Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 305

November 27, 2015: Cultural Thanks-givings: Allegiance and Hamilton

[One of the best parts of being an AmericanStudier in 2015 is the abundance of impressive cultural works with which we’re surrounded. So for this year’s Thanksgiving series, I wanted to give thanks for five great works and artists about which I haven’t had the chance to write in this space. Share your own cultural thanks in comments, please!]On what links and what differentiates two important new musicals.I haven’t written a lot about American musicals and musical theater in this space, but when I have they’ve been socially progressive and significant ones: Zitkala-Sa and William Hanson’s Sun Dance Opera(1913); DuBose Heyward and George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935); and Jonathan Larsen’s Rent (1996). Each of those works is complex and in need of more extended analysis, but all three, it’s fair to say, broke from their genres’ conventions and traditions to portray American identities and communities in groundbreaking and important ways. And what that would mean, to make the complementary point overtly, is that the conventions and traditions of American musical theater tend to be socially conservative (perhaps more so than many of our cultural forms), to feature on the stage identities and communities in ways that flatter our mainstream ideals rather than challenge, complicate, or broaden those narratives. Which is to say, what the Tom Shows did with Uncle Tom’s Cabin, turning a divisive and clearly activist work into a safe and stereotyping mainstream popular entertainment, could be read as a symptom of a much larger trend in American musical theater.Whether or not that’s really been the case overall (and I welcome comments on other ways to read our musical theater histories!), the last few months have witnessed a couple very prominent steps in the more progressive direction. Jay Kuo and Lorenzo Thione’s Japanese Internment musical Allegiance, which debuted in San Diego in 2012, opened on Broadway in October, featuring George Takei (on whose experiences in an internment camp the musical is partly based) among its acclaimed cast. And in August, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Revolutionary War and Founding era musical Hamilton moved from its award-winning Off-Broadway run to Broadway, where it has continued and extended its popular and critical successes. Along with their shared attempts to bring American history to the stage, these two musicals also utilize casting to advance their progressive goals: Allegiancefeatures a richly diverse group of Asian American actors (including the three leads from the San Diego debut) amidst its impressively multi-ethnic cast; while Hamiltonhas famously gone even further in the direction of diversity, casting all Hispanic and African American actors as its European American characters (including Miranda himself in the title role) and reserving the role of King George for its only white actor, Brian D’Arcy James. In who as well as what’s on the stage, both these new musicals are unquestionably changing the genre.Yet in another way, the two musicals offer two quite distinct illustrations of the nature and politics of the musical as a cultural form. (To be clear, I haven’t had a chance to see either live yet, but have heard many of their songs and am also responding to numerous reviews of each. Again, I welcome further comments below!) The songs and musical numbers in Allegiance are consistently upbeat, and seem (both to this listener and to many reviewers) jarring alongside the much darker moments and settings through which the musical moves its characters. The rap and hip hop songs and numbers in Hamilton, on the other hand, align (counter-intuitively yet pitch-perfectly) with both the musical’s innovative casting and its portrayals of the Revolutionary and Founding figures and histories. That is, the music in Allegiance feels tied more to the musical genre’s conservative conventions, and thus at odds with the play’s progressive goals in ways that create a sense of dissonance; while Hamilton’s more radical musical choices parallel its progressiveness and create a sense of artistic as well as political coherence. I’m thankful that both these musicals are on the stage in 2015, but am especially thankful for the thoroughly innovative brilliance that is Hamilton.November Recap this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Cultural thanks-givings you’d share?

