Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 398
November 14, 2012
November 14, 2012: Public Scholarship, Part Three
[This week marks AmericanStudies’ two-year anniversary (I began the blog, not coincidentally, right after the 2010 elections). So I’m going to celebrate that occasion by highlighting five posts in which I’ve considered some of the reasons, possibilities, and issues related to public scholarship, blogging, and related work. I’d love to hear your thoughts on those questions, or any other 21st century forms and conversations, for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post!]
On some of the most threatening and most inspiring sides to 21stcentury public scholarship.Just after I wrote yesterday’s Severson and Gingrich post, a couple more developments had me continuing to think in more self-reflective ways about what I’m doing, here and in general. First, I read a New York Times article that documents how what was done to Professor William Cronon (on which see this brief post) was just the tip of the iceberg; Republican groups in Michigan had now begun making sweeping public records requests involving the emails of numerous labor studies professors at three (so far) public universities in the state. I’ve long felt that the various kinds of anti-intellectual and anti-academic hostilities present in our national narratives are by far the worst—and perhaps even the only bad—aspect of this profession, and I can honestly say that in my fifteen or so years of genuine awareness of the profession (although I was certainly aware to at least a degree through my Dad for years before that as well) this is certainly the worst that things have gotten. I would, I hope, feel that way even if I were not myself employed by a public university; but the fact that I am only amplifies my sense of the profoundly un-American qualities of these invasions of privacy and attacks.It’s true that many academics, at least in the humanities, are politically liberal; there are plenty of possible reasons for that preponderance, and while I have my own theories they’re not the point here. It’s also absolutely and profoundly true, in my significant experiences across multiple institutions and disciplines and classrooms, that the vast majority of academics, whatever their personal views on politics (or anything else), do not bring those views into the classroom; moreover, of the small minority who do make such views clear at times, I am even more certain that virtually (if not literally) none of them require of their students that they adhere to such views in order to receive high grades or the like. And above and beyond such specifics, it seems to me that what college classes most fully offer is the opportunity for students to learn how to think and analyze and argue and read and write and be a part of their world in stronger and more successful ways, skills that prepare them for not only any political conversation (from any perspective) but every other arena of life and identity. To attack college professors for (the only possible charge behind these kinds of document requests) indoctrinating their students or the like is thus, to my mind, not only false on the specifics but even more false, directly backwards even, on the broader work that we do and ask of our students.I came home that day, disheartened by having read that article, to find the advance copies of my second book waiting for me. The book is, like this blog, certainly not a-political; its concluding chapter analyzes Barack Obama’s first book and his identity more broadly as profoundly representative of all early 21stcentury Americans’ identities and relationships to our shared national heritage. But my sincere and most ideal hope for the book, as for this blog, is that it contributes to our communal understandings and conversations and knowledge and narratives in ways that transcend any particular partisan or contemporary debates, that in fact remind us of how much we share and how much stronger and better we are as a nation when our focus is there. Holding in my hands the book, the result of at least five years of thinking and writing, and of innumerable conversations in classrooms, in colloquiums and conferences, in faculty reading groups, with family and friends, and, yes, online, is one of the very best times that this profession has to offer. But even better, I have to admit, is allowing myself to contemplate those ideal contributions it and I could make to our national conversations and narratives.I don’t imagine that the worst of times vibe is going to go away any time soon. But when I’m posting here, as when I hold the book, as when I step into my classes, I can remember some of the best of times, within my profession and within our nation. And I have to believe that they’re stronger and more lasting than even the very worst of where we can go as a nation. More tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think, of the worst sides of public scholarship, the best ones, or anything in between?11/14 Memory Day nominee: Aaron Copland, perhaps one of the first genuinely American classical composers and one whose best compositionscontinue to define our national landscape.
On some of the most threatening and most inspiring sides to 21stcentury public scholarship.Just after I wrote yesterday’s Severson and Gingrich post, a couple more developments had me continuing to think in more self-reflective ways about what I’m doing, here and in general. First, I read a New York Times article that documents how what was done to Professor William Cronon (on which see this brief post) was just the tip of the iceberg; Republican groups in Michigan had now begun making sweeping public records requests involving the emails of numerous labor studies professors at three (so far) public universities in the state. I’ve long felt that the various kinds of anti-intellectual and anti-academic hostilities present in our national narratives are by far the worst—and perhaps even the only bad—aspect of this profession, and I can honestly say that in my fifteen or so years of genuine awareness of the profession (although I was certainly aware to at least a degree through my Dad for years before that as well) this is certainly the worst that things have gotten. I would, I hope, feel that way even if I were not myself employed by a public university; but the fact that I am only amplifies my sense of the profoundly un-American qualities of these invasions of privacy and attacks.It’s true that many academics, at least in the humanities, are politically liberal; there are plenty of possible reasons for that preponderance, and while I have my own theories they’re not the point here. It’s also absolutely and profoundly true, in my significant experiences across multiple institutions and disciplines and classrooms, that the vast majority of academics, whatever their personal views on politics (or anything else), do not bring those views into the classroom; moreover, of the small minority who do make such views clear at times, I am even more certain that virtually (if not literally) none of them require of their students that they adhere to such views in order to receive high grades or the like. And above and beyond such specifics, it seems to me that what college classes most fully offer is the opportunity for students to learn how to think and analyze and argue and read and write and be a part of their world in stronger and more successful ways, skills that prepare them for not only any political conversation (from any perspective) but every other arena of life and identity. To attack college professors for (the only possible charge behind these kinds of document requests) indoctrinating their students or the like is thus, to my mind, not only false on the specifics but even more false, directly backwards even, on the broader work that we do and ask of our students.I came home that day, disheartened by having read that article, to find the advance copies of my second book waiting for me. The book is, like this blog, certainly not a-political; its concluding chapter analyzes Barack Obama’s first book and his identity more broadly as profoundly representative of all early 21stcentury Americans’ identities and relationships to our shared national heritage. But my sincere and most ideal hope for the book, as for this blog, is that it contributes to our communal understandings and conversations and knowledge and narratives in ways that transcend any particular partisan or contemporary debates, that in fact remind us of how much we share and how much stronger and better we are as a nation when our focus is there. Holding in my hands the book, the result of at least five years of thinking and writing, and of innumerable conversations in classrooms, in colloquiums and conferences, in faculty reading groups, with family and friends, and, yes, online, is one of the very best times that this profession has to offer. But even better, I have to admit, is allowing myself to contemplate those ideal contributions it and I could make to our national conversations and narratives.I don’t imagine that the worst of times vibe is going to go away any time soon. But when I’m posting here, as when I hold the book, as when I step into my classes, I can remember some of the best of times, within my profession and within our nation. And I have to believe that they’re stronger and more lasting than even the very worst of where we can go as a nation. More tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think, of the worst sides of public scholarship, the best ones, or anything in between?11/14 Memory Day nominee: Aaron Copland, perhaps one of the first genuinely American classical composers and one whose best compositionscontinue to define our national landscape.
