Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 356
April 7, 2014
April 7, 2014: New AmericanStudies Books: The Dream of the Great American Novel
[A couple weeks back, I had the chance to attend the 2014 Narrative conference at MIT. While there, I spent some time browsing the book tables, and realizing how many interesting new AmericanStudies works are constantly joining the conversation. So I thought I’d dedicate a series to highlighting a handful of the books I discovered there. Share your own new favorites (or classics!) for a bibliophiliac crowd-sourced weekend post, please!]
On a new book that aims really, inspiringly high.Over the last few decades, Americanist scholars have largely abandoned a goal that characterized much of the first half of the 20th century’s scholarly work: to come up with sweeping visions of our national literature, culture, history, identity. They’ve had good reason to do so, as such all-encompassing frames tended to be both highly selective (focusing only on texts, figures, histories that related to their particular lens) and reductive (smoothing out or at least minimizing many of the complexities in those focal points in service of the sweeping vision). But on the other hand, to say that such sweeping scholarship can’t do everything, and thus must be complemented by other kinds of scholarly work, is not necessarily to say that there isn’t still a place in our conversations for those kinds of broad takes—and as the author of a book titled Redefining American Identity , clearly I think that there is.Among the broad, previously prominent and even dominant ideas that have gone by the wayside over those same decades is the concept of the Great American Novel. The phrase certainly seems silly in our 21stcentury moment, not only because it has almost always been applied to works by white male writers (Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, and Fitzgerald chief among them), but also and more importantly because it envisions literary production as a zero-sum game rather than an accumulation, a competition for singular greatness rather than a conversation between multiple voices and works, an enduring definition of success rather than a contextualized, constantly evolving set of perspectives. But on the other hand, an AmericanStudier doesn’t have to believe in the existence or even the possibility of a single Great American Novel to be interested in the concept itself, in how it has developed and been debated over the centuries, in what it can tell us about ourselves and our ideas and ideals.And indeed, one of our foremost AmericanStudiers, Lawrence Buell, has in his most recent book used the concept in precisely that way. Buell’s The Dream of the Great American Novel (2014) is old-school Americanist scholarship in the best possible senses, hugely ambitious and sweeping and capacious; but it’s also nuanced and analytical, not only about the (ginormous roster of) authors and works it includes, but also about its own categories and ideas, its relationship to other voices in the conversation (full disclosure: I’m briefly quoted/cited in a section on Cable’s The Grandissimes). Which is to say, Buell’s book offers an impressive and inspiring model for bringing the best of what AmericanStudies has always been into our 21st century AmericanStudying future. May the same be said of all our work!Next new book tomorrow,BenPS. New (or classic) AmericanStudies books you’d highlight? Share for the weekend post!
On a new book that aims really, inspiringly high.Over the last few decades, Americanist scholars have largely abandoned a goal that characterized much of the first half of the 20th century’s scholarly work: to come up with sweeping visions of our national literature, culture, history, identity. They’ve had good reason to do so, as such all-encompassing frames tended to be both highly selective (focusing only on texts, figures, histories that related to their particular lens) and reductive (smoothing out or at least minimizing many of the complexities in those focal points in service of the sweeping vision). But on the other hand, to say that such sweeping scholarship can’t do everything, and thus must be complemented by other kinds of scholarly work, is not necessarily to say that there isn’t still a place in our conversations for those kinds of broad takes—and as the author of a book titled Redefining American Identity , clearly I think that there is.Among the broad, previously prominent and even dominant ideas that have gone by the wayside over those same decades is the concept of the Great American Novel. The phrase certainly seems silly in our 21stcentury moment, not only because it has almost always been applied to works by white male writers (Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, and Fitzgerald chief among them), but also and more importantly because it envisions literary production as a zero-sum game rather than an accumulation, a competition for singular greatness rather than a conversation between multiple voices and works, an enduring definition of success rather than a contextualized, constantly evolving set of perspectives. But on the other hand, an AmericanStudier doesn’t have to believe in the existence or even the possibility of a single Great American Novel to be interested in the concept itself, in how it has developed and been debated over the centuries, in what it can tell us about ourselves and our ideas and ideals.And indeed, one of our foremost AmericanStudiers, Lawrence Buell, has in his most recent book used the concept in precisely that way. Buell’s The Dream of the Great American Novel (2014) is old-school Americanist scholarship in the best possible senses, hugely ambitious and sweeping and capacious; but it’s also nuanced and analytical, not only about the (ginormous roster of) authors and works it includes, but also about its own categories and ideas, its relationship to other voices in the conversation (full disclosure: I’m briefly quoted/cited in a section on Cable’s The Grandissimes). Which is to say, Buell’s book offers an impressive and inspiring model for bringing the best of what AmericanStudies has always been into our 21st century AmericanStudying future. May the same be said of all our work!Next new book tomorrow,BenPS. New (or classic) AmericanStudies books you’d highlight? Share for the weekend post!
April 5, 2014
April 5-6, 2014: Link-tastic Baseball Stories
[With Spring Training underway, another series on AmericanStudyingour national pasttime. This year, I’ve highlighted individual baseball stories and thought about what broader American contexts they can help us analyze. In this link-tastic post, I’ll share a handful of the other writers who do the same—add your nominations and ideas in comments!]
Joe Posnanski—with whom I’ve had my issues, but who can connect incisive and beautiful writing about baseball stories to so many broader themes, as his current series on the sport’s 100 greatest players demonstrates in spades.19C Baseball—which offers wonderful stories, histories, and analyses of the sport’s origin points.Negro League Baseball Blog—which seems to have ceased posting new content in 2006, but which by then had amassed a wonderful collection of pieces and stories, all of which are still there for you to check out.Michael Thomas—who also doesn’t look to be writing his blog on the Red Sox (and much more) any more; but thanks again to the power of the intertubes, it’s still there, and well worth your time and reading.Rob Neyer—who was the first online baseball writer I followed, back in his ESPN days, and who remains a must-read for all fans.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Other writers you’d mention? Other baseball stories you’d share?