November 26, 2015: Cultural Thanks-givings: Macklemore

[One of the best parts of being an AmericanStudier in 2015 is the abundance of impressive cultural works with which we’re surrounded. So for this year’s Thanksgiving series, I wanted to give thanks for five great works and artists about which I haven’t had the chance to write in this space. Share your own cultural thanks in comments, please!]On two complementary songs that exemplify the rapper’s identity and appeal.Seattle-based rapper Macklemore and his writing partner, Ryan Lewis, are best known for a trio of songs that focus on being yourself, even if that self seems to be located somewhere outside of the accepted mainstream: the silly smash “Thrift Shop,” which featured singer Wanz and became one of 2012’s biggest hits; the very serious “Same Love” from the same year, which featured singer Mary Lambert and became the gay marriage movement’s most prominent anthem; and this year’s return to silly success “Downtown,” which features singer Eric Nally as well as three of hip hop’s most senior artists (Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, and Grandmaster Caz). These songs are distinct and unique in lots of ways (due in part to those guest artists and in part to Lewis’s ability to craft a new sound for each), but they all share that central emphasis on embracing one’s own identity and perspective come what may—a logical thread for a thoroughly independent, purposefully outside the system artist like Macklemore, who followed his own muse for many years before hitting it big with “Thrift Shop.”I respect that journey and the consistent themes it has helped Macklemore bring to such songs, but to be honest I’m more interested in the themes of identity he captures in a pair of lesser-known, complementary songs that to my mind exemplify his unique perspective and strengths. In “Irish Celebration”(2010; warning, this one will be stuck in your head for weeks, but in a good way), Macklemore raps about his national and cultural heritage (his real name is Ben Haggerty) in both funny and thoughtful ways. Indeed, while the most famous Irish American rappers are of course the boys from House of Pain, I would argue that it is “Irish Celebration” which should hold the title as the best Irish American rap song, as Macklemore’s anthem is far more interested in examining, critiquing, and also celebrating the unique histories and stories that comprise this cultural identity. Take this couplet from the end of the song’s first verse, which has included histories of the Emerald Isle’s complex relationship with those colonizing Englishmen: “Preach nonviolence but remind us of the scars/That define us, put a pint up everybody sing a song.” Or this one, that links Macklemore’s own history of addiction to his culture’s fraught but unavoidable relationship with drink: “I put down the drink, couldn’t drink like a gentleman/That doesn’t mean I can’t make a drinking song for the rest of ‘em.” Yup, the clear winner for greatest Irish American rap song.There’s an elephant in the room when it comes to that sub-genre of rap, however, and it’s one that Macklemore addresses head on in my favorite song of his (and one that, to his great credit, he wrote and recorded very early in his career), “White Privilege” (2005). Of course in the 21st century there is room for rap and hip hop made by every type of person in every corner of the world—in a unit on Global Culture in my IDIS Capstone course this semester we discussed songs by Psy, Matisyahu, and M.I.A., to name three such artists—but those ongoing evolutions don’t, can’t, and shouldn’t elide the genre’s clear and crucial origins in the African American community. And while other white rappers like Vanilla Ice and Eminem have tended to address those histories with a combination of posturing and defensiveness, Macklemore in “White Privilege” engages with them, and with related issues of cultural appropriation and the limits of identity and community, with an impressive degree of depth and thoughtfulness. “We got the best deal, the music without the burden,” he raps in the first verse, adding, “I give everything I have when I write a rhyme/But that doesn’t change the fact that this culture’s not mine.” And then in the multi-layered chorus he comes back to those persistent themes of embracing identity, but without leaving the history behind: “But I’m gonna be me so please be who you are/This is something that’s effortless and shouldn’t be hard/I said I’m gonna be me so please be who you are/But as I’m blessed with the privilege, they’re still left with the scars.” I’m thankful for the artist who can share both those sentiments, and many others worth our attention and response.Last cultural thanks-giving tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Cultural thanks-givings you’d share?

