Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 312

September 7, 2015: AmericanStudying 9/11: Allies in Afghanistan

[Even—perhaps especially—recent, painful, and controversial events and topics demand our AmericanStudying. So this week, I’ll offer a handful of ways to AmericanStudy September 11th, 2001, and its contexts and aftermaths, leading up to a special memorial post this weekend.]On how two 80s films force us to confront uncomfortable histories.
There are lots of reasons why many 1980s films are difficult for a contemporary audience to watch and take seriously, but for two late 80s action films, there’s one specific, shared element that would produce a great deal of discomfort in a 2015 American audience. Timothy Dalton’s first James Bond film, 1987’s The Living Daylights (a personal favorite of mine, for lots of reasons not germane to this blog post), and Sylvester Stallone’s third Rambo film, the aptly titled (and much less effective, at least for anyone not a 10 year-old boy) Rambo III , both feature extended sequences set in Afghanistan, plotlines in which our heroic protagonists join forces with the Mujahideen, the Afghan resistance to the invading Soviet forces. The logic of these alliances is obvious enough—not only are the Mujahideen opposing the Evil Empire, the superpower against which both Rambo’s US and Bond’s British are thoroughly allied, but they’re also the plucky underdogs, freedom fighters taking out tanks and helicopters with rocks and cleverness, the Minutemen and the Redcoats all over again.
Thanks in significant measure to the Mujahideen’s efforts—and in these filmic universes to Bond’s and Rambo’s contributions as well, of course—the Soviets were indeed repulsed, withdrawing all troops from the country in 1989 (a debacle that contributed without question, in both financial and public relations terms, to the Soviet bloc’s collapse over the following couple of years). The problem for a contemporary American audience is what happened next: the Mujahideen morphed very directly into the Taliban and al-Qaeda, extremely conservative Muslim radicals and terrorists with CIA training and funding, American and Western European weaponry, and a healthy grudge against all foreign invaders (a category that would almost immediately be redefined to include American troops stationed in Arabic nations, such as Saudi Arabia, during and after the 1991 Gulf War). That the US helped create or at least refine and weaponize Osama Bin Laden and his cohort does not, of course, absolve those individuals of the responsibility for their decades of brutal attacks, mostly on innocent civilians and much of the time within the Muslim world; neither, to cite an explicit parallel, does the Reagan and Bush Sr. Administrations’ decade of support of Saddam Hussein in his conflicts with Iran and the Kurds (there’s a particularly telling picture of Reagan envoy Donald Rumsfeld shaking Hussein’s hand in 1983, during a time in which US intelligence knew Hussein was using chemical weapons on the Kurds) make Hussein any less of a brutal and evil dictator.
And yet, can we tell the stories of Bin Laden and 9/11, of Hussein and the two Iraq Wars, stories that each have ended in at least partial US triumph with the captures and deaths of both men, without including these significantly more complicated earlier histories? Or, more exactly, in telling the stories without the histories, as we have most certainly largely done over the last decade and a half, what kind of harm are we doing not only to the complexities of our historical and international role and presence, but also to our understanding of the far from static nature of good and evil in the world, of for whose victories we’re cheering as opposed to in whose deaths we find justice and how much those categories can change over time and with other shifts? These questions are quite literally exhibit A in the thinking I’m continuing to do about these American issues, not only because they’re so salient and present but also precisely because they’re so controversial –by far the easier kind of patriotism is just a celebratory one, the chants of “USA” on the White House lawn and at Ground Zero; and yet the harder and more meaningful kind of patriotism remains one that celebrates justice while recognizing the interconnected injustices to which we have contributed.
Again, this isn’t an either-or; admitting and engaging with the injustices does not in any way excuse or mitigate Bin Laden’s horrific and evil deeds, nor minimize the importance of bringing him to justice for them. But at the end of the day, Bin Laden himself is entirely insignificant compared to the questions of how we understand and engage with our own identities and histories; and on that score, we’ve got lots more work to do. Next AmericanStudying tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? 9/11 contexts and analyses you’d share?