Joe Posnanski—with whom I’ve had my issues, but who can connect incisive and beautiful writing about baseball stories to so many broader themes, as his current series on the sport’s 100 greatest players demonstrates in spades.19C Baseball—which offers wonderful stories, histories, and analyses of the sport’s origin points.Negro League Baseball Blog—which seems to have ceased posting new content in 2006, but which by then had amassed a wonderful collection of pieces and stories, all of which are still there for you to check out.Michael Thomas—who also doesn’t look to be writing his blog on the Red Sox (and much more) any more; but thanks again to the power of the intertubes, it’s still there, and well worth your time and reading.Rob Neyer—who was the first online baseball writer I followed, back in his ESPN days, and who remains a must-read for all fans.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Other writers you’d mention? Other baseball stories you’d share?
April 4, 2014
April 4, 2014: Baseball Stories: Boston Strong
[With Opening Day upon us, another series on AmericanStudying our national pasttime. This year, I’ll be highlighting individual baseball stories and thinking about what broader American contexts they can help us analyze. And this weekend I’ll highlight some other great writers and works who do the same!]
On the communal roles, and limits, of sports in the aftermath of tragedy.It’s difficult (if not impossible) to argue with the idea that the 2013 Boston Red Sox became inextricably intertwined with the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. From David Ortiz’s F-bombheard ‘round the world to the Sports Illustrated cover celebrating the Sox’s run to a World Series championship, and in countless instances in between and since, the baseball season’s surprise team was connected to the year’s most striking tragedy. And, more exactly and more crucially, the team’s success was linked to the phrase that became ubiquitous after the Marathon and that was utiilized on that SI cover: Boston Strong. The phrase became so tied to the Sox that Fenway Park’s landscapers even began mowing it into the field itself during the playoffs.It would be at least as difficult to argue that such associations were or are problematic, or that the Sox didn’t play a communal role in helping Boston move forward after one of the worst days in the city’s history—and I don’t plan to try. Indeed, as someone who is profoundly interested in communal memories and narratives, and especially in how we deal with and move forward through our darkest histories, I found a great deal to admire in how Boston has done so in this case. There are of course no perfect answers for how we grapple with darkness, and there are flaws with any and all options, but it seems clear in this instance—as in other recent ones, such as in New York in the aftermath of 9/11—that sports had a meaningful role to play. After all, the Sox are Bostonians and citizens too, grappling (as Ortiz’s comments demonstrated) with the same questions and traumas; it’s easy to think of professional athletes as super-human, but situations like these tend to reveal our shared humanity, and there are few more significant revelations.If I were to analyze one limitation to what sports can do and offer in such circumstances, I would do so in direct relationship to my one issue with the Boston Strong phrase: its emphasis on entirely positive responses and stories, in explicit exclusion of other, more complex and dark ones. For example, it’s fair to say that the bombings—like any such event—inspired a host of negative emotions and responses, from fear and panic to bigotry and divisiveness. Admitting and engaging with those negatives wouldn’t in any way mean that we’d have to characterize the city or community through them—simply that we need to note that shared humanity includes some of our most painful or troubling as well as our best and most inspiring qualities. And while sports are good for many things, I don’t know that they can do much to help us engage with our darkest qualities—even if the Sox hadn’t won the championship, that is, the narrative of their season would have been an inspiring and uplifting one. Rightly so, perhaps; but there’s also a need for other stories and histories, ones that can’t be mowed onto the outfield grass but that are part of us nonetheless.Link-tastic post highlighting some other baseball writers this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Other baseball stories you’d highlight?
On the communal roles, and limits, of sports in the aftermath of tragedy.It’s difficult (if not impossible) to argue with the idea that the 2013 Boston Red Sox became inextricably intertwined with the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. From David Ortiz’s F-bombheard ‘round the world to the Sports Illustrated cover celebrating the Sox’s run to a World Series championship, and in countless instances in between and since, the baseball season’s surprise team was connected to the year’s most striking tragedy. And, more exactly and more crucially, the team’s success was linked to the phrase that became ubiquitous after the Marathon and that was utiilized on that SI cover: Boston Strong. The phrase became so tied to the Sox that Fenway Park’s landscapers even began mowing it into the field itself during the playoffs.It would be at least as difficult to argue that such associations were or are problematic, or that the Sox didn’t play a communal role in helping Boston move forward after one of the worst days in the city’s history—and I don’t plan to try. Indeed, as someone who is profoundly interested in communal memories and narratives, and especially in how we deal with and move forward through our darkest histories, I found a great deal to admire in how Boston has done so in this case. There are of course no perfect answers for how we grapple with darkness, and there are flaws with any and all options, but it seems clear in this instance—as in other recent ones, such as in New York in the aftermath of 9/11—that sports had a meaningful role to play. After all, the Sox are Bostonians and citizens too, grappling (as Ortiz’s comments demonstrated) with the same questions and traumas; it’s easy to think of professional athletes as super-human, but situations like these tend to reveal our shared humanity, and there are few more significant revelations.If I were to analyze one limitation to what sports can do and offer in such circumstances, I would do so in direct relationship to my one issue with the Boston Strong phrase: its emphasis on entirely positive responses and stories, in explicit exclusion of other, more complex and dark ones. For example, it’s fair to say that the bombings—like any such event—inspired a host of negative emotions and responses, from fear and panic to bigotry and divisiveness. Admitting and engaging with those negatives wouldn’t in any way mean that we’d have to characterize the city or community through them—simply that we need to note that shared humanity includes some of our most painful or troubling as well as our best and most inspiring qualities. And while sports are good for many things, I don’t know that they can do much to help us engage with our darkest qualities—even if the Sox hadn’t won the championship, that is, the narrative of their season would have been an inspiring and uplifting one. Rightly so, perhaps; but there’s also a need for other stories and histories, ones that can’t be mowed onto the outfield grass but that are part of us nonetheless.Link-tastic post highlighting some other baseball writers this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Other baseball stories you’d highlight?