November 25, 2015: Cultural Thanks-givings: Americanah

[One of the best parts of being an AmericanStudier in 2015 is the abundance of impressive cultural works with which we’re surrounded. So for this year’s Thanksgiving series, I wanted to give thanks for five great works and artists about which I haven’t had the chance to write in this space. Share your own cultural thanks in comments, please!]Two of the many reasons why Americanah (2013) is on the short list of most important 21st century American novels to date.Part of me feels that the best use to which I could put this post on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah would be simply to implore you to go out and read it as soon as possible. I’m not promising that you’ll love it as much as I do—I know at least one AmericanStudier’s madre who was not particularly blown away by it, and of course as the Romans knew de gustibus non est disputandum—but I believe I can promise that you’ll find it a unique novel that’s as engaging and readable as it is important and innovative, a page-turner that’s also literary fiction of the highest order. So first and foremost, check it out, and if and when you do—or if you’ve already read it and have thoughts on it right now—please share your review and perspective in comments!Without spoiling any specific aspects of Adichie’s novel, however (a great deal of the pleasure lies in discovering her characters, plots, and themes), I do want to make the case here for two particular elements that make the novel as important as it is. The more obvious element, and a vital part of Adichie’s novel in every sense, is its transnational, dual settings of Nigeria and America. It’s not just that Adichie’s novel offers a fresh and compelling take on the immigrant experience (although it does), or on the relationship between old and new worlds for its characters (although ditto), or on cultural and ethnic hybridity (yup), or on the fraught relationship between Africans and African Americans (definitely). It’s that she’s written a novel that is deeply reflective of, influenced by, and contributing to our understanding and conversations about both Nigeria and America, two widely distinct worlds that she treats as distinct yet also brings together in potent and convincing ways. I know few other novels that have been able to pull off those joint feats for any two cultures, feats which are so crucial to our fraught global moment, and Adichie’s success there makes her novel hugely impressive and important.If Americanah is very much of its 21stcentury moment in its settings and themes, I would argue that it is perhaps even more contemporary in one of its key stylistic elements. Ifemelu, Adichie’s female protagonist, creates a popular blog entitled “Raceteenth or Various Observations about American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black,” and Adichie intersperses blog entries of hers throughout and alongside the more conventionally narrated sections of the novel. These blog entries allow Adichie to create a multi-vocal and –perspectival narration and text in a way that feels fresh and engaging, and at the same time to engage specifically and compellingly with questions of digital voice, identity, community, and conversation, and how those do and don’t line up with our more private identities and relationships. It goes without saying that I’m a pretty natural audience for any novel that makes use of blogging in these layered and thoughtful ways, but I believe the questions and forms that this stylistic element allows Adichie to include would be of interest to any and all 21stcentury readers. A great deal has been made, rightly, of the uniquely 21stcentury style that Junot Díaz invented for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2008), but I would say that Adichie’s version is just as unique and successful, and one more reason why I’m thankful for her must-read novel.Next cultural thanks-giving tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Cultural thanks-givings you’d share?