November 13, 2012
November 13, 2012: Public Scholarship, Part Two
[This week marks AmericanStudies’ two-year anniversary (I began the blog, not coincidentally, right after the 2010 elections). So I’m going to celebrate that occasion by highlighting five posts in which I’ve considered some of the reasons, possibilities, and issues related to public scholarship, blogging, and related work. I’d love to hear your thoughts on those questions, or any other 21st century forms and conversations, for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post!]
On what we think about our past and identity, and why it matters so much.Today I focus on two very political stories that feel too relevant to what I’m trying to do here—as well as my ideal goals for my second book—not to engage with them. The first is a somewhat old story and one in response to which (so to speak) I’ve already written, but one that bears repeating nonetheless: Dan Severson, a candidate for Minnesota Secretary of State in the 2010 election (I can’t bring myself to find out whether he won, although I fear the worst), said in October that “There is no such thing” as the separation of church and state, that “it just does not exist, and it does not exist in America for a purpose, because we are a Christian nation.” I can’t say that Mr. Severson needs to read my earlier post on the Treaty of Tripoli, because I have a feeling he’s a lost cause; but certainly the need to counter a position like his with historical details about (for example) that Treaty, to add some AmericanStudies knowledge to the conversations in contrast to that kind of rank fiction or ignorance, makes a compelling argument that a blog like this has a role to play in our contemporary conversations.Even more meaningful than his nonsense about the separation of church and state, however, is Severson’s final and more sweeping assertion that “we are a Christian nation.” I argue explicitly in the conclusion to that second book that what was at stake in the 2008 election, and what remains most significantly at stake in (for example) debates over President Obama’s American-ness, is a set of debates over America’s core, founding, fundamental identity; more specifically and centrally, in relation to Severson’s quote, I believe that the great majority of positions held by the contemporary right can be boiled down to corollaries of such a belief about America’s Christian (and Anglo, English-speaking, etc) origins. Along those lines, former Speaker of the House, current pundit, and failed presidential candidate Newt Gingrich argued in a March 2011 speech delivered at an evangelical Texas mega-church that “I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9, [and] I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.” The responses to Gingrich’s quote that I’ve read have understandably focused on the tortured logic by which a secular atheist country could be dominated by radical Islamists. But to my mind, the more significant argumentative ideas here are the last and the first—Gingrich’s explicitly Christian vision of “what it once meant to be an American,” and his desire to pass down that fictitious heritage to a future generation of young Americans. On the latter general idea Newt and I agree—there’s a reason why I put pictures of my boys on each version of this blog, and a reason why the cover of my book features a photograph of young American schoolchildren (of a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds); the stakes of these debates over what we are and have always been are most definitely tied to the future, and especially to what future Americans recognize as our shared and communal and core identities. And I would add the vitally important idea, also at the heart of my book, that America has always beendefined not only by multiple cultures and peoples and languages and religions—the emphasis of the multicultural historical narrative which often counters the Christian one, and with which I agree in many ways but which still defines cultures as individual and static and at least somewhat separate—but also by the cross-cultural intersections and combinations and hybrid transformations of that community.What’s the difference between those two narratives, the multicultural one and my cross-cultural idea? I would answer that by pointing to another recent story, the census results in which Hispanic Americans constitute roughly a sixth of the nation’s population. In the Christian narrative, this is a dire trend, a sign that things are indeed changing and for the worse; in the multicultural narrative, it would I believe likewise be seen as a change, just a much more positive one (toward increasing diversity, for example). Yet in my cross-cultural vision of America, one that includes Spanish American arrivals and settlers (in Florida, in Texas, in the Southwest and California) as first and founding Americans alongside, in fact in cross-cultural mixture with, the Puritans in Massachusetts and the French in the upper Midwest and the Catholics in Maryland and the Dutch in New Amsterdam and African slaves in Virginia and Native Americans everywhere and many others besides, those census results merely highlight how much 21st century America stands, like our President, as a descendent of what we have always been, of what has always defined our most unique and significant community and identity. More tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?11/13 Memory Day nominee: Buck O’Neil, the Negro Leagues baseball star, Civil Rights activist, and all-around amazing American legend.
