Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 393

February 25-28, 2013: The Even Bigger Read Still Needs You!

[Last week’s conference-inspired series got me thinking about my next conference, the Northeast MLA (NeMLA) convention in Boston (the weekend of March 21-24). I’ll be doing a few different things there, including starting a term as Second Vice President and giving a paper on José Antonio Vargas and the Tuscon Mexican American Studies protests. But it’s this roundtable I’m chairing for which I’d love your input!]
I’ll paste below the description of my NeMLA Roundtable, “The Even Bigger Read: Making American Literature National.” I’ve got six great participants who will share their nominations for one book all Americans should read at the same time (a la the more regional current Big Read program), along with one audience member who has interviewed the founder of the Big Read and will share his thoughts. But I hope that the question and answer session can include lots of other nominations and discussion—not only from the audience present at the roundtable, but from you all as well! So please share any and all nominations for a national Big Read, and I’ll be sure to bring your ideas to the roundtable (and credit you accordingly!).The description:“The Even Bigger Read: Making American Literature NationalFor those of us who care about making American literature more public, more connected to all Americans and their experiences, identities, and perspectives, the NEA’s Big Read program represents a great model for such efforts. Since its pilot project in 2006, The Big Read has brought a number of great, complex, vital works of American literature to local communities and schools, getting lots of Americans reading and engaging with those works in the process. Yet the program is explicitly local, with different communities reading different books—there are both practical and philosophical arguments in support of that local element, but it does leave room for a more genuinely shared, national engagement with American literature.In this roundtable session, I’ll take nominations for a nationwide Big Read—books (in any genre) that should be read and engaged with by all Americans. We’ll talk not only about why, about what makes these works so vital and broadly significant, but about the effects, of what in our public conversations, narratives, communities, identities, histories, and stories would change if we read these books as a nation. We’ll also take suggestions and ideas from the audience.This conversation can help us not only further define American literature and culture, as we collectively understand them, but also envision our own roles and purposes as public scholars of American literature and identity. And since I’m an advisor for the in-development American Writers Museum, I’ll also bring these ideas to that institution, to help shape how it reflects our most shared and significant literary works.”So what do you think? What book should all Americans read at once? Nominate below, and I’ll bring your ideas to Boston in March!February recap on Friday,BenPS. You know what to do!

February 23-24, 2013: Crowd-sourced AmericanStudiers to Watch

[One of my ongoing resolutions is to attend more conferences—for lots of reasons, but especially to connect with my fellow scholars. This week, I’ve highlighted some impressive AmericanStudiers I’ve recently had the chance to meet and see in action, both at November’s American Studies Association conference and at January’s Modern Language Association one. These crowd-sourced suggestions are drawn from other, equally impressive AmericanStudiers—and I am sure there are plenty more folks to highlight, so add your thoughts, please!]
Monica Jackson follows up my thoughts on Nicholas Syrett’s talk on child brides by noting that his subject, “reminded me of a book I've been meaning to read. The book is called I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced . It is a biography of a young girl in Yemen. I'm sure you've heard of it. After working with kids, it's hard to read or hear about the things that some kids go through, but it is important to become aware of these things so that change can happen (as it did for Nujood).”My fellow New England AmericanStudier Aaron Leckliderhas just published his first book, which looks like a wonderful AmericanStudies project and one I can’t wait to read.Also, I’d like to highlight the work of blog reader and fellow blogger and AmericanStudier Thomas Basboll, someone from whom I think we’ll be hearing a lot more in the years to come.Finally, I’d like to remind you that all the posts categorized under the heading “Scholarly Reviews” feature other AmericanStudiers to watch, read, and think about!Next series starts Monday,BenPS. AmericanStudies scholars, projects, websites, or work you’d highlight? Share ‘em please!