November 24, 2015: Cultural Thanks-givings: Grace and Frankie

[One of the best parts of being an AmericanStudier in 2015 is the abundance of impressive cultural works with which we’re surrounded. So for this year’s Thanksgiving series, I wanted to give thanks for five great works and artists about which I haven’t had the chance to write in this space. Share your own cultural thanks in comments, please!]On two ways the Netflix sitcom pushes our cultural boundaries, and one way it happily does not.The Netflix original sitcom Grace and Frankie (2015) features one of the more distinctive and yet appropriately 2015 premises I’ve seen: two lifelong male friends and law partners come out to their wives as gay, in love with each other, and leaving their wives for each other and a planned gay marriage. The premise alone would make the show one of the more groundbreaking on our cultural landscape, but the fact that the two men are played by two of our most prominent and respected actors, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, makes this nuanced, complex, warm, and so so thoroughly human portrayal of a same-sex relationship even more striking. It seems to me that a greal deal more has been written about Transparent and Jeffrey Tambor’s portrayalof that show’s transgender protagonist than about Sheen and Waterston in Grace and Frankie—and without taking anything away from Tambor’s equally nuanced and impressive performance, I would argue that seeing Sheen and Waterston in these roles represents an equally significant step forward in our cultural representations of the spectrums of sexuality, sexual preference, and identity in America.What’s particularly interesting about Grace and Frankie, moreover, is that Sheen and Waterston’s characters and storyline represents only half of the show’s primary focuses—and the other half, focused on the responses and next steps and identities and perspectives of their former wives Grace and Frankie, is in its own ways just as ground-breaking. Played to comic, tragic, human perfection by legendary actresses Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, these two characters represent to my mind two of the most in-depth and multi-layered portrayals of older women in television history. That there has been some behind the scenes controversy about the paychecks of Fonda and Tomlin in comparison to those of Sheen and Waterston, while of course frustrating and tied to broader current issues and arguments, also seems to add one more pitch-perfect layer to the ways in which the show asks us to think about the experiences, lives, and worlds of older women in a society that tends (as this scene highlightswith particular clarity) not to include them in our cultural landscape much at all. In a year when the single leading candidate for the presidency (I refuse to consider Donald Trump for that title) is herself a woman over 65, Grace and Frankie engages with our current moment in this important way as well.At the time that it’s four main characters and their storylines are thus so groundbreaking, however, I would argue (to parallel things I said about Longmire in yesterday’s post) that in its use of the conventions and traditions of the sitcom form Grace and Frankie feels very comfortably familiar. That might be one reason why Transparent, which blends genres much more into something like a dramedy, has received more critical attention and popular buzz (of course the parallels to the Caitlyn Jenner story are another such reason). Yet just because Grace and Frankie stays more within those familiar sitcom lines (featuring everything from physical comedy and wacky misunderstandings to recurring catchphrases and jokes) doesn’t make it less stylistically successful—indeed, I might argue that using such familiar forms yet making them feel fresh and funny is itself a significant aesthetic success, and one that Grace and Frankie most definitely achieved for this viewer. Moreover, there’s a reason why the sitcom is one of television’s oldest and most lasting forms—it taps into some of our most enduring audience desires, our needs for laughter and comfort that not only continue into our present moment, but have an even more necessary place alongside the antiheroes and dark worlds that constitute so much of the best of current television. Just one more reason why I’m thankful for Grace and Frankie.Next cultural thanks-giving tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Cultural thanks-givings you’d share?

November 23, 2015: Cultural Thanks-givings: Longmire

[One of the best parts of being an AmericanStudier in 2015 is the abundance of impressive cultural works with which we’re surrounded. So for this year’s Thanksgiving series, I wanted to give thanks for five great works and artists about which I haven’t had the chance to write in this space. Share your own cultural thanks in comments, please!]On how a cultural work can be both entirely traditional and strikingly groundbreaking.I’m very late to the game on the Western mystery drama Longmire—the TV show, based on the series of Wyoming-set mystery novels by Craig Johnson, has been airing since 2012; the first three seasons aired on A&E, while the recently released fourth and announced (final) fifth seasons have shifted to Netflix—which is surprising because it’s right up my alley. I was raised on a steady diet of both mysteries and Westerns (literary, televised, and otherwise), and was a particular fan of Tony Hillerman’s Southwestern mystery novels that thoroughly combined the two genres; similarly, Longmire uses to perfection so many traditional tropes from both genres that it seems at times created in a laboratory to please this AmericanStudier. Even those aspects that might seem like limitations in this era of innovative television—such as the fact that each episode’s mystery is wrapped up neatly by the time the hour is done—are done so well that they feel more like very traditional strengths.I say all that partly to highlight why I find this show so naturally enjoyable, but also partly to make clear the strikingness of this next idea: Longmire is also, in its depictions of Native Americans, one of the most groundbreaking TV shows I’ve ever seen. There have of course been Native American characters on television shows for decades, and some, such as the Lone Ranger’s sidekick Tonto, were vital parts of nearly every episode and plotline. While Sheriff Walt Longmire’s lifelong, Cheyenne best friend Henry (played with dry wit and a great deal of comlex depth by the always wonderful Lou Diamond Phillips) is far more of a three-dimensional human than Tonto ever was, so much so that at times he feels like a main character right alongside Walt, that’s not the main difference on which I’m focused here. Instead, I’m thinking about just how many episodes and mysteries focus specifically on the Cheyenne community (on and off the reservation), and how many other episodes likewise feature Cheyenne characters and stories in significant roles. Longmire works to depict many different sides of this 21st century Wyoming world, but none are more consistently central to that world than its Native American communities and issues.There’s certainly no reason why a show can’t be entirely traditional in some key ways and impressively groundbreaking in others. Indeed, that combination could be seen as a goal: luring in non-native American viewers with the familiar pleasures of genres like the mystery and the Western, and then hitting them with a healthy dose of Native American community and history when they least expect it. Yet at the same time, I can’t help but wonder if Longmire’s status as a less overtly innovative (and thus perhaps to many current viewers less interesting) TV show, particularly when compared to so many of the prestige dramas of the last couple decades, has kept it from getting the attention it deserves when it comes to this key and under-represented American issue. If so, that’s a serious shame—partly because a show doesn’t have to be something entirely new under the sun to be worth our time; and partly and most importantly because in its depictions of Native American characters and communities, Longmire can and does stand alongside The Wire, Treme, and any other contemporary classic that has engaged with racial and cultural issues.Next cultural thanks-giving tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Cultural thanks-givings you’d share?