On what we think about our past and identity, and why it matters so much.Today I focus on two very political stories that feel too relevant to what I’m trying to do here—as well as my ideal goals for my second book—not to engage with them. The first is a somewhat old story and one in response to which (so to speak) I’ve already written, but one that bears repeating nonetheless: Dan Severson, a candidate for Minnesota Secretary of State in the 2010 election (I can’t bring myself to find out whether he won, although I fear the worst), said in October that “There is no such thing” as the separation of church and state, that “it just does not exist, and it does not exist in America for a purpose, because we are a Christian nation.” I can’t say that Mr. Severson needs to read my earlier post on the Treaty of Tripoli, because I have a feeling he’s a lost cause; but certainly the need to counter a position like his with historical details about (for example) that Treaty, to add some AmericanStudies knowledge to the conversations in contrast to that kind of rank fiction or ignorance, makes a compelling argument that a blog like this has a role to play in our contemporary conversations.Even more meaningful than his nonsense about the separation of church and state, however, is Severson’s final and more sweeping assertion that “we are a Christian nation.” I argue explicitly in the conclusion to that second book that what was at stake in the 2008 election, and what remains most significantly at stake in (for example) debates over President Obama’s American-ness, is a set of debates over America’s core, founding, fundamental identity; more specifically and centrally, in relation to Severson’s quote, I believe that the great majority of positions held by the contemporary right can be boiled down to corollaries of such a belief about America’s Christian (and Anglo, English-speaking, etc) origins. Along those lines, former Speaker of the House, current pundit, and failed presidential candidate Newt Gingrich argued in a March 2011 speech delivered at an evangelical Texas mega-church that “I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9, [and] I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.” The responses to Gingrich’s quote that I’ve read have understandably focused on the tortured logic by which a secular atheist country could be dominated by radical Islamists. But to my mind, the more significant argumentative ideas here are the last and the first—Gingrich’s explicitly Christian vision of “what it once meant to be an American,” and his desire to pass down that fictitious heritage to a future generation of young Americans. On the latter general idea Newt and I agree—there’s a reason why I put pictures of my boys on each version of this blog, and a reason why the cover of my book features a photograph of young American schoolchildren (of a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds); the stakes of these debates over what we are and have always been are most definitely tied to the future, and especially to what future Americans recognize as our shared and communal and core identities. And I would add the vitally important idea, also at the heart of my book, that America has always beendefined not only by multiple cultures and peoples and languages and religions—the emphasis of the multicultural historical narrative which often counters the Christian one, and with which I agree in many ways but which still defines cultures as individual and static and at least somewhat separate—but also by the cross-cultural intersections and combinations and hybrid transformations of that community.What’s the difference between those two narratives, the multicultural one and my cross-cultural idea? I would answer that by pointing to another recent story, the census results in which Hispanic Americans constitute roughly a sixth of the nation’s population. In the Christian narrative, this is a dire trend, a sign that things are indeed changing and for the worse; in the multicultural narrative, it would I believe likewise be seen as a change, just a much more positive one (toward increasing diversity, for example). Yet in my cross-cultural vision of America, one that includes Spanish American arrivals and settlers (in Florida, in Texas, in the Southwest and California) as first and founding Americans alongside, in fact in cross-cultural mixture with, the Puritans in Massachusetts and the French in the upper Midwest and the Catholics in Maryland and the Dutch in New Amsterdam and African slaves in Virginia and Native Americans everywhere and many others besides, those census results merely highlight how much 21st century America stands, like our President, as a descendent of what we have always been, of what has always defined our most unique and significant community and identity. More tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?11/13 Memory Day nominee: Buck O’Neil, the Negro Leagues baseball star, Civil Rights activist, and all-around amazing American legend.
November 12, 2012
November 12, 2012: Public Scholarship, Part One
[This week marks AmericanStudies’ two-year anniversary (I began the blog, not coincidentally, right after the 2010 elections). So I’m going to celebrate that occasion by highlighting five posts in which I’ve considered some of the reasons, possibilities, and issues related to public scholarship, blogging, and related work. I’d love to hear your thoughts on those questions, or any other 21st century forms and conversations, for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post!]
On one of the most frustrating but fundamental reasons why we’re here.As much as it pains me to do so, I have to focus here largely on Glenn Beck, and particularly on his Beck University. I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide a hyperlink to Glenn Beck’s online, not-for-credit but definitely for-profit (for him) university, so you’ll either have to trust my basic description here or to find the website on your own (no AmericanStudier lifeguard will be on duty, so swim at your own risk, there be monsters). In July 2010 Beck founded this online university, which (for a fee) offers weekly “courses” in topics such as Faith, Hope, and Charity. Despite those broad themes, the courses have focused very specifically on American history and identity (particularly in but not limited to the founding era), and Beck has brought in a series of “scholars” (pardon my air quotes, but I can’t write the word with a straight face) to provide seemingly objective (but most definitely partisan in every sense) perspectives on those national topics. The most famous and certainly most telling of those scholars is David Barton (he teaches the Faith courses), an Evangelical minister who has made his career with a series of books arguing that the Founding Fathers not only did not believe in the separation of church and state, but in fact intended for the United States (and its Constitution, government, and so on) to be deeply and centrally Christian. (Not coincidentally, the Latin motto on Beck U’s coat of arms translates to “Revolution against tyrants, submission to God.”)For a long time, I had felt as if scholarly perspectives on America (and its history, identity, community, etc) were largely distinct from contemporary political debates; certainly talk radio and Fox News types have long articulated certain visions of those national topics, but it didn’t seem to me as if their goal was to teach their audiences about those topics so much as reinforce existing ideas in service of much more overtly political agendas. But from its name to every aspect of its existence, Beck University does purport to teach, and by at least one measure it seems that he has been perceived as doing exactly that: in a pretty comprehensive April 2010 poll of self-affiliated Tea Party members, over 50% of those polled identified Beck as the person from whom they have “learned the most about America.” And while deciding between which of Beck’s nonsensical fairy tales and conspiracy theories is the most dangerous or destructive is a very tall order, I would argue that it is precisely the ones within this University frame, the ones that Beck and his cohorts define as the most scholarly, the most objective, the most grounded in historical facts and details, that have the greatest potential to do long-term harm. If his audience believes (for example) that FEMA is building concentration camps in which to quarantine conservatives, they will, it seems to me, have to recognize at a certain point that they have not been taken to such camps, nor has anyone else. But if they believe (for example) that the Constitution was created