Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 309

October 10-11, 2015: (Pre-)Revolutionary Scholarship

[October 7thmarked the 250th anniversary of the convening of the Stamp Act Congress, one of the most significant moments in pre-Revolutionary American history. So this week I’ve highlighted and AmericanStudied three such pre-Revolution moments, leading up to this special weekend post on some of the best scholarship on this period, past and present!]A handful of scholarly sources to continue the pre-Revolutionary conversation.1)      Bailyn and Wood: I know that subsequent scholarship, along with political grumpiness and a certain Good Will Hunting scene, have rendered Bernard Bailyn and Gordon Wood less monumental than was once the case. But to my mind, no serious student of the pre-Revolutionary period can afford not to read Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967) and Wood’s The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1991), among other groundbreaking works by both historians. Scholarship should always be additive rather than competitive, and whatever has been added in the decades since, both these works remain vital contributions to the conversation.2)      Sobel and Jennings: As I’ve argued many times in this space, however, the Revolution wasn’t simply political or ideological; it also engaged with and challenged many social, racial, gendered, and other communal issues and realities. Two scholarly works that help us remember and contextualize those Revolutionary histories are Mechal Sobel’s The World They Made Together (1987) and Francis Jennings’ The Creation of America (2000), both of which I’ve blogged about before. Pre-Revolutionary America was as diverse, cross-cultural, and contested a space as any in our history, and these two books offer vital perspectives on that moment and all that it helped usher in.3)      21st century scholarship: Every year sees important new contributions to the scholarly conversation, of course; here are just a few compelling recent examples: Jack Greene’s The Constitutional Origins of the American Revolution (2010); Andrew O’Shaughnessy’s The Men Who Lost America (2013); Eric Nelson’s The Royalist Revolution (2014); and the edited collection The American Revolution Reader (2013). As these and many other works reflect, the conversation continues to evolve and grow.4)      Ben Franklin’s World: That evolution is now taking place in online and digital as well as print form, of course, and Elizabeth Covart’s vital Ben Franklin’s World podcast represents one perfect illustration of the possibilities of these new genres. 41 episodes in at the time of this writing, with each episode featuring an interview with a different scholar, Covart’s podcast has already touched upon countless aspects of 18th century history, culture, and society, and promises to continue expanding our collective perspectives on the period for many more episodes to come.5)      The Junto: Representing a very different but nicely complementary use of the digital, The Junto website and blog bring together an expanding community of young historians and scholars, all with a shared interest in early American history. The site focuses on a far broader and deeper swath of our history than just the Revolutionary period—but as their use of the “Join, or Die” political cartoon illustrates, that formative period comprised a key starting point for this important example of 21st century, digital Amercan scholarship. One of many reasons why I’m very excited for where these conversations will go in the years to come!Next series starts Monday,BenPS. What do you think? Scholars you’d highlight?

