Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 360
February 19, 2014
February 19, 2014: YA Lit: The Giver
[Recently the boys and I have moved into chapter books, including the wonderful John Bellairs series. So in honor of that next stage of reading, a series on AmericanStudying chapter books and Young Adult lit. Please add your favorites, memories, and ideas for the crowd-sourced weekend post!]
On why “banned books” aren’t quite as obviously wrong as you might think.You’re not likely to find a more lifelong opponent of banning books, and I do mean lifelong—one of my favorite sweatshirts in middle and high school (what can I say, I was an uber-nerd) read “Celebrate Freedom, Read a Banned Book” and then listed a group of works that have been banned at one time or another. So it wasn’t easy for me to write the teaser sentence above, believe me. But the truth is that in our conversations about banning and censorship we tend to conflate a couple pretty different actions: attempting to remove books from schools and/or libraries (a practice that I thoroughly oppose); and advocating that we not teach books in particular classes, for certain grade levels, and so on. The latter, which is generally known instead as “challenging” those books, is certainly complicated and often problematic, but is not the same as banning the book from those institutions.For a case in point, we could go to the ur-source for such conversations: Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Within a year of its 1885 American publication the novel was banned by the Concord Public Library, the first of many such bannings. But even if we agree with the premise that the CPL and other banning institutions were mistaken (and I do), it doesn’t necessarily follow that Huck is (for example) perfectly fine to teach in middle or high school English classrooms (both places where it has been taught with some frequency). On that question I tend to agree with my Dad, Stephen Railton, who has argued that the book’s defenders have short-changed genuine questions about its language and racial depictions, particularly when it comes to the challenges of presenting them to younger readers. Which is to say, challenges of Huck in the classroom not only aren’t the same as banning or censorship—they also have, at least, a leg to stand on.And then there’s the case of Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993). Lowry’s award-winning novel is one of the most acclaimed young adult books of the last few decades, and so it stands to reason that it would be a good choice to teach in middle school classrooms. But while the novel does not include unintentionally problematic or objectional material like Twain’s book, it does create an incredibly complex and dark dystopian world, one in which characters, situations, and themes are far more sophisticated and troubling than in many other young adult works. There’s something—a great deal, in fact—to be said for teaching precisely such complex works, provided there is sufficient time and space for the teacher and students to discuss and analyze and engage with those complexities. But there’s also something to be said for parents and organizations worrying that, in the absence of those resources, Lowry’s novel will affect students more negatively than positively. I don’t agree with the challenges that Lowry’s novel has received, but I understand them—and they shouldn’t all be dismissed as simple censorship.Next YA favorite tomorrow,BenPS. What YA lit favorites and memories would you share?
On why “banned books” aren’t quite as obviously wrong as you might think.You’re not likely to find a more lifelong opponent of banning books, and I do mean lifelong—one of my favorite sweatshirts in middle and high school (what can I say, I was an uber-nerd) read “Celebrate Freedom, Read a Banned Book” and then listed a group of works that have been banned at one time or another. So it wasn’t easy for me to write the teaser sentence above, believe me. But the truth is that in our conversations about banning and censorship we tend to conflate a couple pretty different actions: attempting to remove books from schools and/or libraries (a practice that I thoroughly oppose); and advocating that we not teach books in particular classes, for certain grade levels, and so on. The latter, which is generally known instead as “challenging” those books, is certainly complicated and often problematic, but is not the same as banning the book from those institutions.For a case in point, we could go to the ur-source for such conversations: Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Within a year of its 1885 American publication the novel was banned by the Concord Public Library, the first of many such bannings. But even if we agree with the premise that the CPL and other banning institutions were mistaken (and I do), it doesn’t necessarily follow that Huck is (for example) perfectly fine to teach in middle or high school English classrooms (both places where it has been taught with some frequency). On that question I tend to agree with my Dad, Stephen Railton, who has argued that the book’s defenders have short-changed genuine questions about its language and racial depictions, particularly when it comes to the challenges of presenting them to younger readers. Which is to say, challenges of Huck in the classroom not only aren’t the same as banning or censorship—they also have, at least, a leg to stand on.And then there’s the case of Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993). Lowry’s award-winning novel is one of the most acclaimed young adult books of the last few decades, and so it stands to reason that it would be a good choice to teach in middle school classrooms. But while the novel does not include unintentionally problematic or objectional material like Twain’s book, it does create an incredibly complex and dark dystopian world, one in which characters, situations, and themes are far more sophisticated and troubling than in many other young adult works. There’s something—a great deal, in fact—to be said for teaching precisely such complex works, provided there is sufficient time and space for the teacher and students to discuss and analyze and engage with those complexities. But there’s also something to be said for parents and organizations worrying that, in the absence of those resources, Lowry’s novel will affect students more negatively than positively. I don’t agree with the challenges that Lowry’s novel has received, but I understand them—and they shouldn’t all be dismissed as simple censorship.Next YA favorite tomorrow,BenPS. What YA lit favorites and memories would you share?
February 18, 2014
February 18, 2014: YA Lit: Encyclopedia Brown
[Recently the boys and I have moved into chapter books, including the wonderful John Bellairs series. So in honor of that next stage of reading, a series on AmericanStudying chapter books and Young Adult lit. Please add your favorites, memories, and ideas for the crowd-sourced weekend post!]