and intended to enshrine Christianity at the core of America’s national identity and government and community—and, more exactly, believe that Beck and his scholars have taught them the historical and factual and inarguable groundings for that idea—then no contemporary trends or events could revise that perspective.Perhaps nothing can; certainly the thought that I might have any ability to counter Beck University is, I know, an extreme and far from humble one. But I have increasingly come to feel as if I have to try, as if part of my life’s work should be working to articulate narratives and analyses of American histories and identities that can, in their own small way, become part—and, I hope, a more complex and accurate part than those of Beck and his ilk—of our larger conversations about these core and crucial topics. But I can’t do that alone, of course. Ideally it requires many of us to do the same, so that the diversity and depth of scholarly perspectives can contribute to those conversations (see the Scholarly Reviews category for many of the other voices I’ve tried to highlight here). And more immediately and practically, it requires an engaged and active audience, requires you—not only to read, but to respond, to help create conversations here that can both model the best such national dialogues and carry these ideas and analyses and stories forward. So thanks, for the first two years and I hope for many more to come. Next post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Thoughts on public scholarship, national conversations, blogging, or any other related issues for the weekend’s post?11/12 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two very different but equally impressive and inspiring, and I would argue equally American, women, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.[image error]
On one of the most frustrating but fundamental reasons why we’re here.As much as it pains me to do so, I have to focus here largely on Glenn Beck, and particularly on his Beck University. I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide a hyperlink to Glenn Beck’s online, not-for-credit but definitely for-profit (for him) university, so you’ll either have to trust my basic description here or to find the website on your own (no AmericanStudier lifeguard will be on duty, so swim at your own risk, there be monsters). In July 2010 Beck founded this online university, which (for a fee) offers weekly “courses” in topics such as Faith, Hope, and Charity. Despite those broad themes, the courses have focused very specifically on American history and identity (particularly in but not limited to the founding era), and Beck has brought in a series of “scholars” (pardon my air quotes, but I can’t write the word with a straight face) to provide seemingly objective (but most definitely partisan in every sense) perspectives on those national topics. The most famous and certainly most telling of those scholars is David Barton (he teaches the Faith courses), an Evangelical minister who has made his career with a series of books arguing that the Founding Fathers not only did not believe in the separation of church and state, but in fact intended for the United States (and its Constitution, government, and so on) to be deeply and centrally Christian. (Not coincidentally, the Latin motto on Beck U’s coat of arms translates to “Revolution against tyrants, submission to God.”)For a long time, I had felt as if scholarly perspectives on America (and its history, identity, community, etc) were largely distinct from contemporary political debates; certainly talk radio and Fox News types have long articulated certain visions of those national topics, but it didn’t seem to me as if their goal was to teach their audiences about those topics so much as reinforce existing ideas in service of much more overtly political agendas. But from its name to every aspect of its existence, Beck University does purport to teach, and by at least one measure it seems that he has been perceived as doing exactly that: in a pretty comprehensive April 2010 poll of self-affiliated Tea Party members, over 50% of those polled identified Beck as the person from whom they have “learned the most about America.” And while deciding between which of Beck’s nonsensical fairy tales and conspiracy theories is the most dangerous or destructive is a very tall order, I would argue that it is precisely the ones within this University frame, the ones that Beck and his cohorts define as the most scholarly, the most objective, the most grounded in historical facts and details, that have the greatest potential to do long-term harm. If his audience believes (for example) that FEMA is building concentration camps in which to quarantine conservatives, they will, it seems to me, have to recognize at a certain point that they have not been taken to such camps, nor has anyone else. But if they believe (for example) that the Constitution was created and intended to enshrine Christianity at the core of America’s national identity and government and community—and, more exactly, believe that Beck and his scholars have taught them the historical and factual and inarguable groundings for that idea—then no contemporary trends or events could revise that perspective.Perhaps nothing can; certainly the thought that I might have any ability to counter Beck University is, I know, an extreme and far from humble one. But I have increasingly come to feel as if I have to try, as if part of my life’s work should be working to articulate narratives and analyses of American histories and identities that can, in their own small way, become part—and, I hope, a more complex and accurate part than those of Beck and his ilk—of our larger conversations about these core and crucial topics. But I can’t do that alone, of course. Ideally it requires many of us to do the same, so that the diversity and depth of scholarly perspectives can contribute to those conversations (see the Scholarly Reviews category for many of the other voices I’ve tried to highlight here). And more immediately and practically, it requires an engaged and active audience, requires you—not only to read, but to respond, to help create conversations here that can both model the best such national dialogues and carry these ideas and analyses and stories forward. So thanks, for the first two years and I hope for many more to come. Next post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Thoughts on public scholarship, national conversations, blogging, or any other related issues for the weekend’s post?11/12 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two very different but equally impressive and inspiring, and I would argue equally American, women, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.[image error]
November 10, 2012
November 10-11, 2012: A Very American Election
On what I would call the most American—in the worst and best senses—aspect of the 2012 election.
There’s a lot that could be called distinctly and definingly American about Tuesday’s election. The resemblance of the electoral map to past American schisms, as Amara comments below. The slow and hesitant but still impressive and inspiring march of progress and arc of justice, as witnessed in the four marriage equality victories, the number of new female Senators and Reps and their stories and identities, and so on. The contests between nostalgic and forward-looking worldviews, particularly when it comes to women and sexuality. The amazingly American, and just plain American, victory speech delivered by President Obama in the middle of the night. And much more.But for me, the election’s most American aspect was also its most contested and crucial: voting. I’ve written before in this space about the many efforts to disenfranchise voters and suppress votes ahead of this election, and they only intensified as the election neared. As I wrote in that post, such efforts have a frustratingly long history in America, could in fact be said to be among the most consistently present of our national horrors and tragedies. But so too, as I wrote, do the inspiring and hopeful responses, both by activists who fight to extend the franchise and by voters themselves, Americans who brave the most difficult and even violent conditions to exercise their right to vote. So when I say that I could not be prouder of the turnout in this election, of the millions of Americans who did everything they had to do—and then some—to participate, I mean it in the most AmericanStudies way I can. That’s what I wanted to say! Now a few thoughts from my fellow AmericanStudiers:In response to Wednesday’s Birtherism post, Toni Osier argues, “I