September 5-6, 2015: Resources for Teaching

[As another Fall semester kicks off, this week I’ve offered a series of preview posts, focusing on new things I’ll be trying this semester. Leading up to this special weekend post!]This past May, to pay forward a bit the incredible honor of receiving FSU’s Vincent J. Mara Excellence in Teaching Award, I wrote a post highlighting some of the many inspiring teachers I’ve known and learned from in my fortunate life. For this special post, I wanted to complement that one by highlighting a handful of resources from which I’ve learned a ton about and for teaching:1)      FSU’s Center for Teaching and Learning: Founded by my colleague and friend Sean Goodlett, and now co-directed by my colleagues and friends Kisha Tracy and Kate Jewell, the CTL has been a vital resource for my teaching throughout my decade at FSU. Its list of resources has just as much to offer educators far from Fitchburg and at many different institutions and levels, I’d argue. Check it out!2)      Rice’s Center for Teaching Excellence: In this post, part of my weeklong series of follow ups to the De Lange Conference, I said most everything I’d want to say about the exemplary, amazing institution that is the Rice CTE. So I’ll cut this entry short so you can explore the CTE’s site and resources—you won’t be disappointed!3)      Online Resources for Teaching American Literature: That could be a very long list, of course, but here I’ll highlight three, two of which I know well and one of which I look forward to exploring: the online journal Teaching American Literature , in which I’ve been fortunate enough to publish two articles and which is always worth reading; my father Stephen Railton’s many wonderful digital projects, including his latest, Digital Yoknapatawpha ; and the under construction Pegagogy & American Literary Studies blog, which promises to add a great deal to the conversation. 4)      Individual Colleagues: I’d say I’ve learned something from everyone alongside whom I’ve been fortunate enough to teach over the years, starting with my Temple officemate Jeff Renye; that’s certainly been true of my FSU English colleagues as well. Here I’ll highlight three: Heather Urbanski, who is always innovating in every sense; Steve Edwards, who brings out his students’ voices and perspectives as well as anyone I know; and the aforementioned Kisha Tracy, who makes her classes as fun and engaging as they are rigorous and productive.5)      This Space for You: I could go on, but I really want to encourage you to share resources of your own! So consider this an even stronger than usual invitation to contribute your own ideas, thoughts, experiences, and perspectives—in comments or by email. Thanks!Next series starts Monday,BenPS. So what do you think? Resources you’d highlight? Fall plans you’d share? Bring ‘em on!

September 4, 2015: Fall 2015 Previews: Adult Learning

[As another Fall semester kicks off, a series of preview posts—this time focusing on new things I’ll be trying this semester. Leading up to a special pedagogy post this weekend!]On how you can help me plan my next Adult Learning course!Later this fall, I’ll have the chance to teach my fifth Adult Learning in the Fitchburg Area (ALFA) course. Whether they’ve been contributing immeasurably to my third book or challenging my pedagogical perspective, each of my prior four ALFA courses has been a pinnacle teaching and professional experience. And I don’t expect this one, which will focus on short stories (or excerpts from longer works) by very new/young American writers, to be any different.But one thing is definitely different about this ALFA class: I’m not sure what authors and texts to include! The topic for this course was a request from ALFA’s students and curriculum committee, and I was happy to oblige. I certainly have a few ideas about contemporary writers I might include, but I also feel that many of my initial thoughts are of writers who have in fact been working for some time now (Junot Díaz, George Saunders, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie). And for this course I’m really hoping, again, to highlight very new/young writers, folks who are just emerging onto our literary and cultural landscape and with whose works the ALFA students and I can engage for the first time together. So rather than allow myself to be limited by the horizons of my own knowledge, I’m doing one of the things I (hope I) do best: crowd-sourcing! So if you have thoughts on new, emerging writers I might include, I’d love to hear them! They don’t have to have written short stories—while the readings for an ALFA course are indeed generally short, I could (and have in the past) excerpt longer works just as easily as provide complete shorter ones. So any and all suggestions and nominations very welcome and much appreciated!Pedagogy post this weekend,BenPS. So suggestions and nominations for this course very welcome!

