Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 351
June 4, 2014
June 4, 2014: AmericanStudies Beach Reads: Personals
[For the last couple years I’ve featured a summertime series on some AmericanStudies books you can pack along with the sunscreen and cold beverages. As summer approaches, it feels right to share some more beach reads—please share your own favorite or future summer page-turners for a weekend post we can all bring with us to the shore or the pool!]
On the poems that are as witty and page-turning as they are biting and potent.I’ve written in this space on a couple different occasions about my friend and colleague Ian Williams: this early post on his challenging and inspiring work teaching poetry to prison inmates; and this brief post highlighting a particularly striking poem from his first published collection, You Know Who You Are (2010). Over the last few years, Ian’s writing and career have taken giant steps into our collective literary and cultural conversations: his first book of short stories, Not Anyone’s Anything (2011), won Canada’s prestigious Danuta Gleed Award; and his most recent poetry collection, Personals (2012), has been shortlisted for numerous awards, including one of Canada’s most prominent literary prizes, the Griffin Poetry Prize.Any one of Ian’s books would make for fine accompaniment in your summertime travels, but I’m going to focus here on that newest and most accomplished work, Personals . My guess is that a lot of you would never consider a book of poems to be beach reading, and I can’t say that I blame you—much of the time, poetry is dense and demanding, something we read multiple times with a pen (not a drink) in hand and a frown (not the sun) on our face. I don’t want to speak for him, but it seems to me that one of Ian’s central ongoing goals is to push back on such images of poetry, to create instead poems that are witty and playful and engaging, works that do not lose any of the depth or complexity we associate with the genre but that at the same time don’t feel like homework to read.He’s certainly done so in Personals, which is as fun to read as any poetry I’ve encountered since I first discovered e e cummings. But let me be clear—the voices, identities, and relationships Ian captures in Personals are emotionally and psychologically resonant and evocative, hitting us close to home and making us examine our own lives through the lens of these. Take the poem “Rings,” which Ian read as part of the Griffin Prize ceremony: in a series of one-line vignettes, Ian gradually captures numerous permutations on the things that keep us or drive us apart, the problems that plague our relationships and our perspectives, the excuses we make and the stories we tell. The poem made me laugh, made me cringe, and made me stop and think, all within a few stanzas—and it and its peers would make your beachgoing a lot more poetic this summer.Next beach read tomorrow,BenPS. What would you recommend for a good beach read? What are you hoping to get to by the pool this summer?
On the poems that are as witty and page-turning as they are biting and potent.I’ve written in this space on a couple different occasions about my friend and colleague Ian Williams: this early post on his challenging and inspiring work teaching poetry to prison inmates; and this brief post highlighting a particularly striking poem from his first published collection, You Know Who You Are (2010). Over the last few years, Ian’s writing and career have taken giant steps into our collective literary and cultural conversations: his first book of short stories, Not Anyone’s Anything (2011), won Canada’s prestigious Danuta Gleed Award; and his most recent poetry collection, Personals (2012), has been shortlisted for numerous awards, including one of Canada’s most prominent literary prizes, the Griffin Poetry Prize.Any one of Ian’s books would make for fine accompaniment in your summertime travels, but I’m going to focus here on that newest and most accomplished work, Personals . My guess is that a lot of you would never consider a book of poems to be beach reading, and I can’t say that I blame you—much of the time, poetry is dense and demanding, something we read multiple times with a pen (not a drink) in hand and a frown (not the sun) on our face. I don’t want to speak for him, but it seems to me that one of Ian’s central ongoing goals is to push back on such images of poetry, to create instead poems that are witty and playful and engaging, works that do not lose any of the depth or complexity we associate with the genre but that at the same time don’t feel like homework to read.He’s certainly done so in Personals, which is as fun to read as any poetry I’ve encountered since I first discovered e e cummings. But let me be clear—the voices, identities, and relationships Ian captures in Personals are emotionally and psychologically resonant and evocative, hitting us close to home and making us examine our own lives through the lens of these. Take the poem “Rings,” which Ian read as part of the Griffin Prize ceremony: in a series of one-line vignettes, Ian gradually captures numerous permutations on the things that keep us or drive us apart, the problems that plague our relationships and our perspectives, the excuses we make and the stories we tell. The poem made me laugh, made me cringe, and made me stop and think, all within a few stanzas—and it and its peers would make your beachgoing a lot more poetic this summer.Next beach read tomorrow,BenPS. What would you recommend for a good beach read? What are you hoping to get to by the pool this summer?
June 3, 2014
June 3, 2014: AmericanStudies Beach Reads: Spoiled
[For the last couple years I’ve featured a summertime series on some AmericanStudies books you can pack along with the sunscreen and cold beverages. As summer approaches, it feels right to share some more beach reads—please share your own favorite or future summer page-turners for a weekend post we can all bring with us to the shore or the pool!]
On the short stories that spoke to me despite myself.Great Beach Reads, like great art period, can often be found in the most surprising places. Last fall I taught my third Adult Learning in the Fitchburg Area (ALFA) class, this one focused on American women’s short stories (by both 19th century and contemporary writers). At the end of the five-week class, one of the students (a woman who has taken, and been a hugely valuable voice in, all three ALFA classes I’ve taught thus far) handed me a collection of short stories: Caitlin Macy’s Spoiled (2009). It turns out that Macy, also author of the novel The Fundamentals of Play (2001), is this student’s daughter; many of the short stories we had read dealt with parents and children, so for the student to give me a collection of stories by her own daughter was about as resonant a concluding moment as I can imagine.After such an introduction, of course I was going to read Macy’s collection; but I’ll admit that I didn’t initially do so with a sense that they were up my alley. The jacket blurb elaborates on the book’s title, describing the stories’ protagonists as “well-heeled thirtysomething women who despite their education and affluence struggle to keep their footing in their relationships with their friends, their parents, their spouses, and their children.” I try not to let my feelings on contemporary American issues of wealth and inequality get in the way of my enjoyment of literature, but it was hard not to feel as if the publication of such a book in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown was, let’s say, an unfortunate coincidence of timing. So I began reading Spoiled out of a sense of obligation, which (as I’m sure my students can attest) represents a significant challenge to the genuine enjoyment of a text.All of which I say to say this: I enjoyed the heck out of Spoiled, and, given all that baggage, that’s a very definite reflection on Macy’s talents. She utilizes the elements of great short story writing—complex, somewhat unreliable narration and character perspectives; structures that carry us along and lead to often surprising yet authentic conclusions; deftly drawn people and places, characters and settings—to wonderful effect, with nary an unsatisfying story in the bunch. Within a page or two of each story I had forgotten that I was reading about what one reviewer called “the impossibilities of privilege” and was simply immersed in her characters and worlds, her sharp observations of identities and relationships, her witty and compelling voices. It doesn’t matter whether you’d want to hang out with these characters if they were real; you most definitely will want to spend time with Macy’s fictional versions, and they’d keep you excellent company pool-side this summer.Next beach read tomorrow,BenPS. What would you recommend for a good beach read? What are you hoping to get to by the pool this summer?