agree with you that his multiculturalism makes him American. Even though the Birthers and tea partiers don't want to see it. That is American now! There are very few just white people left. My issue with the Birthers is I don't really understand why if Obama was not born in America that the people in charge of making sure he was when he first started running for office would be working so hard to cover it up. How does that benefit them? There were plenty of other candidates if he was not legitimately born a US citizen then we would not be here today! I have a friend whose step mother was born in MA and grew up in Saudi Arabia but if she were to run for office no one would question her status as an American because she is white. She does not look Middle Eastern so no one would think differently. Honestly I think that they never even thought there would be a possibility of their white bread America having a black president and now for two terms!”Responding to the same post, Lito Velasco writes: "First, to your definition and idea of "American"... I couldn't agree more. That idea is part of what makes me so proud of my marriage. My wife is about as "Caucasian" as one could get: a true Anglo-Saxon mix of English, French, Irish, etc. And during our courtship and engagement, we battled against some pretty divisive and cruel attitudes towards our union both from inside and outside our family (granted, most of the "attitude" came from people in her extended family...mine was pretty open-armed and accepting of us). But Jennifer didn't bat an eye. She knew who she loved and WHY she loved. She didn't care that my skin wasn't "white", or that we might have children who weren't "blonde haired and blue eyed" (to quote a letter she received from a loved one...one that warned her of the impending doom she was walking into). She cared that she loved a man who was Mexican, Arabic, and Italian...and yet, she never "sees" those things. She only sees me: a man. The man she loves.And isn't that what we're SUPPOSED to do? Not just as citizens of this potentially-great country...but as human beings? Aren't we supposed to look at someone and define them not based on their ethnicity and appearance, but on who they are on the INSIDE? On how they live? On what they stand for and represent? I've always been so happy that my wife looks at me and sees not a Mexican...but...ME.She, a small-town girl (from a town in Indiana that you might miss if you happen to blink while driving through) who grew up in a somewhat sheltered environment and surrounded by townsfolk who had a very CLEAR definition of what an "American" is and should be, grew into a woman whose idea of a person is based on the qualities they possess...and not the color of their skin, their background, etc.Granted, I'm not saying we should discount our heritage. I am proud of mine as she is hers...but it shouldn't be a divisive issue in family, marriage, or politics. And so many people use it as JUST that. Isn't it time to evolve? isn't it time to finally wake up and see the reality of being fellow human beings?!I guess I've sort of turned this post into a statement on my background history, and I apologize for that. But I state this history because I feel it's perfectly appropriate to the situation. The Birther movement seems to mainly fear and loathe the current President not because of his policies and the political ideas he represents (although I'm sure that plays into it somewhat), but because of his heritage, the color of his skin, and his history. And...is that really a reason to fear and loathe? How many times have we heard the indignant cries that "Obama is a Muslim!"? He's not, obviously. But even if he was...so what? Why is it okay to run for public office if you're a Catholic, Christian, Mormon, Baptist, etc but NOT if you're a Muslim? Oh yeah, that's right. Because they're "the enemy". Shouldn't we be more concerned about President Obama's CAPABILITY? His ability? His leadership skills?The people who hide behind the flag and cry out against President Obama because of the "Birther" idea remind me of those same people I mentioned earlier in this post. Who cares if I'm a Mexican and your family member might give birth to children who aren't "entirely White"? Shouldn't the bigger issue be whether or not I will love, cherish, and protect your loved one? Whether or not I will keep her safe and happy? Whether or not I will foster her growth as a human being? Whether or not I'll try to help her on her journey in life and her ever-evolving proces of growth as a woman and human?Shouldn't that be the same attitude we take towards our President?I fear that the growing rise in the Birther movement is related to the idea that these people, like the ones who cautioned my wife against marrying me, are glimpsing into the future...and they don't like what they see. They're afraid of the possibility of the "chickens [might] come home to roost". They're afraid that instead of being the majority...they'll have to live on the other side of the fence. They'll have to come to grips with the fact that they're falling into the minority. That they'll be on "the other side". But is that really so tragic? Hell, I've lived with it all my life and I don't seem to have any MAJOR issues.And those who would foster, enable, and encourage this fear (Trump...we're ALL looking at you)...who would exploit this fear and try to use it to their advantage. I wonder about those people...are they just as afraid of being in the minority? Or is it a purely financially-motivated anger? Are they SO afraid of having a little less and others having a little more that they'll basically stoke the flames of racism and hate so that they can accumulate more wealth? Whatever the case, people like Donald Trump should realize: it doesn't matter how much money you have. When you go on an insane, anger-filled rant like the one he engaged in last night...it doesn't make you seem like anything more than a bigoted, crazy fool. You're okay with that, Trump? You're okay with being the cartoonish buffoon that people now view you as?He'd most likely respond by saying something like, "Take a look at that kid. He's got no money. He doesn't know anything." Well, I'd venture to guess I'm a little more lucky and affluent than he is when it comes to my wealth of knowledge of the human condition.Anyway, I digress. And I apologize for this raving post. I know it's all over the place, but...I'm recovering from seven weeks of madness...in which every night I averaged about 4 hours of sleep...sleep filled with dreams of a red and blue map, electoral counts, and percentages. Last night was the first good, heavy night's sleep in a while. All six hours of it. LOL.But, despite my ramblings, I figure you get my drift. I'm right there with you. This nation needs to take a look at itself on this morning and think about where they stand as a people. Those in the red states...who would embrace this anger and hatred and fear and use it as a fuel to drive their lives...take a look at the country's vote. Take a look at some of the people elected to Washington. Take a look at some of the policies being approved by vote. This country is evolving. Do you wish to join the rest of us? Or are you still going to hold onto the fear and remain rooted in the past?There are plenty of seats on the bus. I wouldn't exclude you because of where you were born, the color of your skin, or your heritage. I'd smile and welcome you to the family. I'd look into your eyes and see WHO you were based on your actions, words, and how you related to others.Just as my wife and I see each other: to her...I'm not a Mexican/Italian/Arabic man. I'm a man. To me....she's not a Caucasian woman. She's a beautiful woman. She's my wife.Give it a shot, folks. It might make life so much easier than you ever possibly dreamed it could be. And that's what America COULD be. If you just gave it a chance."Responding to Thursday’s post on Obama and race, Amara highlights the similarites between the 2012 electoral map and the divisions between the slave and free states, and thus the Confederacy and Union, at the time of the Civil War.Responding to a conversation about the election and race/ethnicity, Sean Goodlett highlights this Eugene Robinson piece in the Washington Post.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. What do you think? Thoughts on the election and America? On Obama and America? On any related issues or questions?10/10 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two controversial, courageous, and influential American activists, Samuel Gridley Howe and Russell Means.10/11 Memory Day nominee: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.!