October 9, 2015: Before the Revolution: Crispus Attucks

[October 7thmarks the 250th anniversary of the convening of the Stamp Act Congress, one of the most significant moments in pre-Revolutionary American history. So this week I’ll highlight and AmericanStudy three such pre-Revolution moments, including the Congress itself on Wednesday. Leading up to a weekend post on some of the best scholars of this period, past and present!]On three complex, telling details about the Revolution’s first casualty.1)      He was likely mixed-race: Almost nothing is known with certainty about Attucks, and that includes his parentage and heritage. Yet the historical consensus is that Attucks was born in Framingham, Massachusetts, the son of Prince Yonger (an African-born slave) and Nancy Attucks (a Natick [Wampanoag]Indian). I have no issue with the communal celebration of Attucks as an African American hero, not least because he was apparently born into his father’s state of slavery before running away to freedom in September 1750. Yet at the same time, Attucks’ heritage exemplifies just how fully cross-cultural was Revolutionary-era America, a largely forgotten historical fact with which he would thus help us engage.2)      John Adams defended his killers: If earlier posts in this week’s series haven’t already convinced you that Revolutionary America was far from united in its political attitudes or community, try this one on for size: Founding Father and 2nd President John Adams defended in court the British soldiers who had shot and killed Attucks and two other Bostonians. Of course it’s possible to see this effort as a reflection of Adams’ belief in law and justice; but on the other hand, Adams also described Attucks (in his legal arguments) as a man who had “undertaken to be the hero of the night” through his “mad behavior,” part of what Adams defined as “a motley rabble of saucy boys, negros and mulattos, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tars.” Not our most democratic framer, was John Adams.3)      His myth has served us well: Again, it’s impossible to say with certainty whether any of these historical details, including Adams’ descriptions of Attucks, are accurate. But as with so many of the Revolution’s prominent figures and moments, Attucks and his death have been turned into longstanding national myths nonetheless. And on the list of such Revolutionary mythic stories, I find Attucks’ to be one of the most inspiring and productive. Take, for example, Martin Luther King Jr’s citation of Attucks, in the introduction to Why We Can’t Wait (1964), as a model for how moral courage can help reshape history. Or take Nat King Cole’s reference to Attucks in the spoken word introduction to his amazing song “We Are Americans, Too”(1956), recorded shortly after white supremacists attacked Cole on an Alabama stage but unreleased by his label (Capitol Records) until 2009. In these and other ways, the history and myth of Crispus Attucks, uncertain as they remain, have become vital parts of our national story.Special post this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Pre-Revolution moments you’d highlight?

October 8, 2015: Before the Revolution: Wheatley to the Earl of Dartmouth

[October 7thmarks the 250th anniversary of the convening of the Stamp Act Congress, one of the most significant moments in pre-Revolutionary American history. So this week I’ll highlight and AmericanStudy three such pre-Revolution moments, including the Congress itself on Wednesday. Leading up to a weekend post on some of the best scholars of this period, past and present!]On the poetic letter that both anticipates the Declaration and helps us remember a vital figure.No American creative writer (unless we define Thomas Paine’s pamphlets as creative writing, but despite Paine’s unquestionable rhetorical talents I would call those texts political documents first and foremost) played a larger role in the developing American Revolution than did African American slave and poet Phillis Wheatley. As I highlighted in this post, Wheatley’s poetic celebration of and subsequent meeting with General George Washington represent two interconnected, exemplary Revolutionary moments. And her 1773 poem “To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth,” about a portion of which I wrote in this post on Wheatley’s seemingly contradictory poetic constructions of slavery and race, comprises perhaps the single clearest literary argument for the unfolding Revolution, anticipating quite strikingly the language of the Declaration of Independence.That’s particularly the case with the poem’s most overt argument for independence, contained in one long sentence that takes up the final five lines of the ten-line second stanza: “No more, America, in mournful strain/Of wrongs, and grievance unredress’d complain,/No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain,/Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand/Had made, and with it meant t’ enslave the land.” Although the poem as a whole is addressed to a specific English audience member (on whom more in a moment), in this crucial section Wheatley shifts her address to all of “America,” personifying this developing political entity as “thou” and making the case for “the Goddess … Fair Freedom” (the similarly personified subject of the poem’s opening stanza) as the logical and necessary mechanism through which to push back on and overturn all of the negative elements included in this sentence (wrongs, grievance, iron chain, Tyranny, lawless hand, enslavement). Paine’s pamphlet “Common Sense” has been described as a direct predecessor to the Declaration, but to my mind no text fits that description better than Wheatley’s poem.Wheatley’s addressee is quite different from the Declaration’s, however. While the latter text is aimed at King George III, not to convince him of anything so much as to use a critique of the king to make the case for independence, Wheatley’s poetic letter seeks precisely to persuade her singular audience member of the value and necessity of freedom. That audience member was William Legge, the 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the Colonies between 1772 and 1775, and a man whom Wheatley had met in London and believed sympathetic to the cause (perhaps in part because of his opposition to the Stamp Act). Legge did not succumb to Wheatley’s poetic charms, and by 1776 was entirely opposed to the Revolution and an ardent supporter of the use of military force to quash it. Yet nevertheless, he—like Wheatley’s address to him—reminds us that the English community in this period was no more unified nor certain of its future than was the American. And in his contributions toward the founding of Eleazar Wheelock’s evangelical college for Native Americans, an institution that would become Dartmouth College, Legge also illustrates the complex, multi-layered relationship that so many in England had toward the colonies and their peoples.Last pre-Revolutionary post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Pre-Revolution moments you’d highlight?