April 3, 2014
April 3, 2014: Baseball Stories: South Street
[With Opening Day upon us, another series on AmericanStudying our national pasttime. This year, I’ll be highlighting individual baseball stories and thinking about what broader American contexts they can help us analyze. And this weekend I’ll highlight some other great writers and works who do the same!]
On pessimism, optimism, realism, and baseball.David Bradley’s debut novel South Street (1975) is many things, often at the same time: a tragicomic farce of urban life; a romance; a crime novel; a biting satire; a raucous celebration. It opens with one of the most well-executed set-pieces you’ll ever read, features numerous unique and memorable characters, portrays its slice of Philadelphia with hyperbole and yet (to my mind) authenticity, and made me laugh out loud on more than a few occasions while keeping me in genuine suspense about the resolution of its central plotlines. Which is to say, there are lots of very good reasons to read this under-rated American novel, and lots of concurrent ways to AmericanStudy it. But among them is the unique and telling use to which it puts the Philadelphia Phillies games that serve as a near-constant backdrop in the South Street bar that’s the novel’s central setting.
On one level, the baseball games are literally and figuratively another of the novel’s jokes—the Phillies are always losing, and every new arrival to the bar simply inquires by how much they happen to be losing on this particular night. On the one night when they’re actually, miraculously ahead, the heavens refuse to cooperate, the game gets rained out, and the prospective victory is lost. Yet if these perennial losers would seem to validate the characters’ (and novel’s) most cynical and pessimistic views of their world and future, there’s a complication: the bar owner, Leo, keeps turning the games on, optimistically insistent that this time might be different. That dance, between pessimism and optimism, no joy in Mudville and Mighty Casey’s eternal possibilities, “dem bums” and “there’s always next year!,” is at the heart of much sports fandom, it seems to me—and much of American history, culture, and identity besides.So does Bradley’s novel simply vacillate between the poles, just as it does between comedy and tragedy, humor and pathos, farce and slice of life? Not exactly, although it does make all those moves and more. I would also argue that in his portrayal of those hapless yet somehow still hopeful Phillies, Bradley has created a powerfully realistic image—not just of sports fandom, or of human nature, but of the African American community and its conflicted, contradictory, but sustained and crucial relationship to the nation. Ta-Nehisi Coates has written frequently and eloquently about the defining presence of racism and white supremacy in the American story, and how much such forces have made America a losing game for its African American citizens. Yet, undeniably and inspiringly, the vast majority of African Americans have long refused—and continue to refuse—to give in to the pessimism, have found ways to maintain an optimism about America and the future that is mirrored in Leo’s nightly return to the Phillies. There’s always next year, indeed. Last baseball story tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other baseball stories you’d highlight?
On pessimism, optimism, realism, and baseball.David Bradley’s debut novel South Street (1975) is many things, often at the same time: a tragicomic farce of urban life; a romance; a crime novel; a biting satire; a raucous celebration. It opens with one of the most well-executed set-pieces you’ll ever read, features numerous unique and memorable characters, portrays its slice of Philadelphia with hyperbole and yet (to my mind) authenticity, and made me laugh out loud on more than a few occasions while keeping me in genuine suspense about the resolution of its central plotlines. Which is to say, there are lots of very good reasons to read this under-rated American novel, and lots of concurrent ways to AmericanStudy it. But among them is the unique and telling use to which it puts the Philadelphia Phillies games that serve as a near-constant backdrop in the South Street bar that’s the novel’s central setting.
On one level, the baseball games are literally and figuratively another of the novel’s jokes—the Phillies are always losing, and every new arrival to the bar simply inquires by how much they happen to be losing on this particular night. On the one night when they’re actually, miraculously ahead, the heavens refuse to cooperate, the game gets rained out, and the prospective victory is lost. Yet if these perennial losers would seem to validate the characters’ (and novel’s) most cynical and pessimistic views of their world and future, there’s a complication: the bar owner, Leo, keeps turning the games on, optimistically insistent that this time might be different. That dance, between pessimism and optimism, no joy in Mudville and Mighty Casey’s eternal possibilities, “dem bums” and “there’s always next year!,” is at the heart of much sports fandom, it seems to me—and much of American history, culture, and identity besides.So does Bradley’s novel simply vacillate between the poles, just as it does between comedy and tragedy, humor and pathos, farce and slice of life? Not exactly, although it does make all those moves and more. I would also argue that in his portrayal of those hapless yet somehow still hopeful Phillies, Bradley has created a powerfully realistic image—not just of sports fandom, or of human nature, but of the African American community and its conflicted, contradictory, but sustained and crucial relationship to the nation. Ta-Nehisi Coates has written frequently and eloquently about the defining presence of racism and white supremacy in the American story, and how much such forces have made America a losing game for its African American citizens. Yet, undeniably and inspiringly, the vast majority of African Americans have long refused—and continue to refuse—to give in to the pessimism, have found ways to maintain an optimism about America and the future that is mirrored in Leo’s nightly return to the Phillies. There’s always next year, indeed. Last baseball story tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other baseball stories you’d highlight?
April 2, 2014
April 2, 2014: Baseball Stories: Field of Dreams and The Brothers K
[With Opening Day upon us, another series on AmericanStudying our national pasttime. This year, I’ll be highlighting individual baseball stories and thinking about what broader American contexts they can help us analyze. And this weekend I’ll highlight some other great writers and works who do the same!]