On the short stories that spoke to me despite myself.Great Beach Reads, like great art period, can often be found in the most surprising places. Last fall I taught my third Adult Learning in the Fitchburg Area (ALFA) class, this one focused on American women’s short stories (by both 19th century and contemporary writers). At the end of the five-week class, one of the students (a woman who has taken, and been a hugely valuable voice in, all three ALFA classes I’ve taught thus far) handed me a collection of short stories: Caitlin Macy’s Spoiled (2009). It turns out that Macy, also author of the novel The Fundamentals of Play (2001), is this student’s daughter; many of the short stories we had read dealt with parents and children, so for the student to give me a collection of stories by her own daughter was about as resonant a concluding moment as I can imagine.After such an introduction, of course I was going to read Macy’s collection; but I’ll admit that I didn’t initially do so with a sense that they were up my alley. The jacket blurb elaborates on the book’s title, describing the stories’ protagonists as “well-heeled thirtysomething women who despite their education and affluence struggle to keep their footing in their relationships with their friends, their parents, their spouses, and their children.” I try not to let my feelings on contemporary American issues of wealth and inequality get in the way of my enjoyment of literature, but it was hard not to feel as if the publication of such a book in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown was, let’s say, an unfortunate coincidence of timing. So I began reading Spoiled out of a sense of obligation, which (as I’m sure my students can attest) represents a significant challenge to the genuine enjoyment of a text.All of which I say to say this: I enjoyed the heck out of Spoiled, and, given all that baggage, that’s a very definite reflection on Macy’s talents. She utilizes the elements of great short story writing—complex, somewhat unreliable narration and character perspectives; structures that carry us along and lead to often surprising yet authentic conclusions; deftly drawn people and places, characters and settings—to wonderful effect, with nary an unsatisfying story in the bunch. Within a page or two of each story I had forgotten that I was reading about what one reviewer called “the impossibilities of privilege” and was simply immersed in her characters and worlds, her sharp observations of identities and relationships, her witty and compelling voices. It doesn’t matter whether you’d want to hang out with these characters if they were real; you most definitely will want to spend time with Macy’s fictional versions, and they’d keep you excellent company pool-side this summer.Next beach read tomorrow,BenPS. What would you recommend for a good beach read? What are you hoping to get to by the pool this summer?
June 2, 2014
June 2, 2014: AmericanStudies Beach Reads: The Celestials
[For the last couple years I’ve featured a summertime series on some AmericanStudies books you can pack along with the sunscreen and cold beverages. As summer approaches, it feels right to share some more beach reads—please share your own favorite or future summer page-turners for a weekend post we can all bring with us to the shore or the pool!]
On the historical novel that manages to bridge the gap.As I mentioned in this book talk post, I had the chance to share a stage at the Museum of the Chinese in America last September with Karen Shepard, author of the wonderful historical novel The Celestials (2013). Shepard’s novel is one of the first to deal at length with 19th century Chinese American histories and experiences, and is even more unique in dealing with them in a New England/East Coast (rather than a California/West Coast) setting; as such it is important and well worth your time (on the beach or anywhere else) for its historical subject matter alone. But the book is also entirely engaging and successful as a work of fiction, and I would argue that it is particularly successful at combining two usually distinct sub-genres about which I have written previously: historical fiction and period fiction.I defined my version of those sub-genres at length in that linked post, and here will simply reiterate the most salient difference: historical fiction is fundamentally interested in the historical events and themes themselves, and creates characters and stories in relationship to them; whereas period fiction is more interested in creating characters and stories that embody universal human relationships, emotions, and experiences, set in this case against a historical backdrop. Despite my obvious preference for the former, I would emphasize that each sub-genre has value and potential power, and also that each is difficult to pull off successfully (if for different reasons). More difficult still is the task of cominbing the two sub-genres, of creating a historical novel that achieves both effects: engaging in depth with complex, specific historical themes while creating characters and stories that feel as if they could exist in our own era and communities.Difficult but not impossible—and in this AmericanStudier’s opinion, Karen Shepard has pulled off that combinatory feat in The Celestials. She noted in her MOCA talk that one of the characters with whom she had to take the most authorial liberties is her female protagonist, Julia Sampson; Sampson, wife of the Massachusetts factory owner who imported the group of Chinese immigrant laborers to serve as strike breakers, is the subject of very little historical information. Yet if Shepard’s Julia is heavily fictionalized, and certainly feels very accessible for a 21st century reader, I would at the same time argue that she is deeply connected to her own mid-19thcentury world; in her individual identity and perspective, and even more in her evolving relationship with one of the Chinese American arrivals, she helps us connect to the novel’s 1870 world deeply and engagingly. But don’t take my word for it—take The Celestials to the beach and find out for yourself!Next beach read tomorrow,BenPS. What would you recommend for a good beach read? What are you hoping to get to by the pool this summer?