On youthful fun and the mysteries of adulthood.I don’t think it’s any mystery—nor does it require any complex AmericanStudies analysis to figure out—why Donald Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown books have remained so popular for the fifty years since their 1963 debut (the most recent appeared just after Sobol’s 2012 death, but I’m quite sure the series will be continued by other authors). I’m not sure I can think of a youthful intellectual pleasure to match trying to solve the case alongside Encylopedia (Leroy, but no one ever called him that) and then getting to flip to the back to read the solution and see if you had gotten it right. Sobol’s unique structure boiled the appeal of the mystery story into both a bite-sized and an interactive form, and the only painful challenges were a) not reading them all in one sitting; and b) not flipping to the back out of frustration before giving your more average brain a chance to catch up to Encyclopedia’s boy genius one.As I’ve returned to the series with my boys, however, I’ve noticed another prominent aspect with which I didn’t much engage as a young reader: the back and forth between mysteries featuring Encyclopedia’s youthful nemesis Bugs Meany and those featuring adult criminals (sometimes brought to Encylopedia at the dinner table by his father, the town’s police chief and apparently a substantially less impressive crime-solver than his son). The different kinds of cases certainly help keep each book from feeling too repetitive or one-note (although the basic arc and balance are very similar from book-to-book), but they also introduce significantly varying themes and tones: Bugs is certainly a bad kid and a neighborhood bully, but his transgressions don’t generally rise above the level of Tom Sawyer-liketricks; whereas the adult cases tend to involve far more serious crimes, including bank robberies and fraudalent scams.Encylopedia solves them all in pretty similar ways, so maybe I’m making too much of the distinction. But I can’t help but feel that this thematic and tonal variety positions Encyclopedia, his books, and thus his youthful readers on the border between childhood and adulthood, between a world where the biggest threat is a guy named Bugs trying to pass off a fake autographed baseball bat and a world where complex people commit serious crimes that profoundly impact a city and society. If so, it would be worth noting that the series’ most prominent adult and authority figure, Encylopedia’s father, can’t seem to solve those serious crimes—which either means that we need to keep looking at the world through the eyes of a (super-smart) kid or that, perhaps, the adult world is full of mysteries that require a lot more than flipping to the back of the book. Both lessons would be important ones for young readers to learn, I’d say.Next YA favorite tomorrow,BenPS. What YA lit favorites and memories would you share?
On youthful fun and the mysteries of adulthood.I don’t think it’s any mystery—nor does it require any complex AmericanStudies analysis to figure out—why Donald Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown books have remained so popular for the fifty years since their 1963 debut (the most recent appeared just after Sobol’s 2012 death, but I’m quite sure the series will be continued by other authors). I’m not sure I can think of a youthful intellectual pleasure to match trying to solve the case alongside Encylopedia (Leroy, but no one ever called him that) and then getting to flip to the back to read the solution and see if you had gotten it right. Sobol’s unique structure boiled the appeal of the mystery story into both a bite-sized and an interactive form, and the only painful challenges were a) not reading them all in one sitting; and b) not flipping to the back out of frustration before giving your more average brain a chance to catch up to Encyclopedia’s boy genius one.As I’ve returned to the series with my boys, however, I’ve noticed another prominent aspect with which I didn’t much engage as a young reader: the back and forth between mysteries featuring Encyclopedia’s youthful nemesis Bugs Meany and those featuring adult criminals (sometimes brought to Encylopedia at the dinner table by his father, the town’s police chief and apparently a substantially less impressive crime-solver than his son). The different kinds of cases certainly help keep each book from feeling too repetitive or one-note (although the basic arc and balance are very similar from book-to-book), but they also introduce significantly varying themes and tones: Bugs is certainly a bad kid and a neighborhood bully, but his transgressions don’t generally rise above the level of Tom Sawyer-liketricks; whereas the adult cases tend to involve far more serious crimes, including bank robberies and fraudalent scams.Encylopedia solves them all in pretty similar ways, so maybe I’m making too much of the distinction. But I can’t help but feel that this thematic and tonal variety positions Encyclopedia, his books, and thus his youthful readers on the border between childhood and adulthood, between a world where the biggest threat is a guy named Bugs trying to pass off a fake autographed baseball bat and a world where complex people commit serious crimes that profoundly impact a city and society. If so, it would be worth noting that the series’ most prominent adult and authority figure, Encylopedia’s father, can’t seem to solve those serious crimes—which either means that we need to keep looking at the world through the eyes of a (super-smart) kid or that, perhaps, the adult world is full of mysteries that require a lot more than flipping to the back of the book. Both lessons would be important ones for young readers to learn, I’d say.Next YA favorite tomorrow,BenPS. What YA lit favorites and memories would you share?
February 17, 2014
February 17, 2014: YA Lit: Little House on the Prairie
[Recently the boys and I have moved into chapter books, including the wonderful John Bellairs series. So in honor of that next stage of reading, a series on AmericanStudying chapter books and Young Adult lit. Please add your favorites, memories, and ideas for the crowd-sourced weekend post!]
On what YA stories can teach us—and what they can’t.Some of my strongest memories of my young adulthood involve trips to the public library to play educational games on the one computer in the kids’ area (I still remember vividly the thrill of seeing that there was a half-hour time slot available to sign up for). Sometimes I played Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego , about which more another time perhaps. And there may have been another game or two I’m forgetting. But often my game of choice—and this will come as no surprise, either to anyone who grew up in the 80s or to anyone who knows AmericanStudier-friendly computer games—was The Oregon Trail. It’s fair to say that I learned more about the rigors of frontier life—fording those rivers, trying to shoot those squirrels, struggling with that damn dysentery—from those half hour sessions than I did from any other source.Similarly, I’m willing to bet that more American children have learned about westward migration and settlement from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books (and of course from the subsequent TV show) than from all the textbooks on the subject put together. And like Oregon Trail, but of course in far greater length and depth, Wilder’s books certainly immerse readers in the world of the frontier, its threats and challenges, the new worlds always waiting across the next river, the experience of navigating and surviving and even prospering in them as a family. Indeed, the game and books parallel and complement each other very interestingly: the game offering kids the chance to connect their own identities and perpectives to the same kind of frontier world in which young Laura and her siblings develop their own such connections throughout the books. I think there’s great value in helping kids make such empathetic links to distant, past experiences, and Wilder’s books offer wonderful opportunities for doing so.On the other hand, I can’t help but feel that my position on both the game and Wilder’s books creating such empathy is a classic example of what has come to be called “white privilege.” That is, for so many American communities, each with their own histories and stories of the 19th century west, those narratives bear precious little resemblance to the past. That’s most obviously true for Native Americans, but would be equally applicable to African American slaves (or even freedmen), Mexican American landowners, Chinese American immigrant laborers, and other groups who helped constitute and shape the frontier. I’m not saying that Wilder’s books should have engaged with all those communities—she wrote what she knew—but instead that it’d be vital for any young reader to complement and supplement those books with other stories, ones that can help him or her learn about, and perhaps even empathize with, those other frontier lives and worlds.Next YA favorite tomorrow,BenPS. What YA lit favorites and memories would you share?
