writing: My most recent crowd-sourced post, featuring the responses and nominations of fellow AmericanStudiers—add yours in comments, please!January 28: Great (Sports) Debates: Who Invented Baseball?: A Super Bowl week series kicks off with the mythic story and contested histories of who invented baseball.January 29: Great (Sports) Debates: LeBron or Michael?: The series continues with two layers to the best basketball player debate, and my vote for a third option.January 30: Great (Sports) Debates: Fighting in Hockey?: The way not to argue for continuing a violent tradition, and some possible ways to do so, as the series rolls on.January 31: Great (Sports) Debates: Soccer in America?: Why soccer hasn’t quite taken off in America, and why that question itself might be exclusionary.February 1: Great (Sports) Debates: Banning Football?: The series and month conclude with a couple layers to a 2015 campus-wide debate that continues into this Super Bowl weekend.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Topics you’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

February 1, 2019: Great (Sports) Debates: Banning Football?

[Sunday, February 3rd is that national holiday known as Super Bowl Sunday. For this year’s Super Bowl series I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of great sports debates—add your opinion into the mix in comments, please!][This is a repeat post from my Super Bowl series a few years back, but to say it’s at least as relevant in 2019 is to understate the case!]Two of the many complex and compelling layers to a campus and nation-wide conversation.Throughout the Spring 2015 semester, Fitchburg State’s Center for Conflict Studies hosted a series of presentations, panels, and conversations focused on football, and more exactly on issues of violence and other controversies linked to that hugely popular sport. As I noted in this week’s series intro, I’ve blogged about football in Super Bowl series each of the last handful of years, and have engaged briefly in those series with many of the issues that became part of these campus-wide conversations: concussionsand brain trauma; rapeand sexual violence; racism; the exploitation of college athletes. As much as I hope for this space to be conversational and communal, though, the truth is that it’s always framed and driven at least initially by my own interests, ideas, and perspectives, and so these semester-long Fitchburg State conversations about football and its debates added a great deal to my own perspective in multiple ways.One way was through those conversations that were planned, such as a late April roundtable discussion of the highly controversial question, “Should football be banned?” The roundtable featured the kinds of interdisciplinary voices and connections that represent the best of Fitchburg State as a scholarly community, with presentations by philosopher David Svolba, Director of Athletics Sue Lauder, sociologist G.L. Mazard Wallace, exercise physiologist Monica Maldari, and my English Studies colleague Kisha Tracy. But besides the value of putting these voices and frames in conversation, the roundtable also allowed each presenter to develop a particular part of his or her identity at compelling length: Monica, for example, talked about how her discipline and her knowledge impacted her family’s decision not to let their young son play football; while G.L. highlighted how we can’t discuss football without addressing the issues of ethics, race, work and labor, and social obligations that form key parts of his teaching and scholarship.Alongside those planned conversations, however, and offering an importantly complementary window into attitudes about and perceptions of these issues, were more impromptu debates that sprung up online. The most interesting such debate came in the wake of the aforementioned roundtable, in emails to the entire university community, and featured three voices: a Fitchburg State assistant football coach, who had attended the roundtable and offered his impassioned defense of the sport and its value; a Fitchburg State hockey coach, who had likewise attended and argued for the value of the roundtable itself as a layered scholarly conversation; and one of the event’s organizers, who followed up both emails in hopes of keeping the conversation going beyond that event and this spring’s series. These messages reminded us all that there are individuals, in our community and in every one, directly impacted by such debates and their potential outcomes and effects—the players most especially, in every sense, but lots of others as well. But they also made clear that in our 21st century moment, important public conversations don’t have to and can’t happen simply in individual places and times; they have to continue online, and I’d love for you to share any responses to help this one continue here!January Recap this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Other great debates you’d highlight?

January 31, 2019: Great (Sports) Debates: Soccer in America?

[Sunday, February 3rd is that national holiday known as Super Bowl Sunday. For this year’s Super Bowl series I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of great sports debates—add your opinion into the mix in comments, please!]On why soccer hasn’t quite taken off in the U.S., and why that question might be the problem.As a kid growing up in the 1980s, I was (I believe) part of the first generation to play youth soccer en masse. I don’t know exactly what percentage of us played soccer (I know I could try to look it up, but I’m writing this post on Thanksgiving morning and am feeling a bit too lazy to do so), but it felt like the majority of us at least (although I’m sure there were race and class factors, since registration wasn’t cheap and personal transportation to practices and games was a necessity and so on). By the time my sister began playing five or so years later, the sport seemed even more ubiquitous. Flash forward thirty years later, and it feels like literally every kid my preteen sons’ age (or again, at least every one in certain towns and communities) is out there every Saturday all fall and spring chasing that checkered ball (and a sizeable number of their parents are out there trying to herd those cats as volunteer coaches—I see you, my brothers and sisters in arms, or legs!). When I think about how many pictures I see on social media of kids playing soccer, posted by friends from all walks of life, around the country, it feels like the sport has truly become one of the most shared experiences of American childhood.And yet, despite those four decades of building momentum, by most accounts soccer still hasn’t broken into the upper echelon of American professional sports. I’ve seen all sorts of explanations over the years for that gap, from xenophobic and silly ones about the sport’s “foreign” flavor (more on that nonsense in a second) to practical and understandable ones about how low-scoring the games (warning, that’s a National Review article, just FYI) generally are, among many many others. But to my mind, there’s a simpler explanation for at least one factor in why men’s soccer hasn’t become a dominant professional sport in America (women’s soccer most definitely has, at least at the national team level): our greatest male athletes have too many other options. In many nations, if you’re a superstar or even just talented youth athlete, soccer is the most likely and logical fit, and the best path to potential professional sports stardom (there’s a reason why Neymar joined a professional team’s system at age 11!). But here in the U.S., such young prodigies have their pick of a number of sports paths, and who can really imagine high school phenoms and freaks of athletic nature like LeBron or Zion picking soccer over basketball (to name one exemplary trend)?So despite all those youth soccer players, the U.S. hasn’t produced a ton of great home-grown professional talents, at least not yet. But honestly, while players are one measure of a sport’s popularity, fans are another—and on that front, to say that soccer isn’t a major sport in the U.S. is to replicate many of the xenophobic narratives I mentioned. For many American communities, especially multi-cultural and immigrant ones, soccer is most definitely the spectator sport of choice; just check out fans of the Mexican national team celebrating their recent performance in the World Cup at a rally in Los Angeles this past June. Hispanic Americans are far from the only American community to exemplify this soccer craze, but they certainly are a prominent one—and any narrative of soccer as less popular nationally that doesn’t acknowledge the sport’s centrality to this sizeable and growing American community is fundamentally myopic and discriminatory. Soccer might not be at the level of American football yet (and to be clear, neither are hockey or baseball any more, and probably not basketball either although it’s closer), but its popularity is only growing, and is one of the most telling 21stcentury American trends.Last debate tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other great debates you’d highlight?