On the historical novel that manages to bridge the gap.As I mentioned in this book talk post, I had the chance to share a stage at the Museum of the Chinese in America last September with Karen Shepard, author of the wonderful historical novel The Celestials (2013). Shepard’s novel is one of the first to deal at length with 19th century Chinese American histories and experiences, and is even more unique in dealing with them in a New England/East Coast (rather than a California/West Coast) setting; as such it is important and well worth your time (on the beach or anywhere else) for its historical subject matter alone. But the book is also entirely engaging and successful as a work of fiction, and I would argue that it is particularly successful at combining two usually distinct sub-genres about which I have written previously: historical fiction and period fiction.I defined my version of those sub-genres at length in that linked post, and here will simply reiterate the most salient difference: historical fiction is fundamentally interested in the historical events and themes themselves, and creates characters and stories in relationship to them; whereas period fiction is more interested in creating characters and stories that embody universal human relationships, emotions, and experiences, set in this case against a historical backdrop. Despite my obvious preference for the former, I would emphasize that each sub-genre has value and potential power, and also that each is difficult to pull off successfully (if for different reasons). More difficult still is the task of cominbing the two sub-genres, of creating a historical novel that achieves both effects: engaging in depth with complex, specific historical themes while creating characters and stories that feel as if they could exist in our own era and communities.Difficult but not impossible—and in this AmericanStudier’s opinion, Karen Shepard has pulled off that combinatory feat in The Celestials. She noted in her MOCA talk that one of the characters with whom she had to take the most authorial liberties is her female protagonist, Julia Sampson; Sampson, wife of the Massachusetts factory owner who imported the group of Chinese immigrant laborers to serve as strike breakers, is the subject of very little historical information. Yet if Shepard’s Julia is heavily fictionalized, and certainly feels very accessible for a 21st century reader, I would at the same time argue that she is deeply connected to her own mid-19thcentury world; in her individual identity and perspective, and even more in her evolving relationship with one of the Chinese American arrivals, she helps us connect to the novel’s 1870 world deeply and engagingly. But don’t take my word for it—take The Celestials to the beach and find out for yourself!Next beach read tomorrow,BenPS. What would you recommend for a good beach read? What are you hoping to get to by the pool this summer?
May 31, 2014
May 31-June 1, 2014: May 2014 Recap
[A recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]
May 5: NeMLA Follow Ups: Reading American Rivers: A series reflecting on the 2014 NeMLA conference begins with the three impressive young scholars who comprised my panel on American rivers.May 6: NeMLA Follow Ups: The 21st Century Composition Classroom: The series continues with two distinct but complementary visions for how we can bring the classics into our courses.May 7: NeMLA Follow Ups: Roundtable on Contingent Faculty: Three meaningful ways we can move forward on a crucial issue, as the series rolls on.May 8: NeMLA Follow Ups: More Inspiring Voices: On three additional, compelling and inspiring panels I attended at the conference.May 9: NeMLA Follow Ups: George Saunders: The series concludes with the funny and inspiring reading by one of our most talented contemporary writers.May 10-11: NeMLA Follow Ups: What’s Next: Following up the week’s relfections with a few of the ways in which you can contribute to NeMLA in the months and years to come.May 12: Spring 2014 Recaps: 21st Century Writing: A series of reflections on the Spring semester opens with a few exemplary papers from my wonderful Writing II course.May 13: Spring 2014 Recaps: The Post-War Novel: The series continues with two provocative questions raised by the great students in my senior-level seminar.May 14: Spring 2014 Recaps: Sci Fi/Fantasy: A few ways to parse the definitions of and differences between two imaginative genres, as the series rolls on.May 15: Spring 2014 Recaps: American Lit: On my evolving thoughts on the balance between my voice and those of my students in a survey course.May 16: Spring 2014 Recaps: Three Presentations: The series concludes with takeaways from three of my spring talks and presentations.May 17-18: Summer 2014 Preview: A follow up to the week’s series, on one of my summer research plans and how you can help with and contribute to it.May 19: AmericanStudying Harvard Movies: With Honors: A series on cultural images of Harvard and higher ed starts with a film that embodies a particularly stereotypical view of the institution.May 20: AmericanStudying Harvard Movies: Good Will Hunting: The series continues with the film that relies on but also challenges some of our hoariest clichés about Harvard.May 21: AmericanStudying Harvard Movies: The Social Network: On success, rejection, and the role of social communities in our lives, as the series rolls on.May 22: AmericanStudying Harvard Movies: Love Story: On fantasy images of love and college, and a tradition that passes them on to each generation of Harvard students.May 23: AmericanStudying Harvard Movies: How High: The series concludes with the lowbrow stoner comedy that nonetheless both extends and complicates prior images of Harvard.May 24-25: Crowd-sourced Images of College: Fellow AmericanStudiers share some images of higher ed that stand out to them—add yours in comments, please!May 26: Memory and Memorials: A series inspired by Memorial Day begins with my annual post on the holiday’s histories and meanings.May 27: Remembering William Dawes: The series continues with how and why we could better remember Paul Revere’s fellow midnight rider.May 28: Remembering Benedict Arnold: Reiterating and yet complicating the memories of our most famous traitor, as the series rolls on.May 29: Remembering the Battle of New Orleans: On a few important reasons to remember one of our least significant military victories.May 30: Remembering Lee and Longstreet: The series concludes with the general we remember, the one we don’t, and the stakes in shifting that balance.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Topics you’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to write? Share ‘em in comments, please!