February 22, 2013: AmericanStudiers to Watch, Part Five

[One of my ongoing resolutions is to attend more conferences—for lots of reasons, but especially to connect with my fellow scholars. This week, I’ll be briefly highlighting some impressive AmericanStudiers I’ve recently had the chance to meet and see in action, both at November’s American Studies Association conference and at January’s Modern Language Association one. Would love to hear your suggestions for other AmericanStudiers to watch, and will compile the ongoing list for the weekend post!]
On three young scholars with whom I was fortunate enough to share a multi-lingual conversation.At the MLA conference, I gave a talk on a panel organized by the discussion group on Literatures of the U.S. in Languages Other Than English, and its outgoing president Heidi Kim. It was a very positive experience, most especially because of the other three AmericanStudiers on the panel:1)      , an Assistant Professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy, presented on the complex roles of English, Chinese, and hybrid combinations of both in short stories by one of my favorite American authors, Sui Sin Far. Her readings of the individual stories were nuanced and compelling, but she also did a great job framing broader historical, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic contexts for those works and Far’s unique and impressive career.2)      Osvaldo Oyola, a graduate student in English at SUNY Binghamton, spoke on English, Spanish, Spanglish, Dork, and the many other languages and dialects at the heart of Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2008). As befitting Díaz’s novel, his talk was funny and irreverent, but without losing sight of the significant, complex, and vital themes to which the book and its languages connect. I’m excited to see where he takes his dissertation, of which this talk will be a part.3)      Melissa Dennihy, a graduate student in English at the CUNY Graduate Center, paralleled Osvaldo’s talk (as I did Audrey’s) with a broader engagement with multilingual novels and themes in 21st century American literature. She pointed me to a number of books I need to read—I’m especially interested in Fae Myenne Ng’s Bone (1993), with its protagonist who works as a public school translator—but also and more importantly did a great job identifying the stakes of these literary and linguistic questions for our most crucial issues of national identity, community, and future.Three great talks, and one more reminder why I need to get to more conferences! Crowd-sourced post this weekend,BenPS. So who are some AmericanStudiers to watch whom you’d highlight? Share ‘em for that post please!

February 21, 2013: AmericanStudiers to Watch, Part Four

[One of my ongoing resolutions is to attend more conferences—for lots of reasons, but especially to connect with my fellow scholars. This week, I’ll be briefly highlighting some impressive AmericanStudiers I’ve recently had the chance to meet and see in action, both at November’s American Studies Association conference and at January’s Modern Language Association one. Would love to hear your suggestions for other AmericanStudiers to watch, and will compile the ongoing list for the weekend post!]
On the project that exemplifies what digital humanities work can be and do.January’s MLA conference was full of digital elements and innovations, from the formal launch of the new MLA Commons social media site to numerous panels on the digital humanities, new media, electronic literatures, and more—and, of course, the many Tweets sent from most panels and about the conference overall, and the virtual conversations started (and in some cases still ongoing) as a result. But to my mind, the conference’s most interesting digital aspect was somewhat hidden away: the media art exhibit “Avenues of Access: An Exhibit & Online Archive of New ‘Born Digital’ Literature.”Fortunately, I ventured into the upstairs room that hosted the exhibit; all of its digital works were interesting, but as an AmericanStudier I was especially drawn to The Knotted Line . It feels silly for me to try to paraphrase or even summarize what creators Evan Bisselland Erik Loyer (and their many collaborators, researchers, and artists) have done there, so I strongly encourage you to click through to their project and explore. The site is strikingly and compellingly designed, which is obviously not at all unimportant when it comes to digital and electronic resources. But I have to admit that what impressed me most, and makes me most excited to find ways to bring the site into my classrooms, is that it has significantly more depth than many digital resources I have encountered. By that I mean partly the quantity and quality of the text components, but also the number of interconnected resources available at each stop on the site’s timeline, the ways in which the site highlights multiple historical and cultural contexts as well as contemporary links for each moment.Here’s one example, for a moment near and dear to my scholarly heart these days: the site’s page for the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. The page includes textual information not only about the Act, but about a trio of interestingly interconnected prior and subsequent moments: an 1867 railroad strike; the 1933 formation of the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance; and a 2003 political action facilitated by the Chinese Progressive Association. It also includes two visual engagements with the moment and histories, a brief audio recording of a contemporary American reflecting on parallel issues, and a number of other resources and materials to help guide students and scholars to further investigations. The site as a whole in making a compelling AmericanStudies argument, about the links between such histories and our contemporary prison system; but as with any great scholarly work, it also helps those who encounter it find their own ideas and interpretations.Well worth your time, and a site that represents the cutting edge of great digital humanities work.Final scholars of the week tomorrow,BenPS. Responses to this project? Other AmericanStudies work or scholars you’d highlight?