November 21-22, 2015: The Upcoming NeMLA Conference

[We’re deep into the planning for next spring’s Northeast MLA conference, which will be held in Hartford from March 17-20. I’d love for you all to be part of that conference, whether in person or through online ideas and community, and so wanted to share here the President’s Letter that I wrote for our upcoming newsletter. I’d love to hear your thoughts!]
“Dear NeMLA Members,
I’m so excited to welcome you to our upcoming convention in Hartford! The NeMLA Board, Executive Director, and Staff, along with our local host institution the University of Connecticut and many others, have worked tirelessly over the last few months to prepare what should be one of our most vibrant and vital conventions yet.
Hartford will be a wonderful host. We’ve secured a special convention rate at the Hartford Marriott Downtown, which along with the adjacent Connecticut Convention Center will host the convention; both are located in the newly renovated Adriaen’s Landing district. Hartford complements such new developments with some of the best historic, cultural, and artistic sites in New England: our convention will feature events at the Mark Twain House, the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, and the Hartford Public Library; and we will also offer opportunities to connect with the Wadsworth Atheneum, performances by Hartford’s award-winning theatrical companies, and more.
The 2016 Convention will feature all of the sessions and events for which NeMLA has become well known. We have hundreds of approved panels, roundtables, and seminars, representing both the best of our established areas and new developments in the digital humanities and new media, composition and rhetoric, and professional and pedagogical conversations. We will offer four diverse and innovative workshops, as well as our CV clinic and other professional sessions. And our slate of area Special Events is stronger than ever, with dozens of events including performances by novelist Carole Maso (the first honoree of our new Meet the Author initiative), filmmaker Nancy Bogen, Native American novelist Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel, and historical novelist Leanne Hinkle.
Kicking off those creative performances and our convention will be the Thursday night opening reading by the supremely talented writer and editor Monique Truong. Monique’s two novels, along with her edited anthology of Vietnamese American writing and her many other publications and projects, have established her as a vital 21st century American writer and voice, and one who embodies the artistic, cultural, historical, and political spirit of our Hartford convention.
That spirit will also be captured by a number of new NeMLA initiatives we’re launching for the Hartford convention. On Friday afternoon at the Mark Twain House, we will feature a series of Presidential Sessions, special roundtable conversations on interconnected themes of public humanities, the digital humanities, and scholarly activism. These Friday Presidential Sessions will culminate with a roundtable on the Academy after Ferguson (organized by Professor Jonathan Gray) and then with Professor Jelani Cobb’s keynote address. Professor Cobb exemplifies the best of contemporary public scholarship and I couldn’t be more excited to feature him at our convention.
Two other presidential initiatives will address current issues and crises in education and the humanities. Recent events at NeMLA institutions, including Duquesne University firing nearly all of its adjunct faculty and Rider University cutting dozens of humanities programs and majors, illustrate all too clearly these ongoing crises, and demand engagement from organizations and communities like ours. We will offer that engagement through a series of Saturday Presidential Sessions on academic labor, adjunct faculty, and the state of higher education, culminating in our CAITY Caucus Special Event on adjunct unions; thanks to CAITY President Emily Lauer and many others for helping make these vital conversations happen.
These crises extend well beyond the academy, of course, and so too must NeMLA extend into our communities. At the 2016 convention, such community outreach will occur through a partnership with the Hartford Public Schools: educators will be invited to attend our convention and the Presidential Sessions, and will receive professional development support for doing so; and we are in the process of organizing Thursday afternoon visits to local schools, opportunities for conference attendees to meet and work with students, educators, and community members. If you’ll be at the convention on Thursday and are interested in taking part in such visits, please email me (brailton@fitchburgstate.edu) and let me know!
As you can see, the 2016 convention will be one of our best ever. That’s due, once again, to the hard work of so many: the University of Connecticut and our conference committee there, including Professors Cathy Schlund-Vials and Robert Hasenfratz, Dean Shirley Roe, and our graduate student local liaisons Emma Burris-Janssen and Sarah Moon; the NeMLA Board, including Executive Director Carine Mardorossian, Vice President Hilda Chacon, 2ndVice President Maria DiFrancesco, Past President Daniela Antonucci, and all our Area and Caucus Directors; and the peerless NeMLA Staff.
On behalf of all of us, I welcome you once more to Hartford and the 2016 NeMLA Convention!”Thanksgiving series starts Monday,BenPS. Any responses to these NeMLA plans? Ways you’d like to take part in the conference? Lemme know!