On what YA stories can teach us—and what they can’t.Some of my strongest memories of my young adulthood involve trips to the public library to play educational games on the one computer in the kids’ area (I still remember vividly the thrill of seeing that there was a half-hour time slot available to sign up for). Sometimes I played Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego , about which more another time perhaps. And there may have been another game or two I’m forgetting. But often my game of choice—and this will come as no surprise, either to anyone who grew up in the 80s or to anyone who knows AmericanStudier-friendly computer games—was The Oregon Trail. It’s fair to say that I learned more about the rigors of frontier life—fording those rivers, trying to shoot those squirrels, struggling with that damn dysentery—from those half hour sessions than I did from any other source.Similarly, I’m willing to bet that more American children have learned about westward migration and settlement from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books (and of course from the subsequent TV show) than from all the textbooks on the subject put together. And like Oregon Trail, but of course in far greater length and depth, Wilder’s books certainly immerse readers in the world of the frontier, its threats and challenges, the new worlds always waiting across the next river, the experience of navigating and surviving and even prospering in them as a family. Indeed, the game and books parallel and complement each other very interestingly: the game offering kids the chance to connect their own identities and perpectives to the same kind of frontier world in which young Laura and her siblings develop their own such connections throughout the books. I think there’s great value in helping kids make such empathetic links to distant, past experiences, and Wilder’s books offer wonderful opportunities for doing so.On the other hand, I can’t help but feel that my position on both the game and Wilder’s books creating such empathy is a classic example of what has come to be called “white privilege.” That is, for so many American communities, each with their own histories and stories of the 19th century west, those narratives bear precious little resemblance to the past. That’s most obviously true for Native Americans, but would be equally applicable to African American slaves (or even freedmen), Mexican American landowners, Chinese American immigrant laborers, and other groups who helped constitute and shape the frontier. I’m not saying that Wilder’s books should have engaged with all those communities—she wrote what she knew—but instead that it’d be vital for any young reader to complement and supplement those books with other stories, ones that can help him or her learn about, and perhaps even empathize with, those other frontier lives and worlds.Next YA favorite tomorrow,BenPS. What YA lit favorites and memories would you share?
February 15, 2014
February 15-16, 2014: Crowd-sourced Love
[Last year, I wrote a Valentine’s Day-inspired series on some of my AmericanStudier loves. I had fun, so I decided to do so again this year. This crowd-sourced post is drawn from the loves shared by fellow AmericanStudiers—please share more of your loves in comments!]
Following up Monday’s Wire post, a commenter writes, “I couldn't resist the offer to mention a television show that I love. BBC's Sherlock is witty fun and brilliantly written. The co-creator Steven Moffat is a veteran of the latest Dr. Who iterationwhich most of my students love, and I admit I love it too! The show is a nod to the original 19th century stories with an interesting and fresh 21st century feel. It's wonderfully Anglo-centric and best of all Benedict Cumberpatch is yet another Sherlock that most fans would line the streets to kiss!”On the same post, Joe Bastian writes, “Much like every other fan, I've always loved Omar's cowboy-esque attitude. In addition, though, Bodie's arc has ultimately been my favorite. His character's growth is brilliant, every internal strength advances him down a path that could only seem to induce harm.”Following up Wednesday’s Bruce post, Roland Gibson writes, “I'm a big Bruce Springsteen fan, myself. However, I think my all-time greatest musical performer award for me would have to go to Michael Jackson. Even as a child—back when he was singing lead with his family in The Jackson 5—he showed so much raw musical talent and energy. I don't own a copy of his album Thriller (my CD collection is quite modest) but it was the biggest selling album of all time, if I'm not mistaken. I don't want to come across as trying to take anything away from what Bruce Springsteen has done—any more than my love for apples takes away from my feelings about oranges. Maybe—when I finally grow up—I'll be able to take credit for writing a song that could compare to something—anything—by Bruce Springsteen. I doubt it, but it's fun to think about.”Susan Stark loves, “My Girl Maya: I find it rare that a poet can be so specific- to time and place, to race and culture and gender- yet so universal in their thoughts. Maya Angelou does that better than almost any poet I know. She is economic with words, but grand with the scope of her ideas. Her writing is soothing to the soul and inspiring to the spirit!”Jeff Renye loves Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts , and specifically this moment: “It was Miss Lonelyhearts’ turn to laugh. He put his face close to Shrike’s and laughed as hard as he could.”On Twitter, the staff of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum note that they “particularly enjoy Vinegar Valentines from the late 19th century when it comes to Valentine's Day!”Finally, Robert Greene II shares a few AmericanStudies loves:“Robin D.G. Kelley--who I consider to be an excellent historian and practitioner of American Studies, as a field that takes the best of the humanities to explain what it means (and, especially for Kelley, what it can mean) to be an American.
Pauli Murray--An underrated champion of civil and human rights in the middle of the 20th century, who was heavily involved in the Civil Rights and women's rights movements.
Harold Cruse--an important figure for both the Civil Rights and Black Power eras, his writings on African American intellectuals are required reading for anyone studying the 1960s, 1970s, or even the 1980s.”
Next series starts Monday,BenPS. I’ll ask one more time—what do you love about or in American history, culture, identity, community?
Following up Monday’s Wire post, a commenter writes, “I couldn't resist the offer to mention a television show that I love. BBC's Sherlock is witty fun and brilliantly written. The co-creator Steven Moffat is a veteran of the latest Dr. Who iterationwhich most of my students love, and I admit I love it too! The show is a nod to the original 19th century stories with an interesting and fresh 21st century feel. It's wonderfully Anglo-centric and best of all Benedict Cumberpatch is yet another Sherlock that most fans would line the streets to kiss!”On the same post, Joe Bastian writes, “Much like every other fan, I've always loved Omar's cowboy-esque attitude. In addition, though, Bodie's arc has ultimately been my favorite. His character's growth is brilliant, every internal strength advances him down a path that could only seem to induce harm.”Following up Wednesday’s Bruce post, Roland Gibson writes, “I'm a big Bruce Springsteen fan, myself. However, I think my all-time greatest musical performer award for me would have to go to Michael Jackson. Even as a child—back when he was singing lead with his family in The Jackson 5—he showed so much raw musical talent and energy. I don't own a copy of his album Thriller (my CD collection is quite modest) but it was the biggest selling album of all time, if I'm not mistaken. I don't want to come across as trying to take anything away from what Bruce Springsteen has done—any more than my love for apples takes away from my feelings about oranges. Maybe—when I finally grow up—I'll be able to take credit for writing a song that could compare to something—anything—by Bruce Springsteen. I doubt it, but it's fun to think about.”Susan Stark loves, “My Girl Maya: I find it rare that a poet can be so specific- to time and place, to race and culture and gender- yet so universal in their thoughts. Maya Angelou does that better than almost any poet I know. She is economic with words, but grand with the scope of her ideas. Her writing is soothing to the soul and inspiring to the spirit!”Jeff Renye loves Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts , and specifically this moment: “It was Miss Lonelyhearts’ turn to laugh. He put his face close to Shrike’s and laughed as hard as he could.”On Twitter, the staff of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum note that they “particularly enjoy Vinegar Valentines from the late 19th century when it comes to Valentine's Day!”Finally, Robert Greene II shares a few AmericanStudies loves:“Robin D.G. Kelley--who I consider to be an excellent historian and practitioner of American Studies, as a field that takes the best of the humanities to explain what it means (and, especially for Kelley, what it can mean) to be an American.