On divisive decades and histories, and whether baseball can bring us together.I don’t know that the events and changes of the 1960s necessarily had to divide Americans so fully, or even that they did divide us quite as much as our narratives and histories usually suggest—but the fact that the narratives and histories emphasize the divisions as consistently and thoroughly as they do is itself a telling reminder of the decade’s divisiveness, in our memories if nothing else (and of course there were also many such divisions at the time without question). And while the divisions are often framed, in our 21st century narratives, as between liberals/progressives and conservatives, it seems to me that it would be just as accurate to describe the decade’s divisions (particularly in terms of cultural trends outside of specific social and political movements; things like, y’know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll) as between generations, and thus, much of the time, as between parents and children.It’s through precisely such parent-child divisions that two prominent late 20thcentury stories about baseball and the ‘60s portray the era. The (SPOILER) final reveal of the film Field of Dreams (1989) is that its corn-y catchphrase “If you build it, he will come” refers not to the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson, but instead to the equally spectral but far more intimate spirit of Ray’s (Kevin Costner) father, with whom Ray had had a 1960s-related falling out that had not been mended at the time of his father’s death. David James Duncan’s epic novel The Brothers K (1992) covers far more ground than Field of Dreams, including its titular homage to Dostoevsky, extended sections set in Canada, India, and Vietnam, and numerous other allusions and histories, but if I were to try to boil it down I would similarly focus on the book’s 1960s-produced divisions between the four Chance brothers and their parents (with dad Hugh a former star pitcher, and baseball thus figuring prominently into all the family members’ stories and relationships).The film and novel don’t just link the 60s to baseball, however—they make the case, quite overtly and passionately, that baseball can (and, if allowed, will) heal such familial and national divisions. James Earl Jones’ character in Field is particularly obvious in that regard—he begins the film as a formerly idealistic 60s-era writer who has since turned cynical and misanthropic, but who finds his youthful enthusiasm once more through Costner’s baseball field, leading to his famous speech about baseball’s enduring and ongoing unifying American presence and role. Duncan’s novel is more subtle, but in (for example) its framing device—two almost perfectly parallel and quite poignant scenes of fathers, sons, and baseball with which the novel opens and closes—it makes a very similar point to Jones’ speech. So are they right? Can baseball unite us all? Given that our 21stcentury divisions can tend to make those of the 1960s seem nonexistent by comparison, the question feels more pertinent than ever—and I’ll open it up to you, dear readers. What do you think?Next baseball story tomorrow,BenPS. So again, what do you think? Other baseball stories you’d highlight?
On divisive decades and histories, and whether baseball can bring us together.I don’t know that the events and changes of the 1960s necessarily had to divide Americans so fully, or even that they did divide us quite as much as our narratives and histories usually suggest—but the fact that the narratives and histories emphasize the divisions as consistently and thoroughly as they do is itself a telling reminder of the decade’s divisiveness, in our memories if nothing else (and of course there were also many such divisions at the time without question). And while the divisions are often framed, in our 21st century narratives, as between liberals/progressives and conservatives, it seems to me that it would be just as accurate to describe the decade’s divisions (particularly in terms of cultural trends outside of specific social and political movements; things like, y’know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll) as between generations, and thus, much of the time, as between parents and children.It’s through precisely such parent-child divisions that two prominent late 20thcentury stories about baseball and the ‘60s portray the era. The (SPOILER) final reveal of the film Field of Dreams (1989) is that its corn-y catchphrase “If you build it, he will come” refers not to the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson, but instead to the equally spectral but far more intimate spirit of Ray’s (Kevin Costner) father, with whom Ray had had a 1960s-related falling out that had not been mended at the time of his father’s death. David James Duncan’s epic novel The Brothers K (1992) covers far more ground than Field of Dreams, including its titular homage to Dostoevsky, extended sections set in Canada, India, and Vietnam, and numerous other allusions and histories, but if I were to try to boil it down I would similarly focus on the book’s 1960s-produced divisions between the four Chance brothers and their parents (with dad Hugh a former star pitcher, and baseball thus figuring prominently into all the family members’ stories and relationships).The film and novel don’t just link the 60s to baseball, however—they make the case, quite overtly and passionately, that baseball can (and, if allowed, will) heal such familial and national divisions. James Earl Jones’ character in Field is particularly obvious in that regard—he begins the film as a formerly idealistic 60s-era writer who has since turned cynical and misanthropic, but who finds his youthful enthusiasm once more through Costner’s baseball field, leading to his famous speech about baseball’s enduring and ongoing unifying American presence and role. Duncan’s novel is more subtle, but in (for example) its framing device—two almost perfectly parallel and quite poignant scenes of fathers, sons, and baseball with which the novel opens and closes—it makes a very similar point to Jones’ speech. So are they right? Can baseball unite us all? Given that our 21stcentury divisions can tend to make those of the 1960s seem nonexistent by comparison, the question feels more pertinent than ever—and I’ll open it up to you, dear readers. What do you think?Next baseball story tomorrow,BenPS. So again, what do you think? Other baseball stories you’d highlight?
April 1, 2014
April 1, 2014: Baseball Stories: The Given Day
[With Opening Day upon us, another series on AmericanStudying our national pasttime. This year, I’ll be highlighting individual baseball stories and thinking about what broader American contexts they can help us analyze. And this weekend I’ll highlight some other great writers and works who do the same!]