May 5: NeMLA Follow Ups: Reading American Rivers: A series reflecting on the 2014 NeMLA conference begins with the three impressive young scholars who comprised my panel on American rivers.May 6: NeMLA Follow Ups: The 21st Century Composition Classroom: The series continues with two distinct but complementary visions for how we can bring the classics into our courses.May 7: NeMLA Follow Ups: Roundtable on Contingent Faculty: Three meaningful ways we can move forward on a crucial issue, as the series rolls on.May 8: NeMLA Follow Ups: More Inspiring Voices: On three additional, compelling and inspiring panels I attended at the conference.May 9: NeMLA Follow Ups: George Saunders: The series concludes with the funny and inspiring reading by one of our most talented contemporary writers.May 10-11: NeMLA Follow Ups: What’s Next: Following up the week’s relfections with a few of the ways in which you can contribute to NeMLA in the months and years to come.May 12: Spring 2014 Recaps: 21st Century Writing: A series of reflections on the Spring semester opens with a few exemplary papers from my wonderful Writing II course.May 13: Spring 2014 Recaps: The Post-War Novel: The series continues with two provocative questions raised by the great students in my senior-level seminar.May 14: Spring 2014 Recaps: Sci Fi/Fantasy: A few ways to parse the definitions of and differences between two imaginative genres, as the series rolls on.May 15: Spring 2014 Recaps: American Lit: On my evolving thoughts on the balance between my voice and those of my students in a survey course.May 16: Spring 2014 Recaps: Three Presentations: The series concludes with takeaways from three of my spring talks and presentations.May 17-18: Summer 2014 Preview: A follow up to the week’s series, on one of my summer research plans and how you can help with and contribute to it.May 19: AmericanStudying Harvard Movies: With Honors: A series on cultural images of Harvard and higher ed starts with a film that embodies a particularly stereotypical view of the institution.May 20: AmericanStudying Harvard Movies: Good Will Hunting: The series continues with the film that relies on but also challenges some of our hoariest clichés about Harvard.May 21: AmericanStudying Harvard Movies: The Social Network: On success, rejection, and the role of social communities in our lives, as the series rolls on.May 22: AmericanStudying Harvard Movies: Love Story: On fantasy images of love and college, and a tradition that passes them on to each generation of Harvard students.May 23: AmericanStudying Harvard Movies: How High: The series concludes with the lowbrow stoner comedy that nonetheless both extends and complicates prior images of Harvard.May 24-25: Crowd-sourced Images of College: Fellow AmericanStudiers share some images of higher ed that stand out to them—add yours in comments, please!May 26: Memory and Memorials: A series inspired by Memorial Day begins with my annual post on the holiday’s histories and meanings.May 27: Remembering William Dawes: The series continues with how and why we could better remember Paul Revere’s fellow midnight rider.May 28: Remembering Benedict Arnold: Reiterating and yet complicating the memories of our most famous traitor, as the series rolls on.May 29: Remembering the Battle of New Orleans: On a few important reasons to remember one of our least significant military victories.May 30: Remembering Lee and Longstreet: The series concludes with the general we remember, the one we don’t, and the stakes in shifting that balance.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Topics you’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to write? Share ‘em in comments, please!
May 30, 2014
May 30, 2014: Remembering Lee and Longstreet
[This is the fifth and final entry in a series of Memorial Day-inspired posts. Checkout my similar2012 seriesfor more!]
On the Civil War general we idolize—and the other one we should.This blog might make it seem as if I’m immune to the processes of buying into simplifying narratives, of forgetting or ignoring certain complexities and realities in favor of more black and white or appealing histories and stories, that I spend a lot of time writing about here. Well, I’m here today to tell you that the truth is quite the opposite—in many if not most of these cases, I’m aware of the power of the existing narratives precisely because they’ve significantly influenced me in one way or another, and my attempts to push back against them, to highlight the events and figures and texts and stories that they elide or subsume, are thus for my own continuing benefit at least as much as they are for any and all audiences who might find and read this blog. And for no topic does that apply nearly as fully as it does for today’s starting point, the deification of Robert E. Lee.I grew up in a town that—like many in the South I’m sure—had a park and statue honoring Lee, so maybe my childhood affection for the General began with simple osmosis. But as I started to become a hard-core Civil War buff in my own right, that affection only grew—partly because the guy just plain knew how to win battles (especially compared to those morons and buffoons who led the Union Army right up until Grant; if you can feel any affection for McClellan, you’re a better buff than I), but also because of that sense of a thoughtful and sensitive and impressive personality and character existing alongside the tactical genius. This was the man who, the story goes, in looking over the aftermath of Fredericksburg, a Confederate victory but also one of the bloodier battles in which he participated, famously remarked that “it is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it.” And even as I got older and more cognizant of the evils for which the Confederacy stood (and the more subtle but perhaps even more evil forces that had contributed greatly to commemorations of the Confederacy and its leaders after the War), I still for many years fully endorsed the narrative of Lee as a reluctant Confederate, one who disagreed with the cause and hated fighting against his old West Point comrades but who couldn’t turn his back on the Virginia that was his home and homeland in every sense.There’s some truth to that narrative, without question. But as I researched (for a couple chapters in my dissertation/first book) the late 19th century rise of a Southern version of both the Civil War and American history more generally (what came to be known in part as the Lost Cause narrative and in part as the plantation tradition), I began to learn about just how much that rise coincided with the deification of Lee, with Southern mythmakers figuring out how to frame the man to make him not only palatable for national audiences, but in fact a hero who could help the nation elide the slavery and race-related sides to the Civil War almost entirely. And at the same time, I learned much more about one of Lee’s fellow Confederate generals (and in many ways his second-in-command), James Longstreet, a man whose political and social perspectives and opinions underwent dramatic transformations in the post-bellum years, leading him to embrace not only Reconstruction and the Republican Party of Lincoln but also equal rights for African Americans. All of those changes, along with Longstreet’s explicit criticisms of Lee in conversations and speeches and then published writings during this period, made him an easy target for the Lost Cause chroniclers, a figure whose demonization could parallel Lee’s deification very fully and successfully. And I’ll be the first to admit that the two processes worked, even 100 years after the fact; young devotee of everything Civil War-related that I was, I knew and liked a lot about Lee, and thought of Longstreet mostly as the guy whose mistakes greatly contributed to the Confederacy’s turning-point loss at Gettysburg.The identities and lives of both men don’t, of course, fit any more perfectly into a flipped hierarchy than they did into the Lost Cause’s one. Lee was indeed thoughtful and did have his issues with secession, although he was also (among other flaws) deeply elitist about class and status; Longstreet was clearly a prickly and difficult person in many ways, although he was also (among other strengths) one of the most well-read and intelligent American military leaders of any era. So the main lesson here is, as always, that we need to look back into the histories and texts and identities ourselves, rather than accepting the narratives that have been created and recreated for so long; and the parallel lesson here is, very clearly I hope, just how much that process impacts and continues for me as well.May Recap tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?