November 20, 2015: SHA Follow Ups: Little Rock and Race

[This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend my first Southern Historical Associationannual conference, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Thanks to a We’re History piece of mine, I was invited by Elaine Frantz Parsons to take part in a wonderful panel on the Reconstruction-era KKK. In this series I’ll follow up both that panel and other takeaways from this great conference!]Three layers to how the city remembers race, and the fragile significance of the third.1)      Central High School: The story of Little Rock and race is of course inextricably tied to Central High School, and I’m very happy to say that those histories and stories are very well captured in the city. That happens at the National Historic Site, which features a wonderful short film on the voices and lives of the Little Rock Nine, and many other compelling exhibits about those histories. But it also happens at the high school itself, which remains open and which features the amazing student endeavor that is The Memory Project. I had the chance to attend a Saturday special event at Central High on the Memory Project, and came away deeply impressed and inspired by how these students, like these sites, are carrying forward the histories and meanings of civil rights.2)      Mosaic Templars Cultural Center: Public memory also has to evolve as our communities do, and this museum of African American history, which opened within the last decade in a reconstructed version of the Mosaic Templars of America national headquarters (which was tragically lost in a 2005 fire), exemplifies such evolution. Alongside exhibits on local and regional artists, figures, and histories (such as the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame), the museum is also becoming more and more prominent on the national stage, as reflected by its forthcoming role as one of the few American spaces to feature the Kinsey Collection II exhibition. I had the chance to meet and chat at length with museum staff member Maggie Speck-Kern at the conference, and can testify that this up and coming Little Rock site is in very good hands.3)      Historic Homes: History isn’t and can’t be captured solely in historic sites and museums, however, and the neighborhood around Central High School is full of historic homes and buildings that represent more than a century of Little Rock and African American history. These historic buildings not only offer a vital, intimate complement to more official and formal sites of public memory, but continue to serve the city’s families, businesses, and communities. Yet as is the case in so many less wealthy neighborhoods around the nation, these homes are in significant danger of being demolished, and both their histories and current roles endangered. Such destruction represents both a cultural and a contemporary crisis well worth our attention as we work to remember and preserve African American history and community in Little Rock.Special NeMLA preview post this weekend,BenPS. What do you think?