September 3, 2015: Fall 2015 Previews: Interdisciplinary Studies Capstone

[As another Fall semester kicks off, a series of preview posts—this time focusing on new things I’ll be trying this semester. Leading up to a special pedagogy post this weekend!]Three reasons I’m very excited to be teaching our IDIS Capstone for the first time.1)      The Senior Projects: I’ve had the chance over the years to serve as the advisor for a number of individual such projects, in which our IDIS majors combine three distinct disciplines into one culminating effort. To cite two examples: a student combined English, Psychology, and Human Services/Counseling to create a novella about domestic abuse; another combined English, Art, and Communications/Media to create the opening pages of a graphic novel about King Arthur. These projects exemplify interdisciplinarity and undergraduate achievement, and in this Capstone course I’ll have the chance to work for the first time with a group of students as they design, research, and produce their senior projects. Can’t wait!2)      Applying Interdisciplinarity: Alongside their work on those individual projects, the course also features a shared topic and group of readings and materials. For my version, I plan to modify and adapt my summer graduate course on Analyzing 21st Century America, asking the students to use a variety of texts, media, and disciplinary perspectives to analyze such topics as #BlackLivesMatter, satire and humor in American culture, controversies and debates in sports, and the role of the media and popular culture in our unfolding presidential election. I hope that these collective conversations will inform the students’ individual projects, but in any case I know that they will produce valuable insights on our 21st century moment and culture, and on what interdisciplinary thinking offers us as members of that society. Can’t wait!3)      I’m Me!: I don’t imagine that readers of this blog will need much convincing that I’m very much about interdisciplinarity. But long before I began blogging, that concept and skill has informed nearly every academic decision and goal of mine: from choosing to major in History and Literature to working to create an American Studies program at Fitchburg State, to name only two of the nearly limitless examples of this emphasis. I also work to bring interdisciplinarity into every class I teach. But at the same time, the IDIS Capstone will be the first course I’ve taught where interdisciplinary research and writing, reading and analysis, thinking and scholarship will comprise the most central elements and goals. So I say once more, with feeling, can’t wait!Last preview tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Things you’re hoping to try or do this fall?

September 2, 2015: Fall 2015 Previews: First-Year Writing I

[As another Fall semester kicks off, a series of preview posts—this time focusing on new things I’ll be trying this semester. Leading up to a special pedagogy post this weekend!]On two ways to bring the digital to a traditional writing classroom.For the Spring 2014 semester, I created an entirely new syllabus for my First-Year Writing II course, one focused on Analyzing 21st Century America. As you would expect, that course focused significantly on digital topics and elements: from units on social media and analyzing movies and TV shows watched online to near-constant conversations about online identities, communities, communication, and more. Yet at the same time, partly by design but mostly because there’s only so much overhauling one can do of one’s pedagogy in any given moment, I kept my assignment types and their semester-long scaffolding much closer to what I had employed in my prior Writing II courses, and much more traditional (in the sense of the pre-digital composition classroom, that is) than were the syllabus and its units, readings, and conversations.This fall, for my next section of First-Year Writing I, I’m trying a complicated experiment—not overhauling the syllabus I’ve used successfully for many years and sections, yet still both bringing one of my favorite aspects of that digital Writing II into this one and (I hope) improving on that course’s one less innovative element. For the former, I’m going to try to use digital resources to provide students with many more options for our units and readings than has been the case in prior sections. For example, we start with a unit on personal essays (reading and then writing/analyzing them), and I’ve always used a handful of examples from the Seagull Reader: Essays anthology. I’ve still ordered that book and will have us read and discuss some of those example essays, to give us a shared group of core texts; but I will also highlight pieces of personal writing on blogs and tumblrs and other websites, as well as examples in other media (such as YouTube channels and Ted talks). Each of those forms and genres comes with its own specific elements and choices, of course—but there’s no reason why we can’t discuss and analyze each of them, and why I can’t give students the choice of with which ones they most want to work.That final point comprises the way I’m hoping to improve on my digital-centric Writing II course: by offering students creative assignment options that similarly utilize the digital. That is, if a student wants to create his or her Assignment 1 personal essay as a tumblr post, or a YouTube video, or in some other digital or multimedia form, it seems to me that I should be encouraging rather than limiting such a range of choices; and that the students can then apply their analytical skills and writing to that work with equal rigor and depth in any case. I don’t think a First-Year Writing course can or should forego analytical, academic writing in its more traditional forms, but as with the creative survey assignments about which I wrote in Monday’s post, I don’t think it’s either-or: that, indeed, allowing for a greater range of creative assignment options and responses can help students develop their analytical skills alongside and in conjunction with their unique voices and skills. I have no idea what the results of this hypothesis will be in the Writing I experiment on which I’m about to embark—but I’m excited to find out, and, as always, will keep you posted!Next preview tomorrow,Ben                                       PS. What do you think? Things you’re hoping to try or do this fall?