There’s a lot that could be called distinctly and definingly American about Tuesday’s election. The resemblance of the electoral map to past American schisms, as Amara comments below. The slow and hesitant but still impressive and inspiring march of progress and arc of justice, as witnessed in the four marriage equality victories, the number of new female Senators and Reps and their stories and identities, and so on. The contests between nostalgic and forward-looking worldviews, particularly when it comes to women and sexuality. The amazingly American, and just plain American, victory speech delivered by President Obama in the middle of the night. And much more.But for me, the election’s most American aspect was also its most contested and crucial: voting. I’ve written before in this space about the many efforts to disenfranchise voters and suppress votes ahead of this election, and they only intensified as the election neared. As I wrote in that post, such efforts have a frustratingly long history in America, could in fact be said to be among the most consistently present of our national horrors and tragedies. But so too, as I wrote, do the inspiring and hopeful responses, both by activists who fight to extend the franchise and by voters themselves, Americans who brave the most difficult and even violent conditions to exercise their right to vote. So when I say that I could not be prouder of the turnout in this election, of the millions of Americans who did everything they had to do—and then some—to participate, I mean it in the most AmericanStudies way I can. That’s what I wanted to say! Now a few thoughts from my fellow AmericanStudiers:In response to Wednesday’s Birtherism post, Toni Osier argues, “I agree with you that his multiculturalism makes him American. Even though the Birthers and tea partiers don't want to see it. That is American now! There are very few just white people left. My issue with the Birthers is I don't really understand why if Obama was not born in America that the people in charge of making sure he was when he first started running for office would be working so hard to cover it up. How does that benefit them? There were plenty of other candidates if he was not legitimately born a US citizen then we would not be here today! I have a friend whose step mother was born in MA and grew up in Saudi Arabia but if she were to run for office no one would question her status as an American because she is white. She does not look Middle Eastern so no one would think differently. Honestly I think that they never even thought there would be a possibility of their white bread America having a black president and now for two terms!”Responding to the same post, Lito Velasco writes: "First, to your definition and idea of "American"... I couldn't agree more. That idea is part of what makes me so proud of my marriage. My wife is about as "Caucasian" as one could get: a true Anglo-Saxon mix of English, French, Irish, etc. And during our courtship and engagement, we battled against some pretty divisive and cruel attitudes towards our union both from inside and outside our family (granted, most of the "attitude" came from people in her extended family...mine was pretty open-armed and accepting of us). But Jennifer didn't bat an eye. She knew who she loved and WHY she loved. She didn't care that my skin wasn't "white", or that we might have children who weren't "blonde haired and blue eyed" (to quote a letter she received from a loved one...one that warned her of the impending doom she was walking into). She cared that she loved a man who was Mexican, Arabic, and Italian...and yet, she never "sees" those things. She only sees me: a man. The man she loves.And isn't that what we're SUPPOSED to do? Not just as citizens of this potentially-great country...but as human beings? Aren't we supposed to look at someone and define them not based on their ethnicity and appearance, but on who they are on the INSIDE? On how they live? On what they stand for and represent? I've always been so happy that my wife looks at me and sees not a Mexican...but...ME.She, a small-town girl (from a town in Indiana that you might miss if you happen to blink while driving through) who grew up in a somewhat sheltered environment and surrounded by townsfolk who had a very CLEAR definition of what an "American" is and should be, grew into a woman whose idea of a person is based on the qualities they possess...and not the color of their skin, their background, etc.Granted, I'm not saying we should discount our heritage. I am proud of mine as she is hers...but it shouldn't be a divisive issue in family, marriage, or politics. And so many people use it as JUST that. Isn't it time to evolve? isn't it time to finally wake up and see the reality of being fellow human beings?!I guess I've sort of turned this post into a statement on my background history, and I apologize for that. But I state this history because I feel it's perfectly appropriate to the situation. The Birther movement seems to mainly fear and loathe the current President not because of his policies and the political ideas he represents (although I'm sure that plays into it somewhat), but because of his heritage, the color of his skin, and his history. And...is that really a reason to fear and loathe? How many times have we heard the indignant cries that "Obama is a Muslim!"? He's not, obviously. But even if he was...so what? Why is it okay to run for public office if you're a Catholic, Christian, Mormon, Baptist, etc but NOT if you're a Muslim? Oh yeah, that's right. Because they're "the enemy". Shouldn't we be more concerned about President Obama's CAPABILITY? His ability? His leadership skills?The people who hide behind the flag and cry out against President Obama because of the "Birther" idea remind me of those same people I mentioned earlier in this post. Who cares if I'm a Mexican and your family member might give birth to children who aren't "entirely White"? Shouldn't the bigger issue be whether or not I will love, cherish, and protect your loved one? Whether or not I will keep her safe and happy? Whether or not I will foster her growth as a human being? Whether or not I'll try to help her on her journey in life and her ever-evolving proces of growth as a woman and human?Shouldn't that be the same attitude we take towards our President?I fear that the growing rise in the Birther movement is related to the idea that these people, like the ones who cautioned my wife against marrying me, are glimpsing into the future...and they don't like what they see. They're afraid of the possibility of the "chickens [might] come home to roost". They're afraid that instead of being the majority...they'll have to live on the other side of the fence. They'll have to come to grips with the fact that they're falling into the minority. That they'll be on "the other side". But is that really so tragic? Hell, I've lived with it all my life and I don't seem to have any MAJOR issues.And those who would foster, enable, and encourage this fear (Trump...we're ALL looking at you)...who would exploit this fear and try to use it to their advantage. I wonder about those people...are they just as afraid of being in the minority? Or is it a purely financially-motivated anger? Are they SO afraid of having a little less and others having a little more that they'll basically stoke the flames of racism and hate so that they can accumulate more wealth? Whatever the case, people like Donald Trump should realize: it doesn't matter how much money you have. When you go on an insane, anger-filled rant like the one he engaged in last night...it doesn't make you seem like anything more than a bigoted, crazy fool. You're okay with that, Trump? You're okay with being the cartoonish buffoon that people now view you as?He'd most likely respond by saying something like, "Take a look at that kid. He's got no money. He doesn't know anything." Well, I'd venture to guess I'm a little more lucky and affluent than he is when it comes to my wealth of knowledge of the human condition.Anyway, I digress. And I apologize for this raving post. I know it's all over the place, but...I'm recovering from seven weeks of madness...in which every night I averaged about 4 hours of sleep...sleep filled with dreams of a red and blue map, electoral counts, and percentages. Last night was the first good, heavy night's sleep in a while. All six hours of it. LOL.But, despite my ramblings, I figure you get my drift. I'm right there with you. This nation needs to take a look at itself on this morning and think about where they stand as a people. Those in the red states...who would embrace this anger and hatred and fear and use it as a fuel to drive their lives...take a look at the country's vote. Take a look at some of the people elected to Washington. Take a look at some of the policies being approved by vote. This country is evolving. Do you wish to join the rest of us? Or are you still going to hold onto the fear and remain rooted in the past?There are plenty of seats on the bus. I wouldn't exclude you because of where you were born, the color of your skin, or your heritage. I'd smile and welcome you to the family. I'd look into your eyes and see WHO you were based on your actions, words, and how you related to others.Just as my wife and I see each other: to her...I'm not a Mexican/Italian/Arabic man. I'm a man. To me....she's not a Caucasian woman. She's a beautiful woman. She's my wife.Give it a shot, folks. It might make life so much easier than you ever possibly dreamed it could be. And that's what America COULD be. If you just gave it a chance."Responding to Thursday’s post on Obama and race, Amara highlights the similarites between the 2012 electoral map and the divisions between the slave and free states, and thus the Confederacy and Union, at the time of the Civil War.Responding to a conversation about the election and race/ethnicity, Sean Goodlett highlights this Eugene Robinson piece in the Washington Post.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. What do you think? Thoughts on the election and America? On Obama and America? On any related issues or questions?10/10 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two controversial, courageous, and influential American activists, Samuel Gridley Howe and Russell Means.10/11 Memory Day nominee: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.!