Pauli Murray--An underrated champion of civil and human rights in the middle of the 20th century, who was heavily involved in the Civil Rights and women's rights movements.
Harold Cruse--an important figure for both the Civil Rights and Black Power eras, his writings on African American intellectuals are required reading for anyone studying the 1960s, 1970s, or even the 1980s.”
Next series starts Monday,BenPS. I’ll ask one more time—what do you love about or in American history, culture, identity, community?
February 14, 2014
February 14, 2014: I Love My Job
[Last year, I wrote a Valentine’s Day-inspired series on some of my AmericanStudier loves. I had fun, so I’ve decided to do so again this year. I’d love for you to share some of the things you love for a crowd-sourced weekend post full of heart!]
On two of the many reasons why I love what I do for a living.There’s no way around it, higher education and academia are fraught with huge, interconnected, and growing problems, many of which I’ve written about in this space and all of which have received a good deal of well-deserved attention in recent months and debates (as well as for many years prior): the exploitation of adjunct faculty; public and political assaults on our institutions and educational system; and disappearing funding and jobs coupled with increasing numbers of grad students and PhDs and academics, to name only a few. I’m an optimist, but I’d also have to be blind and a fool not to recognize those realities and challenges (among others), and nothing I write in this post (or any other) should be read as a denial of them or an attempt to minimize their significance to higher education’s present and future.I love this job, though. I’m a tenured faculty member, not an adjunct (although I was one for a time) or a job seeker (ditto) or in any other uncertain position, and I don’t want to pretend that the differences don’t matter. But to be honest, one of the things that I love about this profession—I’m not focusing in this post on the two things I love most, working with students and with colleagues; for them, see most of the Teaching Posts and many of the Tribute Posts—is the collegiality that I have so often felt, from the most senior faculty members to the most new graduate students, and in every community and connection in between. I know there are conflicts and politics, hierarchies and discriminations, as in every human community (which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to identify and ameliorate them in ours, of course). But I’ve seen conversation and collaboration far more frequently, and love that part of who we are and what drives us.Another thing I love about this job is that it provides, indeed requires, constant opportunities for reinvention and growth. Every semester is a new start, new courses with new communities of students and new voices and ideas to be heard. Every conference presentation or article or book (or blog post!) is a chance to say something new, certainly in conversation with what we’ve (and others have) said before but still a blank page waiting for us to fill it once more. Even some of the less consistently compelling sides to what we do—the department meetings, the assessment committees, the curriculum conversations—offer continual chances to try something new, help move our communities in new directions, experiment and innovate and challenge and improve. Of course it’s possible to get static or stagnant, individually and communally, within this as any world—but I think the dominant forces push us to do the opposite, to keep starting fresh. And I love the opportunity to do so.Crowd-sourced post this weekend,BenPS. So last chance—what do you love about or in American history, culture, identity, community?
On two of the many reasons why I love what I do for a living.There’s no way around it, higher education and academia are fraught with huge, interconnected, and growing problems, many of which I’ve written about in this space and all of which have received a good deal of well-deserved attention in recent months and debates (as well as for many years prior): the exploitation of adjunct faculty; public and political assaults on our institutions and educational system; and disappearing funding and jobs coupled with increasing numbers of grad students and PhDs and academics, to name only a few. I’m an optimist, but I’d also have to be blind and a fool not to recognize those realities and challenges (among others), and nothing I write in this post (or any other) should be read as a denial of them or an attempt to minimize their significance to higher education’s present and future.I love this job, though. I’m a tenured faculty member, not an adjunct (although I was one for a time) or a job seeker (ditto) or in any other uncertain position, and I don’t want to pretend that the differences don’t matter. But to be honest, one of the things that I love about this profession—I’m not focusing in this post on the two things I love most, working with students and with colleagues; for them, see most of the Teaching Posts and many of the Tribute Posts—is the collegiality that I have so often felt, from the most senior faculty members to the most new graduate students, and in every community and connection in between. I know there are conflicts and politics, hierarchies and discriminations, as in every human community (which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to identify and ameliorate them in ours, of course). But I’ve seen conversation and collaboration far more frequently, and love that part of who we are and what drives us.Another thing I love about this job is that it provides, indeed requires, constant opportunities for reinvention and growth. Every semester is a new start, new courses with new communities of students and new voices and ideas to be heard. Every conference presentation or article or book (or blog post!) is a chance to say something new, certainly in conversation with what we’ve (and others have) said before but still a blank page waiting for us to fill it once more. Even some of the less consistently compelling sides to what we do—the department meetings, the assessment committees, the curriculum conversations—offer continual chances to try something new, help move our communities in new directions, experiment and innovate and challenge and improve. Of course it’s possible to get static or stagnant, individually and communally, within this as any world—but I think the dominant forces push us to do the opposite, to keep starting fresh. And I love the opportunity to do so.Crowd-sourced post this weekend,BenPS. So last chance—what do you love about or in American history, culture, identity, community?
February 13, 2014
February 13, 2014: I Love All the King’s Men
[Last year, I wrote a Valentine’s Day-inspired series on some of my AmericanStudier loves. I had fun, so I’ve decided to do so again this year. I’d love for you to share some of the things you love for a crowd-sourced weekend post full of heart!]