February 20, 2013: AmericanStudiers to Watch, Part Three

[One of my ongoing resolutions is to attend more conferences—for lots of reasons, but especially to connect with my fellow scholars. This week, I’ll be briefly highlighting some impressive AmericanStudiers I’ve recently had the chance to meet and see in action, both at November’s American Studies Association conference and at January’s Modern Language Association one. Would love to hear your suggestions for other AmericanStudiers to watch, and will compile the ongoing list for the weekend post!]
On three scholars who have found unique historical approaches to the role that images of childhood and identity play in our national narratives.The third and final ASA panel I’ll be highlighting here was organized by one of my Twitter-colleagues, Adam Golub, and featured three very complex takes on historical images and uses of childhood in American culture:1)      Allison Curseen, a graduate student in English and African and African American Studies at Duke, presented a focus literary analysis of the opening chapter of Stephen Crane’s novella The Monster (1898), and specifically its portrayal of play, parenting, and the contrast between the pastoral and progress. She convincingly linked that chapter and text to many other turn of the 20th century contexts, including images of “boyville”and the progressive moment’s emphasis on reconstructing the nation through “play.”2)      Nicholas Syrett, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Northern Colorado, used the prominent and controversial 1937 case of a 9 year old Tennesse “child bride” (and her 22 year old husband) to think about American narratives of childhood and adulthood, sexuality, gender, and contrasts to foreign, less “civilized” cultures through contemporary works such as Katherine Mayo’s Mother India (1927). While we can all understand the distaste with a 9 year old’s nuptials, it’s important to understand all of the contexts that inform any single controversy, and he did a great job framing many for this one.3)      Rebecca Onion, another Twitter colleague and a graduate student in American Studies at the University of Texas, read 1970s stories and pieces in the environmental children’s magazine Ranger Rick, including some by science fiction author George Zebrowski, to discuss the relationships between animality and childhood, apocalyptic environmental messaging, and the Endangered Species Act(1973), among many other compelling connections to this fun but complex pop culture text.Each of these projects should produce rich and important AmericanStudies scholarship, and I’m excited to see where they go from here!Next scholars tomorrow,BenPS. Responses to these projects and scholars? Other AmericanStudiers you’d highlight?

February 19, 2013: AmericanStudiers to Watch, Part Two

[One of my ongoing resolutions is to attend more conferences—for lots of reasons, but especially to connect with my fellow scholars. This week, I’ll be briefly highlighting some impressive AmericanStudiers I’ve recently had the chance to meet and see in action, both at November’s American Studies Association conference and at January’s Modern Language Association one. Would love to hear your suggestions for other AmericanStudiers to watch, and will compile the ongoing list for the weekend post!]
On three scholars whose very distinct interests and projects demonstrate that childhood studies is anything but child’s play.The second panel I attended at ASA was on race and childhood in American history and culture, and featured three diverse but all equally compelling and significant focal points:1)      Mary Niall Mitchell, an Associate Professor of History a the University of New Orleans, presented on the complex and amazing American story at the heart of her new book project, currently titled The Real Ida May: Race, Fiction, and Daguerrotypes in a Story of Antislavery. It’s hard to do justice to the many sides and layers to the story of Mary Botts, the “white slave girl” who captured the attention of abolitionists, authors, and many others in antebellum Boston and America—but I’ll be very excited to read Mary’s engagement with them all!2)      Lara Saguisag, a graduate student in Childhood Studies at Rutgers and also a published children’s book author in her own right, spoke on the complex, cross-cultural, and very American trend of racial “crossdressing” in turn of the 20thcentury “kid strips” such as the Katzenjammer Kids, Buster Brown, and Little Nemo in Slumberland. Her readings of the individual strips were wonderfully nuanced, but she also connected this trend to many other cultural and social contexts, making for an appropriately interdisciplinary AmericanStudies approach and topic for sure. 3)      Philip Nel, Professor of English at Kansas State and one of the leading experts on children’s and young adult literature, gave a talk on a project that he has just begun, focusing on the practice of “whitewashing” in the marketing and cover art of children’s and young adult literature.The trend has ties to numerous complex issues, including publishing and audience, commercialization, and racial stereotyping and discrimination, and his project promises to develop these connections and add to our understanding of the social and cultural roles played by these far-from-insignificant genres. I can’t wait to see where these scholars take these compelling and vital American projects!Next scholars tomorrow,BenPS. Responses to these projects and scholars? Other AmericanStudiers you’d highlight?