September 1, 2015: Fall 2015 Previews: Honors Lit

[As another Fall semester kicks off, a series of preview posts—this time focusing on new things I’ll be trying this semester. Leading up to a special pedagogy post this weekend!]On the challenge and excitement of bringing an old favorite to a new audience.As I mentioned in my fall preview post back in May, this semester I get to teach a couple new courses: the Interdisciplinary Studies Capstone (on which more in Thursday’s post); and the Honors Literature Seminar. I’ve had the chance over the years to teach and advise a number of wonderful students from our FSU Honors Program (formerly known as the Leadership Academy), and because I sat for a year on the Honors Curriculum Committee and my colleague and friend Joe Moser is the program’s new director, I’ve certainly also heard and thought a lot about its curriculum, goals, and identity. But this will be my first chance to teach our department’s contribution to the Honors Curriculum, the required Literature Seminar that Honors students take as part of their general education courses; and I’ve decided for this first Honors Seminar to go with one of my oldest academic friends and the subject of my dissertation and first book: America in the Gilded Age.Make no mistake, I’m well aware that this topic and time period won’t be easy to sell and connect to a community of students born in the mid to late 1990s (a century after the Gilded Age’s conclusion, that is). Moreover, because this is a literature seminar and one geared for Honors students to boot, I’ve gone ahead and chosen five demanding and challenging texts as our main reads: Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona , Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’s The Story of Avis , Stephen Crane’s Maggie , Charles Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition, and Sui Sin Far’s Mrs. Spring Fragrance . I love all five of these books and believe they are well worth our time and energy; but none of them are particularly accessible for modern audiences, and four of the five (all but Crane’s novella) are in the 400+ page range. For a community of students that quite frankly doesn’t always have the time to do the reading (and those issues of jobs, families, obligations, busy lives won’t go away with Honors students), I know that this group of texts is going to present a semester-long challenge.While such challenges can be their own reward, that’s not why I’ve made these text and course decisions. One reason, ironically but definitely, is timeliness: the issues covered by these texts and the units they’ll help introduce (Mexican and Native American histories, women’s rights and experiences, poverty and work, race and oppression, and immigration, respectively) remain just as central to our own era as they were in the Gilded Age; whether you believe we’re in a new Gilded Age or not, there’s no doubt that the earlier period and ours have a great deal in common. At the same time, reading such texts and analyzing the Gilded Age isn’t just about referencing our contemporary moment—it’s also, and most importantly, about understanding this complex, crucial historical and cultural and literary moment on its own terms. Indeed, we can’t possibly consider what the Gilded Age has to offer for 21st century America unless and until we do the work to analyze that era—and I’m very excited to spend a semester doing that work with some of FSU’s best students!Next preview tomorrow,                                                     BenPS. What do you think? Things you’re hoping to try or do this fall?