On two of the things that make one of our most under-appreciated novels so great.I haven’t done a poll or anything, but it seems to me that when we Americans think about Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men (1946) at all, we tend to do so through the lens of its portrayal of a fictionalized Huey Long, the popular and controverial Louisiana governor. That’s an entirely understandable perspective, not only because the novel does focus much of its attention on Willie Stark (its Long figure), but also because the Academy Award-winning film(1949) featured a bravura performance from Broderick Crawford as Stark. The book has a lot to say about Stark, not only as an individual and a representation of his own place and era, but in relationship to enduring questions of power and corruption, hope and cynicism, democracy and demogoguery. But my love for Penn Warren’s novel, which is one of my favorite American texts, stems from other, and to my mind even more impressive and important, elements.For one thing, there’s the narration. Penn Warren’s narrator, Jack Burden, sounds like a combination of the best hard-boiled private detective narrators and H.L. Mencken (or other similarly critical and whip-smart commentators on American society and human nature). I could say more, but instead I’m just going to transcribe one paragraph from the opening chapter, in which Burden is all of those things and then some: “The Boss was down at the other end of the yard where the crepe myrtles were, prowling up and down on the dusty grass stems. Well, it was all his baby, and he could give it suck. I just lay there in the hammock. I lay there and watched the undersides of the oak leaves, dry and grayish and dusty-green, and some of them I saw had rusty-corroded-looking spots on them. Those were the ones which would turn loose their grip on the branch before long—not in any breeze, the fibers would just relax, in the middle of the day maybe with the sunshine bright and the air so still it aches like the place where the tooth was on the morning after you’ve been to the dentist or aches like your heart in the bosom when you stand on the street corner waiting for the light to change and happen to recollect how things once were and how they might have been yet if what happened had not happened.”Penn Warren wasn’t a hugely talented poet for nothing, after all. But he was also one of our most interesting and meaningful historical philosophers; and, as I’ve written at length in this (free and downloadable!) article, All the King’s Men is also a complex treatise on the limitations and possibilities of historical research, knowledge, and engagement. I won’t restate that article’s arguments here, but will simply say this: prior to the events of the novel, Jack Burden was a PhD candidate in History, and in one of the novel’s most successful set-pieces he recounts the story of his Civil War-era ancestor, Cass Mastern, into which he was digging for that thesis. It doesn’t seem to me that we can possibly remember Penn Warren’s novel without remembering the amazing Cass Mastern section—and even if the rest of the novel (to which that section certainly connects) didn’t exist, the Mastern narrative would be one of our most compelling and powerful historical fictions. For that reason, and so many others, I can’t recommend Penn Warren’s novel strongly enough.Final AmericanStudier love tomorrow,BenPS. What do you love about or in American history, culture, identity, community?
On two of the things that make one of our most under-appreciated novels so great.I haven’t done a poll or anything, but it seems to me that when we Americans think about Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men (1946) at all, we tend to do so through the lens of its portrayal of a fictionalized Huey Long, the popular and controverial Louisiana governor. That’s an entirely understandable perspective, not only because the novel does focus much of its attention on Willie Stark (its Long figure), but also because the Academy Award-winning film(1949) featured a bravura performance from Broderick Crawford as Stark. The book has a lot to say about Stark, not only as an individual and a representation of his own place and era, but in relationship to enduring questions of power and corruption, hope and cynicism, democracy and demogoguery. But my love for Penn Warren’s novel, which is one of my favorite American texts, stems from other, and to my mind even more impressive and important, elements.For one thing, there’s the narration. Penn Warren’s narrator, Jack Burden, sounds like a combination of the best hard-boiled private detective narrators and H.L. Mencken (or other similarly critical and whip-smart commentators on American society and human nature). I could say more, but instead I’m just going to transcribe one paragraph from the opening chapter, in which Burden is all of those things and then some: “The Boss was down at the other end of the yard where the crepe myrtles were, prowling up and down on the dusty grass stems. Well, it was all his baby, and he could give it suck. I just lay there in the hammock. I lay there and watched the undersides of the oak leaves, dry and grayish and dusty-green, and some of them I saw had rusty-corroded-looking spots on them. Those were the ones which would turn loose their grip on the branch before long—not in any breeze, the fibers would just relax, in the middle of the day maybe with the sunshine bright and the air so still it aches like the place where the tooth was on the morning after you’ve been to the dentist or aches like your heart in the bosom when you stand on the street corner waiting for the light to change and happen to recollect how things once were and how they might have been yet if what happened had not happened.”Penn Warren wasn’t a hugely talented poet for nothing, after all. But he was also one of our most interesting and meaningful historical philosophers; and, as I’ve written at length in this (free and downloadable!) article, All the King’s Men is also a complex treatise on the limitations and possibilities of historical research, knowledge, and engagement. I won’t restate that article’s arguments here, but will simply say this: prior to the events of the novel, Jack Burden was a PhD candidate in History, and in one of the novel’s most successful set-pieces he recounts the story of his Civil War-era ancestor, Cass Mastern, into which he was digging for that thesis. It doesn’t seem to me that we can possibly remember Penn Warren’s novel without remembering the amazing Cass Mastern section—and even if the rest of the novel (to which that section certainly connects) didn’t exist, the Mastern narrative would be one of our most compelling and powerful historical fictions. For that reason, and so many others, I can’t recommend Penn Warren’s novel strongly enough.Final AmericanStudier love tomorrow,BenPS. What do you love about or in American history, culture, identity, community?
February 12, 2014
February 12, 2014: I Love the New Bruce
[Last year, I wrote a Valentine’s Day-inspired series on some of my AmericanStudier loves. I had fun, so I’ve decided to do so again this year. I’d love for you to share some of the things you love for a crowd-sourced weekend post full of heart!]