On Babe Ruth, symbolism, and race in America.There’s no doubt that sports can bring out the worst as well as the best in us, and that sports fandom does so with particular force. But even those of us who have experienced hateful sports rivalries are likely to be shocked when we read about the death threats (among other horrific attacks) that Hank Aaron faced as he approached and then passed Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record. This wasn’t Jackie Robinson, breaking baseball’s color barrier and changing a still-segregated society nearly thirty years earlier; this was simply a very talented baseball player finishing a very succesful baseball career, one that had landed him at the top of the record books. And yet something about the combination of his race and identity with those of the iconic legend he was eclipsing led to some of the ugliest expressions of which we Americans and humans are capable.The moment and those expressions tell us a great deal about racism in America, and it would likely be a mistake to focus our analyses on any other side to those histories. But at the same time, I do believe that if Aaron had been approaching a Lou Gehrig record, or a Joe DiMaggio record, or a Ty Cobb record, or any other legendary player, the responses might not have been quite so vitriolic. There’s just something about the Babe in the collective consciousness of a number of American sports fans, or rather a few related somethings: his literally and figuratively larger than life status, the way in which he was already a myth of sorts before he became one after his career was done; his concurrent representation of an earlier era in baseball and sports and America, one that likely couldn’t help but feel to many fans contrasted with the world of professional sports in Aaron’s 1970s; and, yes, the way in which each of those histories was made possible in large part because Ruth played in a segregated league, competing with only a portion of his era’s best ballplayers.It’s with all of those different sides to Ruth, his era, and history in play that Dennis Lehane creates a series of bravura sequences interspersed with the main narratives througout his early 20th century historical novel The Given Day (2008). One of Lehane’s two co-protagonists is an African American ballplayer named Luther Laurence, and Lehane opens his novel with a set-piece in which Ruth and some of his fellow professional players (en route from one 1918 World Series site to the other) encounter Luther and other African American players, leading to a pickup game that is at once color-blind and yet ultimately as segregated as the rest of society. Ruth reappears in a few additional set-pieces later in the novel, always bringing with him the same uneasy combination of baseball and society, mythic ideals and gritty realities. Some reviewers critiqued the Ruth sections as tangential to the book’s main narratives, which is true enough—but they make great use of the Ruth mythos, illustrating one more time how much this larger than life figure can say and do in our national conversations and stories.Next baseball story tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other baseball stories you’d highlight?
On Babe Ruth, symbolism, and race in America.There’s no doubt that sports can bring out the worst as well as the best in us, and that sports fandom does so with particular force. But even those of us who have experienced hateful sports rivalries are likely to be shocked when we read about the death threats (among other horrific attacks) that Hank Aaron faced as he approached and then passed Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record. This wasn’t Jackie Robinson, breaking baseball’s color barrier and changing a still-segregated society nearly thirty years earlier; this was simply a very talented baseball player finishing a very succesful baseball career, one that had landed him at the top of the record books. And yet something about the combination of his race and identity with those of the iconic legend he was eclipsing led to some of the ugliest expressions of which we Americans and humans are capable.The moment and those expressions tell us a great deal about racism in America, and it would likely be a mistake to focus our analyses on any other side to those histories. But at the same time, I do believe that if Aaron had been approaching a Lou Gehrig record, or a Joe DiMaggio record, or a Ty Cobb record, or any other legendary player, the responses might not have been quite so vitriolic. There’s just something about the Babe in the collective consciousness of a number of American sports fans, or rather a few related somethings: his literally and figuratively larger than life status, the way in which he was already a myth of sorts before he became one after his career was done; his concurrent representation of an earlier era in baseball and sports and America, one that likely couldn’t help but feel to many fans contrasted with the world of professional sports in Aaron’s 1970s; and, yes, the way in which each of those histories was made possible in large part because Ruth played in a segregated league, competing with only a portion of his era’s best ballplayers.It’s with all of those different sides to Ruth, his era, and history in play that Dennis Lehane creates a series of bravura sequences interspersed with the main narratives througout his early 20th century historical novel The Given Day (2008). One of Lehane’s two co-protagonists is an African American ballplayer named Luther Laurence, and Lehane opens his novel with a set-piece in which Ruth and some of his fellow professional players (en route from one 1918 World Series site to the other) encounter Luther and other African American players, leading to a pickup game that is at once color-blind and yet ultimately as segregated as the rest of society. Ruth reappears in a few additional set-pieces later in the novel, always bringing with him the same uneasy combination of baseball and society, mythic ideals and gritty realities. Some reviewers critiqued the Ruth sections as tangential to the book’s main narratives, which is true enough—but they make great use of the Ruth mythos, illustrating one more time how much this larger than life figure can say and do in our national conversations and stories.Next baseball story tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other baseball stories you’d highlight?
March 31, 2014
March 31, 2014: Baseball Stories: Play for a Kingdom
[With Opening Day upon us, another series on AmericanStudying our national pasttime. This year, I’ll be highlighting individual baseball stories and thinking about what broader American contexts they can help us analyze. And this weekend I’ll highlight some other great writers and works who do the same!]
On baseball, America, and the Civil War.Far more knowledgeable baseball historians than I have long debated the sport’s origins, and specifically the role that famous “inventor” Abner Doubleday did or did not play in creating our national pasttime (or even whether said national pasttime was in fact invented in a different nation, one from which we had recently declared independence no less!). It’s an interesting debate, one that touches on not only 19thcentury history, the development of mythological narratives in communities and nations, and how culture moves and changes across international borders, but also on the ongoing role that sports plays in our collective consciousness and imaginations. But to my mind, it’s also deeply meaningful that the invention of baseball has long been tied to Doubleday, a man otherwise most famous as a decorated Union officer during the Civil War.Doubleday’s supposed and contested invention of the sport took place well before the war, in Cooperstown (NY) in 1839. But I would argue that many of our collective narratives of baseball’s earliest days are closely tied to the Civil War, to images of soldiers playing sandlot games during the downtime between battles and campaigns. In part remembering the war in that way offers a peaceful alternative to the war’s most dominant images, a way to imagine and contemplate Civil War soldiers that doesn’t focus solely on the conflict and violence and loss that so defined the war years. But on the other hand, the images of Civil War baseball games could be read as a direct (if of course bloodless) complement to the war’s battles—in which, similarly, “teams” that might well have been friendly or even related off of the diamond became bitter adversaries once they stepped onto that field, one from which only one side could emerge victorious (there are no ties in baseball, as the saying famously goes).Both sides to baseball and the Civil War are captured in the best historical novel about that subject (and one of the best baseball novels period), Thomas Dyja’s Play for a Kingdom (1998). Dyja’s novel imagines a chance 1864 encounter between Union and Confederate soldiers engaged in the bloody battle of Spotsylvania, an encounter that turns into a series of baseball games contested alongside (and, gradually, intertwined with) the battle itself. Dyja nicely illustrates how the games serve not only as a distraction from the battle, but also and just as crucially as a parallel to it, one in which shifting relationships and allegiances, as well as the soldier’s individual personalities and perspectives, cannot ultimately lessen the harder and more absolute truths of war. Whatever its other starting points, baseball—like America—was created anew during the Civil War, and Dyja’s novel helps us contemplate those complex and vital points of origin.Next baseball story tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other baseball stories you’d highlight?