November 9, 2012
November 9, 2012: Obama and America, Part Five
[I’m writing these posts ahead of time, as is my wont, so I can’t say whether this week’s series will be an epilogue on a four-year journey or a middle chapter in an evolving story. I sure hope the latter. But in any case, here are five posts through which I’ve tried to bring AmericanStudies to bear on our current president and some of the many national questions to which he connects. Your thoughts, on the election or the distant past or anything in between, will be very welcome for a special weekend post with my own new thoughts as well as yours.]
On history’s judgments of presidential administrations.If we could ask Andrew Jackson, toward the 1837 conclusion of his two terms as president, how his administration would be remembered by posterity, I’d be willing to bet that he’d answer with one or another aspect of Jacksonian Democracy: his opening up of the White House (literally) and the democratic process in general to a much wider swath of his fellow Americans; his populist war on Nicholas Biddle and the Bank of the United States; and so on. Love me or hate me, my hypothetical Old Hickory would reply, you have to admit I was a man of the people. Yet while all those histories are indeed part of our narratives of Jackson, I would argue that they run a distant second to his policy of Indian Removal, and the resulting brutality and tragedy of the Trail of Tears. Our most prominent memories of Jackson (in my argument at least), that is, are of him destroying a people, not advocating for them.Those are all debatable ideas, of course, but the point is this: how history remembers a president is a complex and evolving question, and one that is particularly tough to predict when we’re still within the era itself. As we reach the end of either President Obama’s first term or of his presidency (we’ll know which by the time this post is published, of course), then, it’s challenging at best to guess how posterity will remember Obama. Certainly you would think his racial and cultural identity will be part of the narratives no matter what; so too does the Great Recession seem destined to interweave with any and all histories of Obama (although how that Recession plays out likewise remains undecided and will of course influence those histories). But beyond that? Will it be something progressive and inpsiring, such as the endorsement of gay marriage, the end of DADT, the various steps toward full civil rights for gay Americans? Or something far more dark and destructive, such as our drone wars and the assassination policy for US citizens suspected of aiding terrorists abroad? Or will it be something that seems now relatively inconsequential, as perhaps Indian Removal did to Jackson and his supporters?Damned if I know; frankly, as I write this in late October, I’d give anything just to know whether Obama’s presidency itself will be history by this date. But I suppose the hopeful side of me would say this: the Recession and its responses, the War on Terror policies, these and other issues are hugely complex ones that Obama inherited, and with which he struggled, sometimes to better effect and sometimes to worse (and always with approximately 0.0000000001% support from any members of the opposing political party). Each, that is, should to my mind define the George W. Bush presidency more than the Barack Obama one. So I think instead that the slow but definite movement on gay rights, those multiple and important steps toward a nation that more fully accepts and gives equality to this community of Americans, might well become the defining elements of history’s narrative of Obama. After all, Obama’s own identity is, as I have argued this week, a crucial part of his legacy but also one that America has had a frequently difficult time understanding and responding to. So it’d only be fitting if he were remembered best for what he did for a community of his peers facing a very similar challenge—and in helping the nation as a whole bend its arc toward justice for that community.New, post-election post this weekend,BenPS. So please add your thoughts, in response to this week’s posts but also on any aspect of Obama, the election, and related questions, for that weekend post!11/9 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two very distinct but equally impressive, influential, and inspirationalAmerican astronomers, Benjamin Banneker and Carl Sagan.
On history’s judgments of presidential administrations.If we could ask Andrew Jackson, toward the 1837 conclusion of his two terms as president, how his administration would be remembered by posterity, I’d be willing to bet that he’d answer with one or another aspect of Jacksonian Democracy: his opening up of the White House (literally) and the democratic process in general to a much wider swath of his fellow Americans; his populist war on Nicholas Biddle and the Bank of the United States; and so on. Love me or hate me, my hypothetical Old Hickory would reply, you have to admit I was a man of the people. Yet while all those histories are indeed part of our narratives of Jackson, I would argue that they run a distant second to his policy of Indian Removal, and the resulting brutality and tragedy of the Trail of Tears. Our most prominent memories of Jackson (in my argument at least), that is, are of him destroying a people, not advocating for them.Those are all debatable ideas, of course, but the point is this: how history remembers a president is a complex and evolving question, and one that is particularly tough to predict when we’re still within the era itself. As we reach the end of either President Obama’s first term or of his presidency (we’ll know which by the time this post is published, of course), then, it’s challenging at best to guess how posterity will remember Obama. Certainly you would think his racial and cultural identity will be part of the narratives no matter what; so too does the Great Recession seem destined to interweave with any and all histories of Obama (although how that Recession plays out likewise remains undecided and will of course influence those histories). But beyond that? Will it be something progressive and inpsiring, such as the endorsement of gay marriage, the end of DADT, the various steps toward full civil rights for gay Americans? Or something far more dark and destructive, such as our drone wars and the assassination policy for US citizens suspected of aiding terrorists abroad? Or will it be something that seems now relatively inconsequential, as perhaps Indian Removal did to Jackson and his supporters?Damned if I know; frankly, as I write this in late October, I’d give anything just to know whether Obama’s presidency itself will be history by this date. But I suppose the hopeful side of me would say this: the Recession and its responses, the War on Terror policies, these and other issues are hugely complex ones that Obama inherited, and with which he struggled, sometimes to better effect and sometimes to worse (and always with approximately 0.0000000001% support from any members of the opposing political party). Each, that is, should to my mind define the George W. Bush presidency more than the Barack Obama one. So I think instead that the slow but definite movement on gay rights, those multiple and important steps toward a nation that more fully accepts and gives equality to this community of Americans, might well become the defining elements of history’s narrative of Obama. After all, Obama’s own identity is, as I have argued this week, a crucial part of his legacy but also one that America has had a frequently difficult time understanding and responding to. So it’d only be fitting if he were remembered best for what he did for a community of his peers facing a very similar challenge—and in helping the nation as a whole bend its arc toward justice for that community.New, post-election post this weekend,BenPS. So please add your thoughts, in response to this week’s posts but also on any aspect of Obama, the election, and related questions, for that weekend post!11/9 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two very distinct but equally impressive, influential, and inspirationalAmerican astronomers, Benjamin Banneker and Carl Sagan.