On two entirely different and equally inspiring recent albums from an all-time great.As is no doubt obvious from this blog, many of my favoriteAmerican artistsdied long ago, meaning that (barring surprising rediscoveries) I have long since run out of new works of theirs to encounter and experience. As a result, I believe I get even more excited about new releases by the living artists I love—like John Sayles and Jhumpa Lahiri—than would already always be the case. There is, of course, always the possibility that these new releases won’t live up to the artist’s past work or overall career; but as I wrote in that Sayles and Lahiri post, I’m an optimist on this score as on most others. And when it comes to my single favorite artist, Bruce Springsteen, I’m happy to say that his most recent two albums have entirely rewarded my excited anticipation, if in almost entirely different ways.2012’s Wrecking Ball is one of the most thematically unified yet stylistically diverse albums I’ve ever heard. Every song on the album, including the two bonus tracks, represents a response to the 2008 economic collapse and its many ongoing effects and meanings in American society; yet almost every one utilizes a distinct style, engages with a different musical tradition and sound, with which to do so. For both reasons the album has been compared to The Rising (2002), Springsteen’s post-9/11 masterwork; I would agree with that comparison, yet to my mind, because September 11th has inspired so many responses and representations (in every artistic genre), Wrecking Ball is an even more unique and significant social and historical document. While it might not have any individual songs that crack my Springsteen top 10, I would say it’s one of his couple best albums—and that’s pretty impressive for a record released forty years after an artist’s debut!About a month ago, Springsteen released his most recent studio album, High Hopes . But to be honest, High Hopes isn’t really a unified album at all, existing at the other end of the spectrum from something like Wrecking Ball—it’s a collection of (mostly) previously unreleased tracks, representing the last couple decades of Springsteen’s career (if not even further back, since a song like “Frankie Fell in Love”feels more like his 1970s works). Interestingly, the most thematically unified songs, the title track and the concluding “Dream Baby Dream,” are both covers of other artists, the first time Springsteen has included covers on a studio album in his long career. And that last clause is precisely what makes High Hopes so inspiring to me—that even forty-two years into his recording career, Springsteen is continuing to experiment and innovate, trying new things, pushing himself in new directions, refusing to rest on that already impressive body of work. I didn’t really think I could love Bruce more, but these last couple albums have indeed raised the bar.Next AmericanStudier love tomorrow,BenPS. What do you love about or in American history, culture, identity, community?
On two entirely different and equally inspiring recent albums from an all-time great.As is no doubt obvious from this blog, many of my favoriteAmerican artistsdied long ago, meaning that (barring surprising rediscoveries) I have long since run out of new works of theirs to encounter and experience. As a result, I believe I get even more excited about new releases by the living artists I love—like John Sayles and Jhumpa Lahiri—than would already always be the case. There is, of course, always the possibility that these new releases won’t live up to the artist’s past work or overall career; but as I wrote in that Sayles and Lahiri post, I’m an optimist on this score as on most others. And when it comes to my single favorite artist, Bruce Springsteen, I’m happy to say that his most recent two albums have entirely rewarded my excited anticipation, if in almost entirely different ways.2012’s Wrecking Ball is one of the most thematically unified yet stylistically diverse albums I’ve ever heard. Every song on the album, including the two bonus tracks, represents a response to the 2008 economic collapse and its many ongoing effects and meanings in American society; yet almost every one utilizes a distinct style, engages with a different musical tradition and sound, with which to do so. For both reasons the album has been compared to The Rising (2002), Springsteen’s post-9/11 masterwork; I would agree with that comparison, yet to my mind, because September 11th has inspired so many responses and representations (in every artistic genre), Wrecking Ball is an even more unique and significant social and historical document. While it might not have any individual songs that crack my Springsteen top 10, I would say it’s one of his couple best albums—and that’s pretty impressive for a record released forty years after an artist’s debut!About a month ago, Springsteen released his most recent studio album, High Hopes . But to be honest, High Hopes isn’t really a unified album at all, existing at the other end of the spectrum from something like Wrecking Ball—it’s a collection of (mostly) previously unreleased tracks, representing the last couple decades of Springsteen’s career (if not even further back, since a song like “Frankie Fell in Love”feels more like his 1970s works). Interestingly, the most thematically unified songs, the title track and the concluding “Dream Baby Dream,” are both covers of other artists, the first time Springsteen has included covers on a studio album in his long career. And that last clause is precisely what makes High Hopes so inspiring to me—that even forty-two years into his recording career, Springsteen is continuing to experiment and innovate, trying new things, pushing himself in new directions, refusing to rest on that already impressive body of work. I didn’t really think I could love Bruce more, but these last couple albums have indeed raised the bar.Next AmericanStudier love tomorrow,BenPS. What do you love about or in American history, culture, identity, community?
February 11, 2014
February 11, 2014: I Love Du Bois to His Daughter
[Last year, I wrote a Valentine’s Day-inspired series on some of my AmericanStudier loves. I had fun, so I’ve decided to do so again this year. I’d love for you to share some of the things you love for a crowd-sourced weekend post full of heart!]
On two fatherly lessons we could all take to heart.Anyone who’s read this blog for any length of time is likely familiar with my AmericanStudier crush on W.E.B. Du Bois, the lovey-dovey details of which I won’t repeat at length here. I’ve even written about the specific focus of today’s post as part of two of those prior posts: one dedicated to the benefits of reading and teaching Du Bois’s letters; and one focused on his engagement with intimate topics of family and parenting. But I think there’s still more to say about Du Bois’s October 1914 letter to his 14 year old daughter Yolande, who had just embarked upon an exciting and frightening educational adventure at England’s Bedales School. More exactly, two of the pieces of advice that Du Bois gives to Yolande in that letter are, I would argue, profoundly applicable to all of us.One of Du Bois’s principal purposes in the letter is (no doubt based on his own youthful educational experiences abroad) to let Yolande know that she will face prejudice, or at least surprised and frank examination, from those around her based on physical differences associated with her race (such as her “dear brown [skin] and the sweet crinkley hair”). Partly he reassures her by noting that “most folk laugh at anything unusual, whether it is beautiful, fine or not.” But on that last note, he also goes further: “You must know that brown is as pretty as white or prettier and crinkley hair as straight even though it is harder to comb.” Although he then moves on to emphasize that “the main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin,” I wouldn’t want that certainly more important concept to elide the power of Du Bois’s argument, well before Langston Hughes’ “I, Too”and even further before “Black is beautiful,” for the beauty of particularly African American features. In an era when communal standards of beauty are still often set by unspoken racial and cultural norms, we would all do well to read and remember Du Bois’s words here.As anyone familiar with Du Bois’ temperament would expect, he balance such positive and complimentary advice with a healthy dose of tough love for Yolande. That’s never more evident than in the last sentence of the third paragraph where, having noted the amazing opportunity she has and how many “boys and girls all over this world would give almost anything” to have it, he concludes, “You are there by no desert or merit of yours, but only by lucky chance.” Since Yolande was Du Bois’s daughter (and knowing the impressive life she would go on to lead), I very much doubt that she did not possess such merit. But nonetheless, Du Bois was entirely right about how much of a role luck plays in presenting us with opportunities and possibilities, a fact with which American ideals of meritocracyare consistently unwilling to engage. And he’s even more right in the next sentence, which is the shortest in the letter and with which he opens his longest paragraph of advice: “Deserve it, then.” We can’t account for luck, but we certainly have a say in how we respond to it—something else we could definitely learn from W.E.B. Du Bois.Next AmericanStudier love tomorrow,BenPS. What do you love about or in American history, culture, identity, community?