February 18, 2013: AmericanStudiers to Watch, Part One

[One of my ongoing resolutions is to attend more conferences—for lots of reasons, but especially to connect with my fellow scholars. This week, I’ll be briefly highlighting some impressive AmericanStudiers I’ve recently had the chance to meet and see in action, both at November’s American Studies Association conference and at January’s Modern Language Association one. Would love to hear your suggestions for other AmericanStudiers to watch, and will compile the ongoing list for the weekend post!]
On three talented young Native American Studiers and their interdisciplinary and cross-cultural projects.The first panel I had the chance to attend at the ASA Conference focused on images and narratives of Native Americans, and featured three graduate students who shared portions of their interesting and important dissertation research:1)      AshleyWiersma of Michigan State gave a talk on the construction and development of the Noble Savage myth in both French and Anglo colonial-era discourses. She’s working with some very complex and interesting primary texts, including letters and journals written by missionaries such as Louis Hennepin and Father Buisson de St. Cosme and William Robertson’s History of America(1777). And she’s tying that historical work to the linguistic and philosophical development of concepts such as “civilization.”2)      Marcel Garcia of Yale presented a paper on cultural retention, expression, and adaptation in California’s missions. He focused here specifically on the Ohlone tribe, the Spanish mission in their region, other European vessels who arrived there, and the multiple roles of dance for those communities. His emphasis on the vessels and arrivals was particularly rich, as it complicates any easy division of the community between the Ohlone and the Spanish.3)      Ryan Hall, also of Yale, spoke about popular narratives and stereotypes of the Blackfeet, and specifically the multi-stage development of the concept of the “terrible Blackfeet, scourge of the upper Missouri.” This project connects to numerous interesting early to mid-19th century figures and texts, from Lewis and Clark and Colter’s Run to the Missouri Fur Company and Five Years a Captive among the Blackfeet Indians (1858). He also indicated his contuing work to find and incorporate additional Blackfeet voices, which will add even more layers to this cross-cultural American theme.Three young AmericanStudiers worth keeping an eye on for sure!Next scholars tomorrow,BenPS. Responses to these projects and scholars? Other AmericanStudiers you’d highlight?

February 16-17, 2013: Crowd-sourced Love

[In honor of Valentine’s Day, this week I’ve been highlighting a handful of the many things—moments, voices, interesting little details that mean a lot—that I love about America. This crowd-sourced post is drawn from the responses and loves of fellow AmericanStudiers—but there’s lots more to love, so add your thoughts, please!]
Amanda Couture shares the Sylvia Plath love, for the poems highlighted in that post as well as for “Ariel.”Jeff Renye highlights another favorite moment from an American film, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”On Twitter, Barbara Pittman shares her love for “The last eight lines of Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself.’”Next series starts Monday,BenPS. You know you love it (whatever it may be)! So share it, please!

February 15, 2013: I Love Memento’s Closing Monologue

[In honor of Valentine’s Day, this week I’ll be highlighting a handful of the many things—moments, voices, interesting little details that mean a lot—that I love about America. I’d love if it you’d share some of your loves for the heart-y weekend post!]
[Also, another FYI: this post, while not quite as spoilerific as yesterday’s, will focus on some key elements to the final sequence in Christopher Nolan’s film Memento (2000). Which if you haven’t seen, go watch and then come on back. I’ll be here.]On the dark, cynical, and unquestionably human final words of a contemporary American classic.I might be stretching things a bit by calling Memento (2000) an American classic—after all, it was directed by ; adapted from a short story, “Memento Mori,” by his equally English brother Jonathan; and stars Aussie Guy Pearce and Canadian Carrie-Anne Moss in two of the three principal roles. But I’m sticking to my guns, and not just because the film is set in the western United States (specifically Nevada, I believe, based on the glimpses we get of license plates; key earlier events and flashbacks take place in California). To me, some of the film’s central themes, while unquestionably universal in significance, echo particularly American narratives: the idea, or perhaps the myth, of the self-made man, creating himself anew out of will and ambition, writing his own future on a blank page (or, in this case, his own body); the Western film trope of a lone warrior, a quiet and threatening man with seemingly no identity or past, traveling on a quest for justice and/or revenge, and entering and changing a corrupt town in the process. In those and other core ways, Memento is deeply and importantly American.Given that Americanness, and given that it’s a mystery—if a highly unconventional and postmodern one to be sure—it’s likely no surprise that I love the film. But compared to most of the loves I’ve shared this week, and compared to my general AmericanStudying attitude for that matter, Memento is also strikingly dark and cynical; it takes that tone throughout, but most especially in its final revelations and in the interior monologue with which it concludes (that scene is more spoilerific than I’m going to be here, so don’t watch if you haven’t seen the film!). That monologue’s middle section feels logical and rational enough, particularly the lines “I have to believe in a world outside my own mind. I have to believe that my actions still have meaning, even if I can’t remember them. I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world’s still here.” But it begins with the speaker, protagonist Leonard Shelby, making one of the most blatantly and purposefully self-deceptive and disturbing choices ever put on film, while thinking, ““Do I lie to myself to be happy? … Yes I will.” And so when Leonard (and the film) ends by arguing, “We all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are. I’m no different,” it seems, in the specific context of what he has done and is doing, who and what he has been revealed to be, to be a profoundly pessimistic perspective on human nature and identity.Maybe it is that pessimistic—it’s okay if so, not everything can end on notes of hard-won hope, much as I enjoy the concept. The world’s more complex and multi-faceted than that. But if we take a step back from some of the specifics of what Leonard is doing at this moment, it’s also possible to read his actions here, and throughout the film, as purely and simply and definingly human. He’s trying to make meaning out of the world around him, out of the details of his own life (and most especially the hardest and toughest of them), out of what has happened and what is happening and what he hopes to make happen in the time to come. What Leonard does overtly—in those tattoos on his skin, in his photographs and note cards and wall hangings, in his constant interior monologue—is what we all do more subtly but just as constantly: read and respond to the world around us, and make it part of our developing narratives and stories and identities. Granted, I hope that we can do it in less destructive ways than Leonard; he does have that unique condition to contend with, after all (spoilers there too!). But we all do it, and one of the things I love most about Memento is its ability to hold that mirror up to us and how we move through the world.Crowd-sourced loves this weekend,BenPS. So what do you think? Responses to this post? Loves you’d share for that weekend post?