November 19, 2015: SHA Follow Ups: Books

[This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend my first Southern Historical Associationannual conference, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Thanks to a We’re History piece of mine, I was invited by Elaine Frantz Parsons to take part in a wonderful panel on the Reconstruction-era KKK. In this series I’ll follow up both that panel and other takeaways from this great conference!]As ever, my visits to a conference’s book exhibit hall were entirely inspiring. To wit, here are five compelling new scholarly books I saw at just one publisher’s booth, that of the University of North Carolina Press. So much good stuff to read!1)      Philip Gura’s The Life of William Apess, Pequot: I believe this post expresses all I need say about why I’m so excited to read Gura’s book!2)      David Narrett’s Adventurism and Empire: The Struggle for Mastery in the Louisiana-Florida Borderlands, 1762-1803: Much of what I wrote in this post on Cynthia Van Zandt’s Brothers Among Nations holds true for Narrett’s book as well: he seems to offer a vital cross-cultural alternative to our most shared narratives of Revolutionary era America, a sense of just how contested and collaborative were American identities and settings in that foundational moment.3)      Tiya Miles’ Tales from the Haunted South: Dark Tourism and Memories of Slavery from the Civil War Era: I’ve heard a lot about this book, but SHA was my first chance to browse through it, and the experience reinformed my sense that this is public scholarly writing and engagement with our collective memories in the best sense of both goals.4)      Ted Maris-Wolf’s Family Bonds: Free Blacks and Re-enslavement Law in Antebellum Virginia: Just as important as the broad public scholarly writing represented by Miles’ book, however, is the kind of in-depth, focused archival research and historical analysis provided by Maris-Wolf’s. Unearthing and narrating a historical moment and issue about which I knew exactly nothing (free African Americans choosing to enslave themselves in order to remain with their families and communities), Maris-Wolf’s book reminds us just how much history remains for us to discover and engage.5)      Timothy Williams’ Intellectual Manhood: University, Self, and Society in the Antebellum South: In this post on the excesses and extremes found in the early days at the University of Virginia, I highlighted some of the worst sides of Southern university students and communities in that period. Those histories are certainly part of the story, but Williams’ book offers a far more multi-faceted examination of university communities and influences in the region during that early 19thcentury moment, and thus promises to become an important part of our evolving understanding of both the limitations and the possibilities of American higher education.Last SHA follow up tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Recent scholarly books you'd highlight?