On two fatherly lessons we could all take to heart.Anyone who’s read this blog for any length of time is likely familiar with my AmericanStudier crush on W.E.B. Du Bois, the lovey-dovey details of which I won’t repeat at length here. I’ve even written about the specific focus of today’s post as part of two of those prior posts: one dedicated to the benefits of reading and teaching Du Bois’s letters; and one focused on his engagement with intimate topics of family and parenting. But I think there’s still more to say about Du Bois’s October 1914 letter to his 14 year old daughter Yolande, who had just embarked upon an exciting and frightening educational adventure at England’s Bedales School. More exactly, two of the pieces of advice that Du Bois gives to Yolande in that letter are, I would argue, profoundly applicable to all of us.One of Du Bois’s principal purposes in the letter is (no doubt based on his own youthful educational experiences abroad) to let Yolande know that she will face prejudice, or at least surprised and frank examination, from those around her based on physical differences associated with her race (such as her “dear brown [skin] and the sweet crinkley hair”). Partly he reassures her by noting that “most folk laugh at anything unusual, whether it is beautiful, fine or not.” But on that last note, he also goes further: “You must know that brown is as pretty as white or prettier and crinkley hair as straight even though it is harder to comb.” Although he then moves on to emphasize that “the main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin,” I wouldn’t want that certainly more important concept to elide the power of Du Bois’s argument, well before Langston Hughes’ “I, Too”and even further before “Black is beautiful,” for the beauty of particularly African American features. In an era when communal standards of beauty are still often set by unspoken racial and cultural norms, we would all do well to read and remember Du Bois’s words here.As anyone familiar with Du Bois’ temperament would expect, he balance such positive and complimentary advice with a healthy dose of tough love for Yolande. That’s never more evident than in the last sentence of the third paragraph where, having noted the amazing opportunity she has and how many “boys and girls all over this world would give almost anything” to have it, he concludes, “You are there by no desert or merit of yours, but only by lucky chance.” Since Yolande was Du Bois’s daughter (and knowing the impressive life she would go on to lead), I very much doubt that she did not possess such merit. But nonetheless, Du Bois was entirely right about how much of a role luck plays in presenting us with opportunities and possibilities, a fact with which American ideals of meritocracyare consistently unwilling to engage. And he’s even more right in the next sentence, which is the shortest in the letter and with which he opens his longest paragraph of advice: “Deserve it, then.” We can’t account for luck, but we certainly have a say in how we respond to it—something else we could definitely learn from W.E.B. Du Bois.Next AmericanStudier love tomorrow,BenPS. What do you love about or in American history, culture, identity, community?
February 10, 2014
February 10, 2014: I Love The Wire’s Characters
[Last year, I wrote a Valentine’s Day-inspired series on some of my AmericanStudier loves. I had fun, so I’ve decided to do so again this year. I’d love for you to share some of the things you love for a crowd-sourced weekend post full of heart!]
On three particularly American characters from my favorite show.There were so many great characters on The Wirethat Bill Simmons famously created a March Madness-style bracket through which to determine the greatest (caution, SPOILERS abound). I love just about every one of them, but here want to focus on three whom I’d call especially relevant to AmericanStudying (as the whole show certainly is). I’ll stay away from spoilers of my own, I promise.1) Bubbles: A show that focused on (or at least began with) the drug trade needed at least one central character who was an addict, and across all five seasons that character was Andre Royo’s Bubbles. I don’t know of any character, in any medium, that has put a more nuanced, evolving, human faceon drug addiction than Bubbles, and that in and of itself would qualify him for his list. But Bubbles’ character arc was also defined by some of the most fundamental American tensions: between salvation and backsliding, hope and despair, self-made success and the need for community.
2) Bunny Colvin: Again, despite the numerous themes and issues to which David Simon and companyconnected their show, drugs and “the drug war” were at the heart of it. As the speech linked at his name indicates, season 3 protagonist Major Bunny Colvin (Robert Wisdom) embodied Simon’s perspective on that misguided and destructive war as well as any part of the show. But Bunny’s arc continued into season 4, and as it did it revealed a man trying to do anything he could to respond to some of his city’s and era’s worst crises: not just drugs and crime, but education, the loss of a generation (or more) of youth, and more. He didn’t entirely succeed (we’re talking The Wire here), but he certainly gave it everything he had, and there were victories to be sure.
3) Omar: I’ve written before, on multiple occasions, about our persistent national embrace of righteous vigilantes, of those who take the law into their own hands for what seem to be the best of reasons. I’m certainly not immune to that perspective, as illustrated by my love for Omar, the charismatic gay stick-up man with a code who was probably the show’s most beloved character. Sure, Omar robbed people for a living, and killed on more than one occasion as well. But I defy anyone to watch the show and not root for him at least a bit—which says something about the character and Michael K. Williams’ performance to be sure, but says a good deal about those persistent narratives of outlaw heroism as well. Next AmericanStudier love tomorrow,BenPS. What do you love about or in American history, culture, identity, community?
On three particularly American characters from my favorite show.There were so many great characters on The Wirethat Bill Simmons famously created a March Madness-style bracket through which to determine the greatest (caution, SPOILERS abound). I love just about every one of them, but here want to focus on three whom I’d call especially relevant to AmericanStudying (as the whole show certainly is). I’ll stay away from spoilers of my own, I promise.1) Bubbles: A show that focused on (or at least began with) the drug trade needed at least one central character who was an addict, and across all five seasons that character was Andre Royo’s Bubbles. I don’t know of any character, in any medium, that has put a more nuanced, evolving, human faceon drug addiction than Bubbles, and that in and of itself would qualify him for his list. But Bubbles’ character arc was also defined by some of the most fundamental American tensions: between salvation and backsliding, hope and despair, self-made success and the need for community.