On baseball, America, and the Civil War.Far more knowledgeable baseball historians than I have long debated the sport’s origins, and specifically the role that famous “inventor” Abner Doubleday did or did not play in creating our national pasttime (or even whether said national pasttime was in fact invented in a different nation, one from which we had recently declared independence no less!). It’s an interesting debate, one that touches on not only 19thcentury history, the development of mythological narratives in communities and nations, and how culture moves and changes across international borders, but also on the ongoing role that sports plays in our collective consciousness and imaginations. But to my mind, it’s also deeply meaningful that the invention of baseball has long been tied to Doubleday, a man otherwise most famous as a decorated Union officer during the Civil War.Doubleday’s supposed and contested invention of the sport took place well before the war, in Cooperstown (NY) in 1839. But I would argue that many of our collective narratives of baseball’s earliest days are closely tied to the Civil War, to images of soldiers playing sandlot games during the downtime between battles and campaigns. In part remembering the war in that way offers a peaceful alternative to the war’s most dominant images, a way to imagine and contemplate Civil War soldiers that doesn’t focus solely on the conflict and violence and loss that so defined the war years. But on the other hand, the images of Civil War baseball games could be read as a direct (if of course bloodless) complement to the war’s battles—in which, similarly, “teams” that might well have been friendly or even related off of the diamond became bitter adversaries once they stepped onto that field, one from which only one side could emerge victorious (there are no ties in baseball, as the saying famously goes).Both sides to baseball and the Civil War are captured in the best historical novel about that subject (and one of the best baseball novels period), Thomas Dyja’s Play for a Kingdom (1998). Dyja’s novel imagines a chance 1864 encounter between Union and Confederate soldiers engaged in the bloody battle of Spotsylvania, an encounter that turns into a series of baseball games contested alongside (and, gradually, intertwined with) the battle itself. Dyja nicely illustrates how the games serve not only as a distraction from the battle, but also and just as crucially as a parallel to it, one in which shifting relationships and allegiances, as well as the soldier’s individual personalities and perspectives, cannot ultimately lessen the harder and more absolute truths of war. Whatever its other starting points, baseball—like America—was created anew during the Civil War, and Dyja’s novel helps us contemplate those complex and vital points of origin.Next baseball story tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other baseball stories you’d highlight?
March 29, 2014
March 29-30, 2014: March 2014 Recap
[A recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]
March 3: AmericanStudying Non-Favorites: Scorcese Films: A series analyzing things of which I’m not a fan starts with the acclaimed filmmaker.March 4: AmericanStudying Non-Favorites: Morrison and Cobain: The series continues with two artists I find talented and interesting but not ultimately inspiring.March 5: AmericanStudying Non-Favorites: The Beats: A couple of the ways I would push back on our idolization of the counter-cultural community, as the series rolls on.March 6: AmericanStudying Non-Favorites: Teddy Roosevelt: Not an objection to TR himself, so much as to the ways we collectively over-remember and –emphasize presidents.March 7: AmericanStudying Non-Favorites: Thomas Jefferson?!: The series concludes with a couple important ways to revise our memories of my hometown’s hero.March 8-9: Crowd-Sourced Non-Favorites: An epic airing of grievances, as well as responses to the week’s posts, rounds out the non-favorites series.March 10: AmericanStudying House of Cards: Peter and Zoe: A series on Season 1 of the compelling show starts with the American narratives behind two distinct character arcs.March 11: AmericanStudying House of Cards: Linda and Gillian: The series continues with the show’s two most prominent ethnic women.March 12: AmericanStudying House of Cards: Doug and Freddy: The stereotypical but interesting identities of the protagonist’s most trusted supporters, as the series rolls on.March 13: AmericanStudying House of Cards: Claire: Two of the many ways we might read Robin Wright’s ambiguous and riveting character.March 14: AmericanStudying House of Cards: Frank: The series concludes with an examination of the show’s compelling anti-hero protagonist.March 15-16: Anna Mae Duane on House of Cards: To follow up my own thoughts, one of our best American Studies scholars on the show and its protagonist.March 17: Cville Stories: Ash Lawn-Highland: A series on stories in my Virginia hometown starts with the oft-forgotten historic home.March 18: Cville Stories: Race at the Pool: The series continues with the more subtle and perhaps more significant sides to segregation.March 19: Cville Stories: Faulkner at the University: On the dangers and benefits of listening to authors talk about their work, as the series rolls on.March 20: Cville Stories: Dave Matthews: The many Cville and 21st century American sides to the musician who got his start in town.March 21: Cville Stories: 21st Century Tensions: The series concludes with some personal thoughts on contemporary narratives of the town and the past.March 22-23: The Virginia Festival of the Book: A special post on three things I’m particularly excited about when it comes to the reason for my current return to Cville—and a follow up after my event!March 24: Caribbean Connections: Edouard Glissant: A series on Caribbean American links starts with the brilliant theorist who best analyzed those connections.March 25: Caribbean Connections: The Haitian Revolution: The series continues with American connections to the region’s most important revolution.March 26: Caribbean Connections: José Martí: The cross-cultural experiences, identities, and meanings of the legendary Cuban figure, as the series rolls on.March 27: Caribbean Connections: Bob Marley: On whether an artist can really cross cultural boundaries, and why such crossings matter in any case.March 28: Caribbean Connections: Edwidge Danticat: The series concludes with five great books by the hugely talented Haitian American writer.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Topics you’d like to see covered on the blog? Guest Posts you’d like to write? Lemme know!