October 7, 2015: Before the Revolution: The Stamp Act Congress

[October 7thmarks the 250th anniversary of the convening of the Stamp Act Congress, one of the most significant moments in pre-Revolutionary American history. So this week I’ll highlight and AmericanStudy three such pre-Revolution moments, including the Congress itself on Wednesday. Leading up to a weekend post on some of the best scholars of this period, past and present!]On how the 1765 gathering anticipated the Continental Congress, and how it didn’t.250 years ago today, the Stamp Act Congress(also known as the First Congress of the American Colonies) convened in New York’s City Hall (known today as Federal Hall). Composed of 27 elected delegates from nine British colonies, including such famous figures as Massachusetts’ James Otisand South Carolina’s John Rutledge, the Congress met for two and a half weeks; by its October 25th conclusion, it had drafted a Declaration of Rights and Grievances (likely written by Pennsylvania delegate John Dickenson, perhaps with the aid of New York delegate John Cruger) against the Stamp Act, as well as a number of other petitions to King George III and Parliament. Sent to England’s Lord Dartmouth (the colonial secretary, on whom more in tomorrow’s post), these documents contributed both to rising tensions between the colonies and England and to the eventual successful efforts (led by England’s Rockingham Ministry) to repeal the Stamp Act—a repeal passed concurrently, however, with the 1766 Declaratory Act, which granted Parliament “full power and authority to make laws to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever.”Taken together, the Stamp Act repeal and the Declaratory Act reflect the conflicts both within England and between England and the colonies that would develop fully over the subsequent pre-Revolutionary decade. Moreover, the Stamp Act Congress itself can be seen as a direct predecessor and model for the Continental Congress, the multi-year 1770s convention that embodied the colonies’ steps toward the Revolution. A handful of the Stamp Act Congress delegates would go on to serve in one or more of the Continental Congresses, the Declaration of Rights and Grievances served as a primary model for the Declaration of Independence produced by those Congresses, and the process of electing and convening the Congress itself reflected perhaps the first (and certainly the most impressive) such coordinated, colonies-wide political effort, one without which the Continental Congresses might never have gotten off the ground at all. That last point is perhaps the most easily overlooked: in an era when travel of any kind was laborious and challenging, and when the individual colonies existed far more separately than in our Revolutionary images of them as a united community, the common cause of the Stamp Act Congress brought together delegates from Massachusetts to South Carolina.On the other hand, those delegates did not remain in agreement over subsequent Revolutionary events. Indeed, precisely as many delegates (five) as would go on to serve in the Continental Congresses would become ardent Revolutionary-era Loyalists, with one (New York’s William Bayard) raising a regiment for the British Army during the Revolution. Another delegate who seemed to support independence, Rhode Island’s Metcalf Bowler, has subsequently been discovered to have served as a British spy throughout the war. These individuals and stories reflect the divided nature of the American political and social communities in this period, but they also illustrate the danger in analyzing the Stamp Act Congress solely as a predecessor to the Continental Congresses. Seen in retrospect, history can seem all too inevitable, a natural procession toward subsequent moments and events. Yet it’s vital in analyzing any one moment to recognize not only its own specifics and complexities, but also the many possible futures toward which it might have led. For these Loyalist delegates in particular, it’s fair to say that the goal of the Stamp Act Congress might well have been to redress English wrongs in such a way as to produce a more harmonious relationship between the colonies and England—which would make the Declaration of Rights and Grievances quite different from, if not indeed opposite to, the Declaration of Independence.Next pre-Revolutionary post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Pre-Revolution moments you’d highlight?