2) Bunny Colvin: Again, despite the numerous themes and issues to which David Simon and companyconnected their show, drugs and “the drug war” were at the heart of it. As the speech linked at his name indicates, season 3 protagonist Major Bunny Colvin (Robert Wisdom) embodied Simon’s perspective on that misguided and destructive war as well as any part of the show. But Bunny’s arc continued into season 4, and as it did it revealed a man trying to do anything he could to respond to some of his city’s and era’s worst crises: not just drugs and crime, but education, the loss of a generation (or more) of youth, and more. He didn’t entirely succeed (we’re talking The Wire here), but he certainly gave it everything he had, and there were victories to be sure.
3) Omar: I’ve written before, on multiple occasions, about our persistent national embrace of righteous vigilantes, of those who take the law into their own hands for what seem to be the best of reasons. I’m certainly not immune to that perspective, as illustrated by my love for Omar, the charismatic gay stick-up man with a code who was probably the show’s most beloved character. Sure, Omar robbed people for a living, and killed on more than one occasion as well. But I defy anyone to watch the show and not root for him at least a bit—which says something about the character and Michael K. Williams’ performance to be sure, but says a good deal about those persistent narratives of outlaw heroism as well. Next AmericanStudier love tomorrow,BenPS. What do you love about or in American history, culture, identity, community?
February 8, 2014
February 8-9, 2014: Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello’s Guest Post
[Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello is Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Coordinator of American Studies at Salem State University. She’s also one of Salem’s most active and engaged public scholars and community members, and has done a great deal of work with all of the city’s historic and cultural sites, including the House of the Seven Gables.]
First, two prior pieces of Elizabeth’s on my week’s final two topics:On Caroline Emmerton: http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/salem/2011/03/history_time_they_changed_the.htmlAnd on historic and yet contemporary sites such as the House: http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article_print.cfm?aid=5763Now, two new paragraphs from Elizabeth on these and other questions:“Recently, I have been writing and talking a lot about applying the concept of “shared authority” to the process by which museums might begin to identify, learn about and then serve broader social needs. This process, rooted in ideas of philosopher Jacques Rancière (and reinforced in various ways by the likes of American Studies scholars such as Karen Halttunen) takes as a given that in the process of creating or developing a “project” or a “goal” someone (in this case someone from a museum) who knows something engages with someone (outside the museum) who knows something else. There is no way forward without recognizing the “other” as valuable to the thing being called a “partnership.” I am buoyed by the fact that this is the process by which the Gables has recently undertaken its new approach to Settlement work, inviting proposals from non-profits in which non-museum partners who effect social change to explain their needs and work, articulate that work’s intersection with the Gables’ mission and suggest partnership projects which will move both organizations forward. The Gables staff claims authority and the partner staff claim authority and, new possibilities emerge. In many of the projects, service recipients also claim authority and apply it to new understandings of what the Gables means, does, and can be in the 21st c. For highlights of this approach see here. But I can’t help but celebrate a wonderful additional American Studies layer to this approach. In the spring of 2013 an American Studies student at Salem State (where I ply my trade) worked collaboratively with me and the staff at the Gables to develop a special “Strong Women of the Gables” tour and tea that was part of a culminating event for a program that had been using the Gables as a springboard for empowerment of at-risk young women through the creative arts. Many “someones” were consulted for and co-creators in this project which did not assume special “authority”:The Gables staff encouraged this program because of its alignment with the needs of the at-risk young women, my student learned much about herself and finding her own voice even as she embraced the role of “learner” and created an interactive tour which asked the young women who participated to bring their own stories with them and insert them into our exploration of past women who lived, worked, struggled in Salem. In this way the Gables became more than a museum and more than a "social service" organization. It emerged as a living, breathing site of strength in a new way, in a new century. Plans are in the works to develop a similar experience to serve homeless and formerly homeless women in Salem.”[Next series starts Monday,BenPS. What do you think?]
First, two prior pieces of Elizabeth’s on my week’s final two topics:On Caroline Emmerton: http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/salem/2011/03/history_time_they_changed_the.htmlAnd on historic and yet contemporary sites such as the House: http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article_print.cfm?aid=5763Now, two new paragraphs from Elizabeth on these and other questions:“Recently, I have been writing and talking a lot about applying the concept of “shared authority” to the process by which museums might begin to identify, learn about and then serve broader social needs. This process, rooted in ideas of philosopher Jacques Rancière (and reinforced in various ways by the likes of American Studies scholars such as Karen Halttunen) takes as a given that in the process of creating or developing a “project” or a “goal” someone (in this case someone from a museum) who knows something engages with someone (outside the museum) who knows something else. There is no way forward without recognizing the “other” as valuable to the thing being called a “partnership.” I am buoyed by the fact that this is the process by which the Gables has recently undertaken its new approach to Settlement work, inviting proposals from non-profits in which non-museum partners who effect social change to explain their needs and work, articulate that work’s intersection with the Gables’ mission and suggest partnership projects which will move both organizations forward. The Gables staff claims authority and the partner staff claim authority and, new possibilities emerge. In many of the projects, service recipients also claim authority and apply it to new understandings of what the Gables means, does, and can be in the 21st c. For highlights of this approach see here. But I can’t help but celebrate a wonderful additional American Studies layer to this approach. In the spring of 2013 an American Studies student at Salem State (where I ply my trade) worked collaboratively with me and the staff at the Gables to develop a special “Strong Women of the Gables” tour and tea that was part of a culminating event for a program that had been using the Gables as a springboard for empowerment of at-risk young women through the creative arts. Many “someones” were consulted for and co-creators in this project which did not assume special “authority”:The Gables staff encouraged this program because of its alignment with the needs of the at-risk young women, my student learned much about herself and finding her own voice even as she embraced the role of “learner” and created an interactive tour which asked the young women who participated to bring their own stories with them and insert them into our exploration of past women who lived, worked, struggled in Salem. In this way the Gables became more than a museum and more than a "social service" organization. It emerged as a living, breathing site of strength in a new way, in a new century. Plans are in the works to develop a similar experience to serve homeless and formerly homeless women in Salem.”[Next series starts Monday,BenPS. What do you think?]
Benjamin A. Railton's Blog
- Benjamin A. Railton's profile
- 2 followers
Benjamin A. Railton isn't a Goodreads Author
(yet),
but they
do have a blog,
so here are some recent posts imported from
their feed.
.jpg){kind=link}