August 31, 2015: Fall 2015 Previews: American Lit I

[As another Fall semester kicks off, a series of preview posts—this time focusing on new things I’ll be trying this semester. Leading up to a special pedagogy post this weekend!]On how getting creative can help both students and professor keep things fresh.The first-half American literature survey was one of the classes I taught in my first semester at Fitchburg State University, and while I’ve significantly revised my syllabi for the other ones—First-Year Writing I (on which more in Wednesday’s post) and Ethnic American Literature (about which I’ve written many times)—in the decade since, I’ve kept the American Lit I syllabus almost identical since that initial Fall 2005 iteration. I promise that that’s due not to laziness but rather to success: I have found that American Lit I is consistently one of the courses in which I feel that my students do the best work, develop their voices and ideas most successfully, respond most positively to the readings and conversations, and so I’ve never wanted to reinvent a wheel that seems to be rolling very smoothly just for the sake of reinvention.At the same time, there’s a danger in keeping any syllabus too static, especially one with which I’ve taught for ten years (and at least 15 sections). And while that danger is partly for the students—who, I firmly believe, can sense when a professor is not engaging with the material as much in the present moment as we ask them to do, and who understandably might respond by giving less of themselves to that course as well—it’s even more there, I would argue, for the professor. We’ve likely all had that teacher who seemed to be lecturing from the same yellowed notes he or she had used many times before, for whom this particular section and semester was literally no different from many others that had come before. Since my classes are capped at 30 students and thus operate almost entirely as discussions (rather than lectures), and since I do all my own reading and grading of student work, it’d be impossible for me not to engage with this new group of students—but nonetheless, it’s just as important for me to engage anew with the material in front of us, rather than relying on my prior experiences or perspectives.More and more, I’ve come to believe that offering creative options for student assignments and writing represents one vital way to keep things fresh. Again, that’s partly for my own sake: reading 30 compare and contrast essays is far more compelling when even a portion of those essays take the creative option and create (and then analyze) a dialogue between their two authors (to name one example of a creative option I’m considering for this semester’s Am Lit I). But it’s most definitely for the students’ sakes as well: my most successful Am Lit paper has always been the first, in which I ask the students first to imitate a chosen passage and then to use that imitation to develop their close reading of that passage; and I’ve come to realize that there’s no reason why I shouldn’t offer similarly creative options for the course’s later two assignments, and lots of reasons why I should. I don’t think I’ll require the creative work in papers 2 and 3—not everyone benefits from or prefers that option—but I plan to offer it as an option in each case, and hope and believe a number of students will take me up on that offer. I’ll keep you posted on the results!Next preview tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Things you’re hoping to try or do this fall?