October 6, 2015: Before the Revolution: Governor Hutchinson

[October 7thmarks the 250th anniversary of the convening of the Stamp Act Congress, one of the most significant moments in pre-Revolutionary American history. So this week I’ll highlight and AmericanStudy three such pre-Revolution moments, including the Congress itself on Wednesday. Leading up to a weekend post on some of the best scholars of this period, past and present!]On two complex and crucial ways to analyze a tragic pre-Revolutionary figure.One of the AmericanStudies books that most altered and expanded my vision of the field as I began my college work was Bernard Bailyn’s seminal The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (1976). Hutchinson was the last civilian royal governor of Massachusetts, serving during the tumultuous pre-Revolutionary years of 1769 to 1774. Even before his gubernatorial term, Hutchinson had come to represent the worst excesses of English leadership to many colonists, as reflected by the ransacking of his home during the 1765 Stamp Act protests (when Hutchinson was the colony’s Lieutenant Governor). As the governor in power during such crucial events as the Boston Tea Party and the Boston Massacre, and one who argued in writing during these years that the colonists could never have the same rightsas English citizens in the home country, Hutchinson became even more fully tied to images and narratives of the worst of English rule. By the time of his 1774 replacement by General Thomas Gage and his subsequent forced exile to England, those links had become complete and permanent.Bailyn’s Ordeal doesn’t necessarily challenge those narratives, although it adds a great deal of individual and communal history to the picture. Yet there’s another way to frame Hutchinson’s identity, and it’s the same one for which I argued in this post on Revolutionary-era Loyalists: that he represents another side to the American experience and community in this period. There’s a reason why I called Hutchinson’s removal to England an exile, and it’s that his entire life to that point had been spent in the Boston area: from his 1711 birth in the North End to his time at Harvard College, his service as a Boston selectman to his election to the state assembly (known then as the General Court), and up through those controversial terms as Lieutenant Governor and Governor. It’s far simpler to view the incipient Revolution through images of Massachusetts Minutemen standing their ground against advancing English Redcoats, soldiers (like Governor Gage) freshly arrived from England to oppose these locals. But Hutchinson was both a representative of English rule and as local as they come, forcing a far more nuanced engagement with Massachusetts and America in the Revolutionary era.He was also, of course, a person. That might seem like the most banal of observations, but it’s far from easy to remember the humanity beneath historical figures and events. One American text that asks us to do just that when it comes to the pre-Revolutionary protests and conflicts is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s darkly ambiguous short story “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” (1831). Hawthorne’s story follows Robin, a young country lad on his first journey to the big city of Boston, as he experiences one long and uncertain night that happens to coincide with an impending riot quite similar to the Stamp Act protests. In the story’s culminating moment (SPOILER alert), Robin finally finds the titular elderly kinsman for whom he has been looking throughout the tale, but in a particularly ironic way: Robin is seeking a position from his formerly powerful relative, but discovers that it is upon Major Molineux that the angry mob has focused its rage. Hawthorne dedicates a long paragraph to describing the tarred and feathered old man, “in those circumstances of overwhelming humiliation,” and concludes the passage thusly: “On they went, in counterfeited pomp, in senseless uproar, in frenzied merriment, trampling all on an old man’s heart.” Whether Hawthorne intends to indict the entire Revolution in this passage is as uncertain as the rest of his ambiguous story—but at the very least, he reminds us that the targets of Revolutionary wrath were often individual men, as human and American as the rest of us.Next pre-Revolutionary post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Pre-Revolution moments you’d highlight?