On the Civil War general we idolize—and the other one we should.This blog might make it seem as if I’m immune to the processes of buying into simplifying narratives, of forgetting or ignoring certain complexities and realities in favor of more black and white or appealing histories and stories, that I spend a lot of time writing about here. Well, I’m here today to tell you that the truth is quite the opposite—in many if not most of these cases, I’m aware of the power of the existing narratives precisely because they’ve significantly influenced me in one way or another, and my attempts to push back against them, to highlight the events and figures and texts and stories that they elide or subsume, are thus for my own continuing benefit at least as much as they are for any and all audiences who might find and read this blog. And for no topic does that apply nearly as fully as it does for today’s starting point, the deification of Robert E. Lee.I grew up in a town that—like many in the South I’m sure—had a park and statue honoring Lee, so maybe my childhood affection for the General began with simple osmosis. But as I started to become a hard-core Civil War buff in my own right, that affection only grew—partly because the guy just plain knew how to win battles (especially compared to those morons and buffoons who led the Union Army right up until Grant; if you can feel any affection for McClellan, you’re a better buff than I), but also because of that sense of a thoughtful and sensitive and impressive personality and character existing alongside the tactical genius. This was the man who, the story goes, in looking over the aftermath of Fredericksburg, a Confederate victory but also one of the bloodier battles in which he participated, famously remarked that “it is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it.” And even as I got older and more cognizant of the evils for which the Confederacy stood (and the more subtle but perhaps even more evil forces that had contributed greatly to commemorations of the Confederacy and its leaders after the War), I still for many years fully endorsed the narrative of Lee as a reluctant Confederate, one who disagreed with the cause and hated fighting against his old West Point comrades but who couldn’t turn his back on the Virginia that was his home and homeland in every sense.There’s some truth to that narrative, without question. But as I researched (for a couple chapters in my dissertation/first book) the late 19th century rise of a Southern version of both the Civil War and American history more generally (what came to be known in part as the Lost Cause narrative and in part as the plantation tradition), I began to learn about just how much that rise coincided with the deification of Lee, with Southern mythmakers figuring out how to frame the man to make him not only palatable for national audiences, but in fact a hero who could help the nation elide the slavery and race-related sides to the Civil War almost entirely. And at the same time, I learned much more about one of Lee’s fellow Confederate generals (and in many ways his second-in-command), James Longstreet, a man whose political and social perspectives and opinions underwent dramatic transformations in the post-bellum years, leading him to embrace not only Reconstruction and the Republican Party of Lincoln but also equal rights for African Americans. All of those changes, along with Longstreet’s explicit criticisms of Lee in conversations and speeches and then published writings during this period, made him an easy target for the Lost Cause chroniclers, a figure whose demonization could parallel Lee’s deification very fully and successfully. And I’ll be the first to admit that the two processes worked, even 100 years after the fact; young devotee of everything Civil War-related that I was, I knew and liked a lot about Lee, and thought of Longstreet mostly as the guy whose mistakes greatly contributed to the Confederacy’s turning-point loss at Gettysburg.The identities and lives of both men don’t, of course, fit any more perfectly into a flipped hierarchy than they did into the Lost Cause’s one. Lee was indeed thoughtful and did have his issues with secession, although he was also (among other flaws) deeply elitist about class and status; Longstreet was clearly a prickly and difficult person in many ways, although he was also (among other strengths) one of the most well-read and intelligent American military leaders of any era. So the main lesson here is, as always, that we need to look back into the histories and texts and identities ourselves, rather than accepting the narratives that have been created and recreated for so long; and the parallel lesson here is, very clearly I hope, just how much that process impacts and continues for me as well.May Recap tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014: Remembering the Battle of New Orleans
[This is the fourth in a series of Memorial Day-inspired posts. Checkout my similar2012 seriesfor more!]
On three striking sides to one of America’s most insignificant victories.The first thing that stands out about the January 1815 Battle of New Orleans is that it was entirely unnecessary. Not in the “War: what is it good for?” sense, but quite literally unnecessary: the War of 1812 had been ended by the Treaty of Ghent in December 1814, but the various signatories were still in the process of ratifying the treaty and word had not reached the British troops who were trying to take the city and with it the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory. So the attack continued, the American troops led by Major General Andrew Jackson fought back, and the U.S. won its clearest military victory of the war after that conflict had officially ceased.If the victory was thus officially meaningless, however, the composition of those American forces was far more significant. I’ve written elsewhere in this space about the uniquely multicultural, -national, and –lingual identify of New Orleans, and the army fighting to protect the city reflected that identity very fully: the relatively small force (it numbered around 8000, noticeably fewer than the British forces) included French Creole troops from New Orleans (some commanded by the former pirate Jean Lafitte), both free African American residents of the city (colloquially known as fmcs, “free men of color”) and slaves who had been freed specifically to aid in the battle, and Choctaw Native Americans, among other communities.Moreover, one particular such community is even more striking and unremembered in our national narratives. Since the mid-18thcentury, a group of Filipino immigrants had settled in a Louisiana town known as Manila Village, comprising what seems likely to be the oldest (and certainly the most enduring) Asian American community. Men from the village joined Lafitte’s forces for the battle, helping to create the truly multicultural fighting unit known as the “Batarians.” It’s difficult for me to overstate how much would change in our understanding of American history and community if we acknowledged at all, much less engaged at length with, this fact: that in one of our earliest military efforts, our forces included French Creole and Filipino Americans, fighting side by side to defend the city and nation that were and remain their home.The week’s final remembering tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?