March 3: AmericanStudying Non-Favorites: Scorcese Films: A series analyzing things of which I’m not a fan starts with the acclaimed filmmaker.March 4: AmericanStudying Non-Favorites: Morrison and Cobain: The series continues with two artists I find talented and interesting but not ultimately inspiring.March 5: AmericanStudying Non-Favorites: The Beats: A couple of the ways I would push back on our idolization of the counter-cultural community, as the series rolls on.March 6: AmericanStudying Non-Favorites: Teddy Roosevelt: Not an objection to TR himself, so much as to the ways we collectively over-remember and –emphasize presidents.March 7: AmericanStudying Non-Favorites: Thomas Jefferson?!: The series concludes with a couple important ways to revise our memories of my hometown’s hero.March 8-9: Crowd-Sourced Non-Favorites: An epic airing of grievances, as well as responses to the week’s posts, rounds out the non-favorites series.March 10: AmericanStudying House of Cards: Peter and Zoe: A series on Season 1 of the compelling show starts with the American narratives behind two distinct character arcs.March 11: AmericanStudying House of Cards: Linda and Gillian: The series continues with the show’s two most prominent ethnic women.March 12: AmericanStudying House of Cards: Doug and Freddy: The stereotypical but interesting identities of the protagonist’s most trusted supporters, as the series rolls on.March 13: AmericanStudying House of Cards: Claire: Two of the many ways we might read Robin Wright’s ambiguous and riveting character.March 14: AmericanStudying House of Cards: Frank: The series concludes with an examination of the show’s compelling anti-hero protagonist.March 15-16: Anna Mae Duane on House of Cards: To follow up my own thoughts, one of our best American Studies scholars on the show and its protagonist.March 17: Cville Stories: Ash Lawn-Highland: A series on stories in my Virginia hometown starts with the oft-forgotten historic home.March 18: Cville Stories: Race at the Pool: The series continues with the more subtle and perhaps more significant sides to segregation.March 19: Cville Stories: Faulkner at the University: On the dangers and benefits of listening to authors talk about their work, as the series rolls on.March 20: Cville Stories: Dave Matthews: The many Cville and 21st century American sides to the musician who got his start in town.March 21: Cville Stories: 21st Century Tensions: The series concludes with some personal thoughts on contemporary narratives of the town and the past.March 22-23: The Virginia Festival of the Book: A special post on three things I’m particularly excited about when it comes to the reason for my current return to Cville—and a follow up after my event!March 24: Caribbean Connections: Edouard Glissant: A series on Caribbean American links starts with the brilliant theorist who best analyzed those connections.March 25: Caribbean Connections: The Haitian Revolution: The series continues with American connections to the region’s most important revolution.March 26: Caribbean Connections: José Martí: The cross-cultural experiences, identities, and meanings of the legendary Cuban figure, as the series rolls on.March 27: Caribbean Connections: Bob Marley: On whether an artist can really cross cultural boundaries, and why such crossings matter in any case.March 28: Caribbean Connections: Edwidge Danticat: The series concludes with five great books by the hugely talented Haitian American writer.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Topics you’d like to see covered on the blog? Guest Posts you’d like to write? Lemme know!
March 28, 2014
March 28, 2014: Caribbean Connections: Edwidge Danticat
[In this month of spring breaks, lots of young (and not so young) Americans have likely made their way down to the Caribbean. But for this week’s series, I’ll be considering some of the ways in which the US and the Caribbean are connected by far more than just travel itineraries. Add your thoughts and connections in comments, please!]
On five of the many amazing books by one of the most talented and interesting Caribbean American authors (she was born in Haiti and moved to New York to join her parents at the age of 12):1) Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994): Danticat published her debut novel when she was only 25, and it’s stunningly powerful and affecting.
2) The Dew Breaker (2004): I read this linked story collection/novel for the first time to include it in my next book project, and was blown away. One of the most complex and potent 21stcentury novels thus far.
3) Brother I’m Dying (2007): Danticat’s autobiography/family memoir was a finalist for the National Book Award, and deservedly so.
4) Behind the Mountain (2002): Danticat’s first young adult novel walks a fine line very impressively, maintaining her complex themes but doing so pitch-perfectly for that younger audience.
5) Claire of the Sea Light (2013): I haven’t had the chance to read Danticat’s newest novel yet—but with a track record like this, I know I’ll enjoy it when I do!Of all the Caribbean connections I could highlight, I’m not sure any is more worth sharing than such a unique and talented voice. Check her out! March recap this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Other connections you’d share?
On five of the many amazing books by one of the most talented and interesting Caribbean American authors (she was born in Haiti and moved to New York to join her parents at the age of 12):1) Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994): Danticat published her debut novel when she was only 25, and it’s stunningly powerful and affecting.
2) The Dew Breaker (2004): I read this linked story collection/novel for the first time to include it in my next book project, and was blown away. One of the most complex and potent 21stcentury novels thus far.
3) Brother I’m Dying (2007): Danticat’s autobiography/family memoir was a finalist for the National Book Award, and deservedly so.
4) Behind the Mountain (2002): Danticat’s first young adult novel walks a fine line very impressively, maintaining her complex themes but doing so pitch-perfectly for that younger audience.