October 5, 2015: Before the Revolution: The French & Indian War

[October 7thmarks the 250th anniversary of the convening of the Stamp Act Congress, one of the most significant moments in pre-Revolutionary American history. So this week I’ll highlight and AmericanStudy three such pre-Revolution moments, including the Congress itself on Wednesday. Leading up to a weekend post on some of the best scholars of this period, past and present!]Two important contexts for a conflict that was more than just historical foreshadowing.In the brief time that my secondary school American History textbooks and courses spent on the French and Indian War (1754-1763), it was framed almost entirely as offering a series of preludes to the Revolutionary period: from the quartering of English soldiers in colonial homes that would become one of the colonists’ principal grievances against the Crown to the youthful George Washington’s military service in the war, and in many other ways, the French and Indian War helped point the way toward issues and histories that would come to dominate the American landscape in the subsequent two decades. Given that our communal narratives of the Revolution often begin with the 1765 Stamp Act and its aftermaths, it makes sense to extend our historical lens further back, to consider other moments and factors that moved the colonies toward hostilities with England, and this sweeping global conflict represents one of the mid-18thcentury’s most prominent such moments to be sure.The war’s global sweep, however, also helps us engage with its own histories and complexities in ways that don’t simply seek to look beyond it and toward the next American conflict. For one thing, this American war became the first such military conflict to spread to the Old World, prompting the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) that would come to involve virtually every prominent European power (pitting an alliance of France, Russian, Sweden, Austria and Saxony against one of Prussia, Hanover, and Great Britain). Even on the colonial level, the war represented a conflict over India and global trade routes as much as over the Americas, an international element of which I’m quite sure those American History textbooks made precisely no mention. For all those reasons, when viewed through a global lens—something that the transnational turn in AmericanStudies rightfully demands that we consider—the French and Indian War seems at least as significant as the American Revolution, and likely more so; only one of those conflicts has often been called the first world war, after all.Even if we return to a more specifically American lens, there’s an element to the French and Indian War that has frequently been elided or downplayed: the “Indian” part. I’m sure that those aforementioned textbooks mentioned that some Native American tribes fought alongside the English, and some alongside the French. But that framing continues to view the conflict in terms of the European powers and colonies, and still doesn’t get close to considering what it meant for Native perspectives and peoples. Fortunately for us AmericanStudiers, we have a prominent, multi-layered historical text that offers us precisely such a perspective: Chief Pontiac’s impassioned 1763 speech to the Ottawa, Huron, and Potawatomi tribes, an oration that both illustrated a Native perspective on the concluding French and Indian War and helped prompt a subsequent conflict, Pontiac’s Rebellion (1763-1766). Bringing together Native mythology and present political issues, and addressing his audiences as both longstanding cultural communities and players on the contemporary global stage, Pontiac’s speech illustrates just how much that term “Indian” comprised and included, and opens up an entirely distinct way to AmericanStudy this international war.Next pre-Revolutionary post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Pre-Revolution moments you’d highlight?