November 18, 2015: SHA Follow Ups: Panels

[This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend my first Southern Historical Associationannual conference, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Thanks to a We’re History piece of mine, I was invited by Elaine Frantz Parsons to take part in a wonderful panel on the Reconstruction-era KKK. In this series I’ll follow up both that panel and other takeaways from this great conference!]Every SHA panel I attended both engaged with and challenged my perspective and ideas. Here are quick takeaways from the talks and histories featured in three exemplary such sessions:1)      Campuses, Classrooms, and the Struggle for Racial Justice after 1965: In Professor Shirletta Kinchen’s talk on student and community activism at Memphis’ Lemoyne-Owen College in 1968, I was particularly struck by her details about The Invaders, a local Black Power group with one of the most clever names I’ve ever encountered. Professor Michelle Purdy’s talk on the first black students at newly integrated private and independent secondary schools modeled an interdisciplinary approach, weaving together oral histories, educational histories, and engagement with institutional and governmental efforts such as the National Association of Independent Schools and the Higher Education Act of 1965 to tell this compelling story. And Professor Jill Ogline Titus’ talk highlighted a complex example of a Civil Rights era educational initiative, the Southern Student Programthrough which the American Friends Service Committee(a Quaker activist organization) placed Southern African American students with Northern white host families and secondary schools.2)      Law and Activism in the Long Civil Rights Movement: Professor Melissa Milewski’s groundbreaking research has discovered and analyzed more than 1300 appellate court civil cases featuring black and white litigants in 8 Southern states between 1865 and 1950; most strikingly, she has discovered that the black litigants won nearly 60% of those cases, making these legal efforts a vital site of civil rights progress and possibility in the era. Professor Stephanie Hinnershitz is working on a topic of particular interest to me, the lives and legal battles of Asian American immigrants in Southern states in the early 20th century; she focused in particular on the Arkansas case of Applegate vs. Luke, but highlighted a number of related historical and cultural questions that I can’t wait to learn more about it. And graduate student Emily Senefield shared her ongoing research into Tennessee’s Highlander Folk School, and especially the ways in which music and labor activism there in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s helped move toward the Civil Rights Movement’s use of Freedom Songs. 3)      Roundtable on the Association for the Study of African American Life and History’s 100thAnniversary: To celebrate 100 years of Carter G. Woodson’s unique and vital organization, and the Journal of African American History that it has published for nearly all those years, this roundtable featured a trio of scholars whose work has contributed immensely to the association and journal: Pennsylvania State Professor of Labor and Employment Relations James Stewart, UCLA Professor of History Brenda Stevenson, and University of California Riverside Professor of History V.P. Franklin (the journal’s current editor). Besides reiterating the essential role that the association and journal have played in American scholarship, education, activism, and society throughout the century, this roundtable also reminded me of the ways in which scholarly conferences and organization can offer and model community in the best sense, and can both rejuventate our own perspectives and efforts and give us opportunities for important next steps in our careers and lives. Next SHA follow up tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?

November 17, 2015: SHA Follow Ups: Special Sessions

[This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend my first Southern Historical Associationannual conference, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Thanks to a We’re History piece of mine, I was invited by Elaine Frantz Parsons to take part in a wonderful panel on the Reconstruction-era KKK. In this series I’ll follow up both that panel and other takeaways from this great conference!]A couple highlights from the conference’s rich, provocative, and complementary special sessions:1)      The SHA conference opened with a Thursday evening plenary panel on the concept of integrated justice after Civil Rights—movements and activisms for justice as indivisible, across all the different issues and identities that are too often treated as distinct or even competing. Chaired by scholar and filmmaker Michael Honey, the panel featured Greta de Jong speaking about racial and economic justice movements, Adolph Reed on the need to rethink race and justice in America, Judge Jed Rakoff on the legal and justice systems in the 21st century, and Julie Savilleon ethos and friendship as models for integrated justice. As someone centrally concerned with cross-cultural American histories and identities, I found Saville’s frame the most striking, particularly when I think about some of the exemplary cross-cultural American friendships to which we could turn for models: Ely Parker and Lewis Henry Morgan, to name only one example. But we can’t idealize such relationships without engaging with the darker side of our histories and current society as well, and this panel moved between those different modes very effectively.2)      That plenary panel had been organized by SHA President Barbara Fields, and was complemented by her sweeping and stunning presidential address the following evening. As I mentioned to a colleague after the talk, Fields’ address felt like a career culminating reflection on her own life and identity, her inspirations from her graduate mentor C. Vann Woodward, her huge range of scholarly subjects (slavery and segregation, the Civil War, environmental and economic histories, American myths and narratives, and much more), and some (if not indeed most) of the dominant and defining issues in American histoy. Yet at the same time that Fields’ address felt reflective, it also felt urgently invested in the present and especially the future, and in considering precisely what historians and public scholars can do (and what we can’t) to impact them. Like the plenary panel, Fields’ tone shifted from pessimism to optimism, often in the same moment: such as her breathtaking final lines, in which she recognized that much of our current moment could be seen as inevitably moving toward destructive futures and yet quoted Woodward to note that perhaps our job is to resist the inevitable. At a time when it’s difficult not to feel pessimistic for all sorts of reasons (I write this post in the shadow of both the Paris terrorist attacks and the bigoted and divisive responses to them by far too many), Fields offered not a salve for that perspective, but a vital engagement with and response to it.Next SHA follow up tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?