5) Claire of the Sea Light (2013): I haven’t had the chance to read Danticat’s newest novel yet—but with a track record like this, I know I’ll enjoy it when I do!Of all the Caribbean connections I could highlight, I’m not sure any is more worth sharing than such a unique and talented voice. Check her out! March recap this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Other connections you’d share?
March 27, 2014
March 27, 2014: Caribbean Connections: Bob Marley
[In this month of spring breaks, lots of young (and not so young) Americans have likely made their way down to the Caribbean. But for this week’s series, I’ll be considering some of the ways in which the US and the Caribbean are connected by far more than just travel itineraries. Add your thoughts and connections in comments, please!]
On whether it’s entirely possible for an artist to cross cultural borders, and why the crossing matters in any case.Eric Clapton’s 1974 coverof Bob Marley and the Wailer’s “I Shot the Sheriff” (1973) has been recently inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. I’m very much not sure how I feel about that—Clapton’s version is certainly catchy and compelling, features some wonderful guitar work (duh), and is probably the version of the song most listeners would recognize (full disclosure: when I opened the above linked YouTube videos for each, I realized that I had only heard the Marley version once or twice, if that); but it’s not the original song, and it seems very bizarre to think about a cover entering a Hall of Fame when the original has not been included. And moreover, the original’s complex contexts seem entirely lost in Clapton’s version: Marley noted that he wanted to write “I shot the police” but changed it to sheriff in order to get in less trouble with the Jamaican government; it’s hard to imagine that Clapton had much to say about those kinds of legal, governmental, and social relationships in Jamaica.That likely gap in social or communal awareness/perspective is hardly limited to Sir Eric, however. Many of Marley’s songs were closely grounded in his Jamaican experiences, settings, and perspectives; not just his overtly political songs such as “Redemption Song” and “Rat Race” (among many many others), but even the more seemingly universal or relationship-driven songs like the famous “No Woman No Cry.” The opening lines to that song—“I remember we used to sit/In a government yard in Trenchtown/Observing the hypocrites”—clearly mean something specific within that Jamaican world, and thus introduce Marley’s sensitive appeals to his titular female addressee through the lens of their experiences within that shared setting and community. That doesn’t mean, of course, that Marley’s many American listeners and fans can’t connect to the song, or to any song of his—but I think it would be important to consider the distinctions between those kinds of connections and the ones made by Jamaican audiences.Yet I would also push back on any sense that such cultural distinctions, while undoubtedly present, are ultimately problematic or defining. For one thing, you’d have to say the same about (for example) country music being played in Manhattan, or Brooklyn hip hop in rural Oklahoma, and so on. For another, Marley himself expressed, in songs like “One Love,” a clear desire to transcend any cultural (or other) distinctions between peoples. And for a third—and most saliently for this week’s blog series—any and all audiences who listen to Marley can thus better connect not only to a hugely talented artist, but also to the culture and world out of which he emerged. Given the number of Americans who travel to Jamaica, as well as the number of Jamaican immigrants who have become part of the U.S. over the last century (such as Colin Powell’s parents, who arrived in the early 1920s), such cross-cultural connections between the two nations are particularly meaningful and significant. So wherever and whoever you are, you can throw on a Marley t-shirtproudly, I’d say.Final connection tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other connections you’d share?
On whether it’s entirely possible for an artist to cross cultural borders, and why the crossing matters in any case.Eric Clapton’s 1974 coverof Bob Marley and the Wailer’s “I Shot the Sheriff” (1973) has been recently inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. I’m very much not sure how I feel about that—Clapton’s version is certainly catchy and compelling, features some wonderful guitar work (duh), and is probably the version of the song most listeners would recognize (full disclosure: when I opened the above linked YouTube videos for each, I realized that I had only heard the Marley version once or twice, if that); but it’s not the original song, and it seems very bizarre to think about a cover entering a Hall of Fame when the original has not been included. And moreover, the original’s complex contexts seem entirely lost in Clapton’s version: Marley noted that he wanted to write “I shot the police” but changed it to sheriff in order to get in less trouble with the Jamaican government; it’s hard to imagine that Clapton had much to say about those kinds of legal, governmental, and social relationships in Jamaica.That likely gap in social or communal awareness/perspective is hardly limited to Sir Eric, however. Many of Marley’s songs were closely grounded in his Jamaican experiences, settings, and perspectives; not just his overtly political songs such as “Redemption Song” and “Rat Race” (among many many others), but even the more seemingly universal or relationship-driven songs like the famous “No Woman No Cry.” The opening lines to that song—“I remember we used to sit/In a government yard in Trenchtown/Observing the hypocrites”—clearly mean something specific within that Jamaican world, and thus introduce Marley’s sensitive appeals to his titular female addressee through the lens of their experiences within that shared setting and community. That doesn’t mean, of course, that Marley’s many American listeners and fans can’t connect to the song, or to any song of his—but I think it would be important to consider the distinctions between those kinds of connections and the ones made by Jamaican audiences.Yet I would also push back on any sense that such cultural distinctions, while undoubtedly present, are ultimately problematic or defining. For one thing, you’d have to say the same about (for example) country music being played in Manhattan, or Brooklyn hip hop in rural Oklahoma, and so on. For another, Marley himself expressed, in songs like “One Love,” a clear desire to transcend any cultural (or other) distinctions between peoples. And for a third—and most saliently for this week’s blog series—any and all audiences who listen to Marley can thus better connect not only to a hugely talented artist, but also to the culture and world out of which he emerged. Given the number of Americans who travel to Jamaica, as well as the number of Jamaican immigrants who have become part of the U.S. over the last century (such as Colin Powell’s parents, who arrived in the early 1920s), such cross-cultural connections between the two nations are particularly meaningful and significant. So wherever and whoever you are, you can throw on a Marley t-shirtproudly, I’d say.Final connection tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other connections you’d share?
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