On three striking sides to one of America’s most insignificant victories.The first thing that stands out about the January 1815 Battle of New Orleans is that it was entirely unnecessary. Not in the “War: what is it good for?” sense, but quite literally unnecessary: the War of 1812 had been ended by the Treaty of Ghent in December 1814, but the various signatories were still in the process of ratifying the treaty and word had not reached the British troops who were trying to take the city and with it the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory. So the attack continued, the American troops led by Major General Andrew Jackson fought back, and the U.S. won its clearest military victory of the war after that conflict had officially ceased.If the victory was thus officially meaningless, however, the composition of those American forces was far more significant. I’ve written elsewhere in this space about the uniquely multicultural, -national, and –lingual identify of New Orleans, and the army fighting to protect the city reflected that identity very fully: the relatively small force (it numbered around 8000, noticeably fewer than the British forces) included French Creole troops from New Orleans (some commanded by the former pirate Jean Lafitte), both free African American residents of the city (colloquially known as fmcs, “free men of color”) and slaves who had been freed specifically to aid in the battle, and Choctaw Native Americans, among other communities.Moreover, one particular such community is even more striking and unremembered in our national narratives. Since the mid-18thcentury, a group of Filipino immigrants had settled in a Louisiana town known as Manila Village, comprising what seems likely to be the oldest (and certainly the most enduring) Asian American community. Men from the village joined Lafitte’s forces for the battle, helping to create the truly multicultural fighting unit known as the “Batarians.” It’s difficult for me to overstate how much would change in our understanding of American history and community if we acknowledged at all, much less engaged at length with, this fact: that in one of our earliest military efforts, our forces included French Creole and Filipino Americans, fighting side by side to defend the city and nation that were and remain their home.The week’s final remembering tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014: Remembering Benedict Arnold
[This is the third in a series of Memorial Day-inspired posts. Checkout my similar2012 seriesfor more!]
On the benefits and the limitations to remembering our most infamous traitor the way we do.I’m not going to argue that we shouldn’t remember Benedict Arnold as one of our first, and one of our most enduring, national traitors, because, well, he was. Compared to the contested and still controversial treason accusations leveled at his contemporary Aaron Burr, Arnold’s traitorous acts were far more overt and undisputed—when Major Andre was caught and Arnold’s plan to hand over the fort at West Point to British forces discovered, Arnold immediately went over to the British side and helped lead their war effort for the war’s remaining two years; after the Revolution he settled in England and lived out his remaining two decades of life in that adopted homeland.So Arnold was a traitor to the Revolutionary army and cause, and remembering him as such is certainly accurate to the specific histories and events. Doing so is also beneficial on a broader level, as it forces us to recognize the Founding Fathers and their iconic Revolutionary peers as no less human and flawed than any other leaders or people. Arnold was one of the Revolution’s first war heroes, playing a decisive role in the early victory at Saratoga and other conflicts; yet just two short years later, politics and preferences within the Continental Army, coupled with financial difficulties (perhaps due to lending money to the Continental Army, which would be a textbook definition of irony), led Arnold to cast his lot with the same forces he had helped defeat at Saratoga. Yet there’s at least one significant downside to remembering Arnold as a traitor, or more exactly to the collective blind spot that such memories reveal. After all, the most simple yet most commonly ignored fact of the Revolution is this: it represented an act of treason against the colonists’ Royal government, and each and every American involved in it was thus a traitor. (There was a reason why Ben Franklin worried, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, about everyone hanging separately if they did not hang together.) Awareness of that fact might not change our collective perspective on the Revolution and its leaders—but might it not at least shift our understanding of the loyalists, of those who sided (lawfully) with England during the war? As a soldier who sold out his comrades, Arnold was of course something more than just a loyalist—but the point here is that treason, during the Revolution, was a loaded and complex concept however we look at it.Next remembering tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?
On the benefits and the limitations to remembering our most infamous traitor the way we do.I’m not going to argue that we shouldn’t remember Benedict Arnold as one of our first, and one of our most enduring, national traitors, because, well, he was. Compared to the contested and still controversial treason accusations leveled at his contemporary Aaron Burr, Arnold’s traitorous acts were far more overt and undisputed—when Major Andre was caught and Arnold’s plan to hand over the fort at West Point to British forces discovered, Arnold immediately went over to the British side and helped lead their war effort for the war’s remaining two years; after the Revolution he settled in England and lived out his remaining two decades of life in that adopted homeland.So Arnold was a traitor to the Revolutionary army and cause, and remembering him as such is certainly accurate to the specific histories and events. Doing so is also beneficial on a broader level, as it forces us to recognize the Founding Fathers and their iconic Revolutionary peers as no less human and flawed than any other leaders or people. Arnold was one of the Revolution’s first war heroes, playing a decisive role in the early victory at Saratoga and other conflicts; yet just two short years later, politics and preferences within the Continental Army, coupled with financial difficulties (perhaps due to lending money to the Continental Army, which would be a textbook definition of irony), led Arnold to cast his lot with the same forces he had helped defeat at Saratoga. Yet there’s at least one significant downside to remembering Arnold as a traitor, or more exactly to the collective blind spot that such memories reveal. After all, the most simple yet most commonly ignored fact of the Revolution is this: it represented an act of treason against the colonists’ Royal government, and each and every American involved in it was thus a traitor. (There was a reason why Ben Franklin worried, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, about everyone hanging separately if they did not hang together.) Awareness of that fact might not change our collective perspective on the Revolution and its leaders—but might it not at least shift our understanding of the loyalists, of those who sided (lawfully) with England during the war? As a soldier who sold out his comrades, Arnold was of course something more than just a loyalist—but the point here is that treason, during the Revolution, was a loaded and complex concept however we look at it.Next remembering tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014: Remembering William Dawes
[This is the second in a series of Memorial Day-inspired posts. Checkout my similar2012 seriesfor more!]
On the vagaries of collective memory, and whether they matter.Is it just as simple as the need for rhymes? That’s long been the predominant theory for why Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote his poetic ballad about “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”instead of Revere’s fellow rider William Dawes. There seems to be some truth to that, but it’s also true that by 1860, when Longfellow composed his poem, Revere was already significantly better remembered in our Revolutionary histories than Dawes. Longfellow’s easily memorized bit of verse certainly cemented that status and permanently relegated Dawes to a distant second fiddle; but somehow, Revere seems to have been the front-runner from the very first lighting of those lanterns.Whatever the timeline and reasons, clearly our collective memories feature Paul Revere far more fully than they do William Dawes. But does it matter? After all, few American actions have been as much about shaping the present, impacting the immediate moment and its vital needs, as the two men’s rides—had they not succeeded in warning the colonists of the Redcoats’ imminent arrival, it’s entirely possible that there would be no America, or at least that its Revolution would have gotten off to a significantly different and less victorious start. Which is to say, what William Dawes did in his life echoes in eternityprecisely as much as does Revere’s ride, and no disparity in memory can change that shared influence.And yet. Obviously I believe that remembering our histories with more accuracy and complexity matters, and Dawes presents a case in point. For one thing, I’d say it’s pretty significant that the midnight ride was a joint endeavor—we love our rugged individuals here in America, but so much of the time it really takes a village, or at least a couple of guys coordinating their efforts, to get the job done. And for another thing, better remembering Dawes would help us to recognize how constructed and over-simplified and mythic our national narratives tend to be—which might be fine for a ballad about a larger-than-life hero, but is woefully inadequate when it comes to the dynamic messiness that is history. It might be a lot harder to fit “The midnight rides of Paul Revere and William Dawes” into a rhyme scheme and rhythm, that is, but we most definitely need to fit them into our collective memories.Next remembering tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?