February 14, 2013: I Love Three Pages in Ceremony

[In honor of Valentine’s Day, this week I’ll be highlighting a handful of the many things—moments, voices, interesting little details that mean a lot—that I love about America. I’d love if it you’d share some of your loves for the heart-y weekend post!]
[Also, just FYI: this post will be spoiling the heck out of the climax to its focal text, Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony (1977). If you haven’t read it, well, go do so ASAP and then meet me back here!]On the climactic decision and its aftermath that together exemplify everything I love about America and American literature.There are lots of reasons why we read fiction: to see aspects of our identities reflected yet also to connect to experiences and lives different from our own; to learn about dark and painful realities yet also to be inspired by what can be; to be entertained and comforted yet also to be challenged and forced to grow; to remember and to imagine; and so many more. When I think about the American novels that I’d put at the top of my list—an ever-changing category, but certainly including The Marrow of Tradition ; The Awakening ; My Ántonia ; Absalom, Absalom!; and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao—what tends to link them is that they achieve many of these goals and effects. And I’m not sure any American novel comes closer to achieving all of them than Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony (1977), a work both specific to its worlds and contexts (Laguna Pueblo Native American culture, World War II veteran experiences, the Southwest United States) and universally relevant, both traditional and postmodern, both historical and supernatural, both tragic and inspiring.Every element and moment of Silko’s novel contributes to those aspects and effects, but I’d say they all coalesce in one climactic and amazing three-page section. As I wrote in this post, the section begins with the protagonist, Tayo, making a utopian choice: faced with a situation in which it’s practically impossible for him not to respond with violence (particularly since he has done so in an parallel yet not as extreme earlier moment), Tayo instead courageously resists that impulse, and the forces of evil, prejudice, and destruction (within his community, nationally, and spiritually) that lie behind it. Having done so, he comes over the next two pages to a series of powerful and crucial epiphanies and revelations: about history and heritage, his family and his identity, the reservation and the nation, his long-lost mother and his own life and future, about, in short, every central character, setting, and theme in the novel. I’ve taught Silko’s novel at least ten separate times now, and I’ll freely admit to getting choked up each and every time I read this section. It’s a beautiful and powerful moment on many levels, but I suppose if I had to boil it down, I would do so through a quote from another inspiring American scene in a work I love: President Andrew Shepherd’s climactic speech in The American President (1995). The speech is full of great lines, but I’m thinking specifically of this one: “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it bad, ‘cause it’s gonna put up a fight.” To be clear, I don’t mean to suggest that Tayo, or any Native American, has to “earn” his or her American citizenship any more fully than any of the rest of us. Quite the opposite, I’d say that Tayo here exemplifies a concept both Shepherd and I would apply to all Americans: that if we hope to reach our ideals, our best selves—as individuals, as communities, and as a nation—well, to quote my favorite line from this section in Silko’s novel, “The only thing is: it has never been easy.” It’s far easier to give in to the worst of what we have been or can be, whether that means meeting violence and hate with the same, getting cynical and pessimistic about the future, settling for far less than we can be, or any other understandable but limiting and ultimately destructive choice. But as Tayo and Silko demonstrate in this amazing section, the hard way is the better, and the American, way.My last American love (for the week) tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Responses to this post? Loves you’d share for the weekend post?