August 29-30, 2015: August 2015 Recap

[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]August 3: Virginia Connections: Slavery at Monticello App: My annual Old Dominion series kicks off with a new app that exemplifies how technology and public history can work together.August 4: Virginia Connections: UVa’s African American Cemetery: The series continues with the memorial cemetery that makes a significant but partial contribution to our collective memories.August 5: Virginia Connections: Confederate Memorials: Two obvious Confederate memorials in Charlottesville and one more subtle one, as the series rolls on.August 6: Virginia Connections: Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum: Three exemplary exhibits and pieces from the wonderful Colonial Williamsburg museum.August 7: Virginia Connections: Writing Deafness: The series concludes with a great recent scholarly book that contributes to many disciplines, including AmericanStudies.August 8-9: My Virginia: A special weekend post highlighting posts on the many people and communities that define my Virginia!August 10: Birthday Specials: 2011 Birthday Best: A birthday week series kicks off with 34 favorite posts from the first year on this blog!August 11: Birthday Specials: 2012 Birthday Best: 35 bday favorites from the blog’s second year, as the series rolls on!August 12: Birthday Specials: 2013 Birthday Best: The series continues with 36 bday favorites from the blog’s third year!August 13: Birthday Specials: 2014 Birthday Best: 37 bday favorites from the blog’s fourth year!August 14-16: Birthday Specials: 38 for 38: The birthday series concludes with 38 favorites from the last year on the blog!August 17: Cape Cod Stories: The Mashpee Revolt: A Cape Cod series starts with what’s challenging and complex about a historical rebellion, and what’s very clear.August 18: Cape Cod Stories: Thoreau and the Cape: The series continues with two complementary reasons to read Thoreau’s often-overlooked travel book.August 19: Cape Cod Stories: The National Seashore: Three telling spaces within the Cape’s beautiful natural wonder, as the series rolls on.August 20: Cape Cod Stories: Provincetown: Three revolutionary stages in the evolving, very American history and identity of the Cape community.August 21: Cape Cod Stories: The Changing Cape: The series concludes with what the Cape isn’t any more, what it is, and what it might be.August 22-23: Crowd-sourced Summer Getaways: One of my fuller recent crowd-sourced posts, featuring both Cape Cod responses and lots of other summer getaway ideas—add yours in comments!August 24: More Poems I Love: Larcom’s “Weaving”: A series on poems I love starts with Lucy Larcom’s unique, autobiographical, intersectional classic.August 25: More Poems I Love: Piatt’s “Pique”: The series continues with Sarah Piatt’s clever, conversational, complex poem about gender and relationships.August 26: More Poems I Love: Dunbar’s “Mask”: Paul Laurence Dunbar’s amazing poem about race, identity, community, and the lynching era, as the series rolls on.August 27: More Poems I Love: Espada’s “Perfection”: Why I love Martín Espada’s reflective, political, powerful poem on work and identity. August 28: More Poems I Love: Alexie’s “Exaggeration”: The series concludes with Sherman Alexie’s dark yet hopeful, and vital, poem.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Topics you’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to write? Lemme know!

August 28, 2015: More Poems I Love: Alexie’s “Exaggeration”

[A few years back, I shared a handful of my favorite American poems in a weeklong series. Before I go back to sharing poems for money—well, teaching them as part of my job, but you get the idea—I wanted to highlight another week’s worth of favorite poems and a couple reasons why I love each. Share your favorites in comments, please!]Today’s favorite poem is Sherman Alexie’s “The Exaggeration of Despair” (1996).I love “Exaggeration” because it reminds me, eternal optimist that I am, of the darkest histories of our nation, histories far too often visited upon Native Americans like the poem’s speaker and his family and community but ones that reach across all cultural and social spectra of our society. I love it because at the same time it embodies the need to “open the door,” to remember and narrate those histories and stories. And I love it because it does so with rawness and grace, with pain and power, with all that poetry can do and much that only it can. August Recap this weekend,BenPS. Thoughts on this poem? Other favorites you’d share?

August 27, 2015: More Poems I Love: Espada’s “Perfection”

[A few years back, I shared a handful of my favorite American poems in a weeklong series. Before I go back to sharing poems for money—well, teaching them as part of my job, but you get the idea—I wanted to highlight another week’s worth of favorite poems and a couple reasons why I love each. Share your favorites in comments, please!]Today favorite poem is Martín Espada’s “Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper” (1993).I love “Perfection” because it lays bare (literally as well as figuratively) the hidden labor that constructs and sustains our society, especially at its highest and most seemingly rarefied levels. I love it because it’s not a political treatise about those realities but a visceral engagement with them, through the lens of a single speaker’s journey, identity, and evolving perspective on himself and his worlds. And I love it because I’ve heard Espada read it, and can say (as proudly as possible) that I share the same public university system with this immensely talented poet.Last favorite tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts on this poem? Other favorites you’d share?