On the vagaries of collective memory, and whether they matter.Is it just as simple as the need for rhymes? That’s long been the predominant theory for why Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote his poetic ballad about “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”instead of Revere’s fellow rider William Dawes. There seems to be some truth to that, but it’s also true that by 1860, when Longfellow composed his poem, Revere was already significantly better remembered in our Revolutionary histories than Dawes. Longfellow’s easily memorized bit of verse certainly cemented that status and permanently relegated Dawes to a distant second fiddle; but somehow, Revere seems to have been the front-runner from the very first lighting of those lanterns.Whatever the timeline and reasons, clearly our collective memories feature Paul Revere far more fully than they do William Dawes. But does it matter? After all, few American actions have been as much about shaping the present, impacting the immediate moment and its vital needs, as the two men’s rides—had they not succeeded in warning the colonists of the Redcoats’ imminent arrival, it’s entirely possible that there would be no America, or at least that its Revolution would have gotten off to a significantly different and less victorious start. Which is to say, what William Dawes did in his life echoes in eternityprecisely as much as does Revere’s ride, and no disparity in memory can change that shared influence.And yet. Obviously I believe that remembering our histories with more accuracy and complexity matters, and Dawes presents a case in point. For one thing, I’d say it’s pretty significant that the midnight ride was a joint endeavor—we love our rugged individuals here in America, but so much of the time it really takes a village, or at least a couple of guys coordinating their efforts, to get the job done. And for another thing, better remembering Dawes would help us to recognize how constructed and over-simplified and mythic our national narratives tend to be—which might be fine for a ballad about a larger-than-life hero, but is woefully inadequate when it comes to the dynamic messiness that is history. It might be a lot harder to fit “The midnight rides of Paul Revere and William Dawes” into a rhyme scheme and rhythm, that is, but we most definitely need to fit them into our collective memories.Next remembering tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014: Memory and Memorials
[This special post is the first of a series inspired by Memorial Day. Checkout my similar2012 seriesfor more!]
On what we don’t remember about Memorial Day, and why we should.In a long-ago post on the Statue of Liberty, I made a case for remembering, and engaging much more fully, with what the Statue was originally intended, by its French abolitionist creator, to symbolize: the legacy of slavery and abolitionism in both America and France, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the memories of what he had done to advance that cause, and so on. I tried there, hopefully with some success, to leave ample room for what the Statue has come to mean, both for America as a whole and, more significantly still, for generation upon generation of immigrant arrivals to the nation: I think those meanings, especially when tied to Emma Lazarus’ poem and its radically democratic and inclusive vision of our national identity, are beautiful and important in their own right. But how much more profound and meaningful, if certainly more complicated, would they be if they were linked to our nation’s own troubled but also inspiring histories of slavery and abolitionism, of sectional strife and Civil War, of racial divisions and those who have worked for centuries to transcend and bridge them?I would say almost exactly the same thing when it comes to the history of Memorial Day. For the last century or so, at least since the end of World War I, the holiday has meant something broadly national and communal, an opportunity to remember and celebrate those Americans who have given their lives as members of our armed forces. While I certainly feel that some of the narratives associated with that idea are as simplifying and mythologizing and meaningless as many others I’ve analyzed here—“they died for our freedom” chief among them; the world would be a vastly different, and almost certainly less free, place had the Axis powers won World War II (for example), but I have yet to hear any convincing case that the world would be even the slightest bit worse off were it not for the quarter of a million American troops who lives were wasted in the Vietnam War (for another)—those narratives are much more about politics and propaganda, and don’t change at all the absolutely real and tragic and profound meaning of service and loss for those who have done so and all those who know and love them. One of the most pitch-perfect statements of my position on such losses can be found in a song by (surprisingly) Bruce Springsteen; his “Gypsy Biker,” from Magic (2007), certainly includes a strident critique of the Bush Administration and Iraq War, as seen in lines like “To those who threw you away / You ain’t nothing but gone,” but mostly reflects a brother’s and family’s range of emotions and responses to the death of a young soldier in that war.Yet as with the Statue, Memorial Day’s original meanings and narratives are significantly different from, and would add a great deal of complexity and power to, these contemporary images. The holiday was first known as Decoration Day, and was (at least per the thorough histories of it by scholars like David Blight) originated in 1865 by a group of freed slaves in Charleston, South Carolina; the slaves visited a cemetery for Union soldiers on May 1st of that year and decorated their graves, a quiet but very sincere tribute to what those soldiers have given and what it had meant to the lives of these freedmen and –women. The holiday quickly spread to many other communities, and just as quickly came to focus more on the less potentially divisive, or at least less complex as reminders of slavery and division and the ongoing controversies of Reconstruction and so on, perspectives of former soldiers—first fellow Union ones, but by the 1870s veterans from both sides. Yet former slaves continued to honor the holiday in their own way, as evidenced by a powerful scene from Constance Fenimore Woolson’s “Rodman the Keeper” (1880), in which the protagonist observes a group of ex-slaves leaving their decorations on the graves of the Union dead at the cemetery where he works. On the one hand, these ex-slave memorials are parallel to the family memories that now dominate Memorial Day, and serve as a beautiful reminder that the American family extends to blood relations of very different and perhaps even more genuine kinds. But on the other hand, the ex-slave memorials represent far more complex and in many ways (I believe) significant American stories and perspectives than a simple familial memory; these acts were a continuing acknowledgment both of some of our darkest moments and of the ways in which we had, at great but necessary cost, defeated them.Again, I’m not trying to suggest that any current aspects or celebrations of Memorial Day are anything other than genuine and powerful; having heard some eloquent words about what my Granddad’s experiences with his fellow soldiers had meant to him (he even commandeered an abandoned bunker and hand-wrote a history of the Company after the war!), I share those perspectives. But as with the Statue and with so many of our national histories, what we’ve forgotten is just as genuine and powerful, and a lot more telling about who we’ve been and thus who and where we are. The more we can remember those histories too, the more complex and meaningful our holidays, our celebrations, our memories, and our futures will be. Next Memorial Day post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?