October 3-4, 2015: AMST in 2015

[This past weekend, we held the fifth annual New England American StudiesAssociation (NEASA) Colloquium. So this week I’ve shared some responses to each of the five colloquia to date, leading up to this special weekend post on AmericanStudies in 2015!]Three examples of the best of AmericanStudies in our 21st century moment.1)      ‘Merica Magazine: Founded by two talented grad students, Ed Simon and Wade Linebaugh, ‘Merica’s AmericanStudies significance is best represented by its truly kick-ass mission statement about patriotisms. Or maybe by the incredible breadth of its list of suggested topicsand questions. Or by the names for the magazine’s categories—“Mudville” for sports is probably my favorite, but they’re all great. Indeed, Merica’s Americanness is large and contains multitudes, and they’re all very 21st century AmericanStudies to be sure.2)      The Americanist Independent : Brainchild of historian Keith Harris, the Independent is not unlike ‘Merica, but I would call the latter more of an online magazine (featuring shorter, online writing like the posts on this blog) and the Independent more of a scholarly journal (featuring longer, academic essays). Yet as such, the Independent truly represents 21stcentury AmericanStudies scholarship—because it’s open access, a vital difference from virtually all other serious Americanist journals; and because it’s far more diverse in its content and disciplinary reach than most traditional journals. The future of scholarship looks like this!3)      Drunk History : I’m far from an expert on YouTube channels or vloggers, and I’m sure there are others that could be highlighted in this space and would be equally deserving. But I do know Drunk History , and I’d call it a pitch-perfect example of using a site and medium like this to explore American history, culture, and identity. For more than 8 years now, these YouTube videos have embodied a new form of AmericanStudying, one with the potential to reach and educate (in its own way, but educate nonetheless) countless audience members (the original DHvideo linked above has nearly 7 million views). Like it or not (and I mostly do), this is a huge part of what AmericanStudies looks like and is is in 2015.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. What do you think? AMST resources, scholarship, or ideas you’d share?

October 2, 2015: AMST Colloquiums: Advice for AmericanStudiers

[This past weekend, we held the fifth annual New England American StudiesAssociation (NEASA) Colloquium. So this week I’ll share some responses to each of the five colloquia to date, leading up to a special weekend post on AmericanStudies in 2015!]On a few key pieces of advice for grad students, junior faculty, and other AmericanStudiers given at this past weekend’s 2015 Colloquium:1)      Consider different types of institutions: In my own session at the Colloquium, on preparing CVs and other application materials, I connected many of my thoughts to another group I’m part of: the Cross-Sector Partnership, a Massachusetts initiative (started by Bridgewater State University Dean Paula Krebs) to help prepare grad students and others for “teaching at teaching-intensive institutions.” That’s a great organization, and if you’re interested you should check out their blog and contact Paula for more info! But in any case the broader point is one I would stress here: that different types of institutions have very different models for teaching, research, service, and all other aspects of our scholarly and educational lives and careers, and it’s vital for all of us to consider and engage with those different models.2)      Balance our goals: A Colloquium session on the canon and students, which featured BU Professors Hunt Howell and Ross Barrettand Plymouth State Professor Diane Hotten-Somers, included a great deal of relevant information for all of us who teach and work in AmericanStudies and higher ed. But I found particularly interesting a recurring thread that has a great deal to say to all AmericanStudiers, both as teachers and in our scholarly work: the need to balance between more specialized (or “boutique,” as we called it in this conversation) goals and topics and more widespread and shared (or “canonical,” ditto) ones. Without eliding all the issues with and around the canon, it’s worth noting that at least partly that concept has to do with what we all (ideally) share—what authors and books, what histories and themes, what conversations. And so it seems to me, as it did in our conversation I believe, that an ideal goal for our teaching, scholarship, and careers is to keep working for a balance of the specialized and the shared, the boutique and the canon.3)      Join NEASA!: Or organizations and efforts like it, at least. Another main topic of my CV clinics is always the need to find and build service, which really forms the third leg of academia (and tenure and promotion) alongside teaching and research, but which is often far less emphasized at any level of training or in our conversations about these questions. Service can mean many different things, but certainly membership, leadership, and work in organizations like NEASA (or the Cross-Sector Partnership) represents one great way to build the service part of our CV and experiences—and to connect to so many amazing colleagues, conferences and colloquiums, and conversations and communities along the way. If you’re in the New England area and interested in being part of NEASA, feel free to contact me or our current President Gretchen Sinnett. And wherever you are, join conversations and communities like this if you get the chance!Special post this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Advice you’d give to grad students or others on the market?

October 1, 2015: AMST Colloquiums: The Digital Turn

[This past weekend, we held the fifth annual New England American StudiesAssociation (NEASA) Colloquium. So this week I’ll share some responses to each of the five colloquia to date, leading up to a special weekend post on AmericanStudies in 2015!]On two impressive kinds of digital humanities work shared at the 2014 Colloquium, and one more I’d add into that mix.1)      A Career in DH: Salem State University’s Professor Roopika Risam, one of the founders of the Postcolonial Digital Humanities site and a DH pioneer in every sense, spoke at the colloquium about the challenges and opportunities of a career in the Digital Humanities. Along with Northeastern University’s Ryan Cordell (who shared similar perspectives at the Fall 2012 NEASA Conference in Providence) and others, Roopika exemplifies the possibilities of the Digital Humanities on every academic level—in teaching and advising undergraduate and graduate students, in preparing future educators and strengthening current ones, in producing scholarly work, in building community, and more. 2)      A Model DH Project: Dartmouth University’s Professor Ivy Schweitzer spoke at the colloquium on a hugely impressive DH project, the digital edition The Occom Circle, a website on the life and work of 18thcentury Mohegan writer and activist Samson Occom. Ivy has worked on the project for more than three years, with support from the NEH and Dartmouth as well as student and faculty collaborators. But make no mistake, this project has been Ivy’s at every step, and represents a true labor of love (as well as skill and knowledge and research and a very worthy and significant subject). Like the DH projects on which my Dad Stephen Railton has worked for years and continues to work today, Ivy’s Circle models both the work required to create such a DH project and the immense payoffs (for everyone) of putting in that work.3)      Pre-Conference Blogging: In a much smaller and more communal way, I tried for a few years to help bring a digital component to NEASA, and particularly to its annual conference. That component took the form of a pre-conference blog, a space in which conference presenters, participants, and all other interested parties could share and discuss their upcoming talks and panels, as well as all related ideas and questions. I’m not sure if the blog will continue—and NEASA has begun to expand to social media in other important ways in any case—but I would certainly make the case for such digital elements to conferences; I believe that the three conferences for which we ran the pre-conference blog, as well as NEASA overall, were enriched by these digital conversations and communities.Last follow up tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Digital projects (AMST or otherwise) you’d highlight?

September 30, 2015: AMST Colloquiums: Defining the Field

[This past weekend, we held the fifth annual New England American StudiesAssociation (NEASA) Colloquium. So this week I’ll share some responses to each of the five colloquia to date, leading up to a special weekend post on AmericanStudies in 2015!]On three big questions we raised at 2013’s third annual NEASA Colloquium. In that linked follow up post, I highlighted three interconnected, defining questions about AmericanStudies as a field and discipline around which we structured the 2013 conversations. That post requested input from all my fellow AmericanStudiers out there, and got one extended, really rich comment, from University of Maine Augusta Professor Sarah Hentges. But I’d love to get more perspectives and voices in the mix, so here I’ll ask brief and (I hope) invitingly broad versions of the three questions, and request (nay, implore) that you share your answers, whether here in comments or by emailing them to me. Thanks in advance!1)      Teaching AMST: If you teach AmericanStudies (at any level and in any way), what does that mean? How do you teach it? What do you include? What do you hope your students will learn or do or take away from the experience? What is AmericanStudies at the classroom and program level?2)      AMST Scholarship: If you consider yourself or your scholarship as part of or related to AmericanStudies, why? What is AmericanStudies scholarship, and how does it compare and contrast with other fields such as History, English, and Cultural Studies? What does it mean for a project or piece to be doing AmericanStudies work?3)      Selling AMST: None of us (well, nearly none of us) like to feel as if we have to sell the work we do, as educators, scholars, or in any facet of our careers. But as we talked about a good deal in 2013, we have to do just that—and the situation certainly hasn’t improved in the two plus years since. So how do we make the case for AmericanStudies, do you think? How do we argue for courses, departments and programs, minors and majors, funding and grants, and other kinds of support for this discipline?Inquiring AmericanStudiers want to know! Next follow up tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? How would you answer any or all of these questions?