On what we don’t remember about Memorial Day, and why we should.In a long-ago post on the Statue of Liberty, I made a case for remembering, and engaging much more fully, with what the Statue was originally intended, by its French abolitionist creator, to symbolize: the legacy of slavery and abolitionism in both America and France, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the memories of what he had done to advance that cause, and so on. I tried there, hopefully with some success, to leave ample room for what the Statue has come to mean, both for America as a whole and, more significantly still, for generation upon generation of immigrant arrivals to the nation: I think those meanings, especially when tied to Emma Lazarus’ poem and its radically democratic and inclusive vision of our national identity, are beautiful and important in their own right. But how much more profound and meaningful, if certainly more complicated, would they be if they were linked to our nation’s own troubled but also inspiring histories of slavery and abolitionism, of sectional strife and Civil War, of racial divisions and those who have worked for centuries to transcend and bridge them?I would say almost exactly the same thing when it comes to the history of Memorial Day. For the last century or so, at least since the end of World War I, the holiday has meant something broadly national and communal, an opportunity to remember and celebrate those Americans who have given their lives as members of our armed forces. While I certainly feel that some of the narratives associated with that idea are as simplifying and mythologizing and meaningless as many others I’ve analyzed here—“they died for our freedom” chief among them; the world would be a vastly different, and almost certainly less free, place had the Axis powers won World War II (for example), but I have yet to hear any convincing case that the world would be even the slightest bit worse off were it not for the quarter of a million American troops who lives were wasted in the Vietnam War (for another)—those narratives are much more about politics and propaganda, and don’t change at all the absolutely real and tragic and profound meaning of service and loss for those who have done so and all those who know and love them. One of the most pitch-perfect statements of my position on such losses can be found in a song by (surprisingly) Bruce Springsteen; his “Gypsy Biker,” from Magic (2007), certainly includes a strident critique of the Bush Administration and Iraq War, as seen in lines like “To those who threw you away / You ain’t nothing but gone,” but mostly reflects a brother’s and family’s range of emotions and responses to the death of a young soldier in that war.Yet as with the Statue, Memorial Day’s original meanings and narratives are significantly different from, and would add a great deal of complexity and power to, these contemporary images. The holiday was first known as Decoration Day, and was (at least per the thorough histories of it by scholars like David Blight) originated in 1865 by a group of freed slaves in Charleston, South Carolina; the slaves visited a cemetery for Union soldiers on May 1st of that year and decorated their graves, a quiet but very sincere tribute to what those soldiers have given and what it had meant to the lives of these freedmen and –women. The holiday quickly spread to many other communities, and just as quickly came to focus more on the less potentially divisive, or at least less complex as reminders of slavery and division and the ongoing controversies of Reconstruction and so on, perspectives of former soldiers—first fellow Union ones, but by the 1870s veterans from both sides. Yet former slaves continued to honor the holiday in their own way, as evidenced by a powerful scene from Constance Fenimore Woolson’s “Rodman the Keeper” (1880), in which the protagonist observes a group of ex-slaves leaving their decorations on the graves of the Union dead at the cemetery where he works. On the one hand, these ex-slave memorials are parallel to the family memories that now dominate Memorial Day, and serve as a beautiful reminder that the American family extends to blood relations of very different and perhaps even more genuine kinds. But on the other hand, the ex-slave memorials represent far more complex and in many ways (I believe) significant American stories and perspectives than a simple familial memory; these acts were a continuing acknowledgment both of some of our darkest moments and of the ways in which we had, at great but necessary cost, defeated them.Again, I’m not trying to suggest that any current aspects or celebrations of Memorial Day are anything other than genuine and powerful; having heard some eloquent words about what my Granddad’s experiences with his fellow soldiers had meant to him (he even commandeered an abandoned bunker and hand-wrote a history of the Company after the war!), I share those perspectives. But as with the Statue and with so many of our national histories, what we’ve forgotten is just as genuine and powerful, and a lot more telling about who we’ve been and thus who and where we are. The more we can remember those histories too, the more complex and meaningful our holidays, our celebrations, our memories, and our futures will be. Next Memorial Day post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?
May 24, 2014
May 24-25, 2014: Crowd-sourced Images of College
[My alma mater has seen more than its fair share of cultural representations, including a number of film portrayals of the university. Those films have a lot to tell us, not only about images of Harvard but also about educational, social, and cultural issues through that lens. So this week I’ve AmericanStudied five such Harvard Movies and their meanings. This crowd-sourced post is drawn from the ideas of a couple fellow AmericanStudiers about cultural images of higher ed—share yours in comments, please!]
My colleague Frank Mabee highlights Richard Russo’s funny and pointed academic novel Straight Man (1997).Irene Martyniuk shares a trio of films from the past few decades that offer their own versions of the real world vs. college dynamic I highlighted in Monday’s With Honors post: Animal House (1978), Back to School (1986), and Old School (2003), the last of which comes with the motto, “All the fun of college. None of the education.”Memorial Day series starts Monday,BenPS. What do you think? Other images of higher ed you’d highlight?
My colleague Frank Mabee highlights Richard Russo’s funny and pointed academic novel Straight Man (1997).Irene Martyniuk shares a trio of films from the past few decades that offer their own versions of the real world vs. college dynamic I highlighted in Monday’s With Honors post: Animal House (1978), Back to School (1986), and Old School (2003), the last of which comes with the motto, “All the fun of college. None of the education.”Memorial Day series starts Monday,BenPS. What do you think? Other images of higher ed you’d highlight?
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