November 8, 2012
November 8, 2012: Obama and America, Part Four
[I’m writing these posts ahead of time, as is my wont, so I can’t say whether this week’s series will be an epilogue on a four-year journey or a middle chapter in an evolving story. I sure hope the latter. But in any case, here are five posts through which I’ve tried to bring AmericanStudies to bear on our current president and some of the many national questions to which he connects. Your thoughts, on the election or the distant past or anything in between, will be very welcome for a special weekend post with my own new thoughts as well as yours.]
American Studies and the elephant in the room when it comes to race in contemporary America.The early 2008 Reverend Wright controversy and Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech in response, as well as the responses on the right that Obama had “thrown his grandmother under the bus” in part of that speech. The competing visions of the election itself: as a triumph of a “post-racial America,” as the culmination of the Civil Rights movement, or as an election stolen by ACORN. The literally untold numbers of racist images, jokes, slurs, and narratives created by Obama’s opponents. The books, whether attacking Obama’s identity (such as one on his “Kenyan anti-colonial worldview”), highlighting its symbolic power, or simply analyzing its racial and ethnic contexts. It’s no stretch to say that race has been the single most consistently defining aspect of Obama’s national presence over the last four years, and no long-shot to say that it will be just as defining in the upcoming election as well. [Which will be the recent election when this post runs. So adjust that sentence accordingly in your mind.]Yet aside from the more complex, scholarly engagements provided by books like the last two linked in that sentence above—and possibly by other books by up-and-coming young American Studiers—it’s also fair to say that we haven’t, in our collective conversations about the issue, analyzed race and Obama so much as deployed narratives in that general direction. Perhaps that’s a given—certainly much (all?) of our politics these days consists of deploying narratives rather than analyzing—but us American Studiers can and should work to push those conversations in more analytical and meaningful directions. Take, for example, the 2010 moment when Obama self-identified on the census as “black/African Am”: it might be impossible for our current racial narratives to deal with that moment with any real complexity; whereas an American Studies perspective could connect that complex choice to the long histories of mixed race Americans’ self-images and identities, to literary and cultural representations of those identities, to questions of passing and racial definitions and community in America, to David Hollinger’s emphases on “voluntary affiliations” as a new defining 21stcentury category of identity, to the evolution of the census itself (which had in 2000 for the first time included a separate category for “mixed race,” one checked by 6.8 million Americans; yet which had cut that category for the 2010 census), and more. That’s one example; it will come as a significant shock to you all, I’m sure, that I could go into another half-dozen or –million more. But as I have tried to do in the past, and will of course keep trying to do, I’d rather turn the American Studying over to you guys instead. So tell me: to what American histories, questions, issues, images, ideas, debates, figures, or stories would you turn to develop American Studies analyses of President Obama? Obviously that can and should go well beyond race, and wherever your American Studies perspectives take you and us will be very welcome; although I’d certainly be interested to hear your connections through this specific lens of race as well. In any case, I’d much, much rather end this week’s series (which I will do with a new post of mine tomorrow and then the crowd-sourced post this weekend) by adding some more voices and perspectives into the mix than by continuing to simply feature my own. So have at it! If you don’t want to log in to post a comment, email ‘em to me (brailton@fitchburgstate.edu)! Or Tweet ‘em (@AmericanStudier)! Final post in the series tomorrow,BenPS. You know what to do!11/8 Memory Day nominee: Dorothy Day!
American Studies and the elephant in the room when it comes to race in contemporary America.The early 2008 Reverend Wright controversy and Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech in response, as well as the responses on the right that Obama had “thrown his grandmother under the bus” in part of that speech. The competing visions of the election itself: as a triumph of a “post-racial America,” as the culmination of the Civil Rights movement, or as an election stolen by ACORN. The literally untold numbers of racist images, jokes, slurs, and narratives created by Obama’s opponents. The books, whether attacking Obama’s identity (such as one on his “Kenyan anti-colonial worldview”), highlighting its symbolic power, or simply analyzing its racial and ethnic contexts. It’s no stretch to say that race has been the single most consistently defining aspect of Obama’s national presence over the last four years, and no long-shot to say that it will be just as defining in the upcoming election as well. [Which will be the recent election when this post runs. So adjust that sentence accordingly in your mind.]Yet aside from the more complex, scholarly engagements provided by books like the last two linked in that sentence above—and possibly by other books by up-and-coming young American Studiers—it’s also fair to say that we haven’t, in our collective conversations about the issue, analyzed race and Obama so much as deployed narratives in that general direction. Perhaps that’s a given—certainly much (all?) of our politics these days consists of deploying narratives rather than analyzing—but us American Studiers can and should work to push those conversations in more analytical and meaningful directions. Take, for example, the 2010 moment when Obama self-identified on the census as “black/African Am”: it might be impossible for our current racial narratives to deal with that moment with any real complexity; whereas an American Studies perspective could connect that complex choice to the long histories of mixed race Americans’ self-images and identities, to literary and cultural representations of those identities, to questions of passing and racial definitions and community in America, to David Hollinger’s emphases on “voluntary affiliations” as a new defining 21stcentury category of identity, to the evolution of the census itself (which had in 2000 for the first time included a separate category for “mixed race,” one checked by 6.8 million Americans; yet which had cut that category for the 2010 census), and more. That’s one example; it will come as a significant shock to you all, I’m sure, that I could go into another half-dozen or –million more. But as I have tried to do in the past, and will of course keep trying to do, I’d rather turn the American Studying over to you guys instead. So tell me: to what American histories, questions, issues, images, ideas, debates, figures, or stories would you turn to develop American Studies analyses of President Obama? Obviously that can and should go well beyond race, and wherever your American Studies perspectives take you and us will be very welcome; although I’d certainly be interested to hear your connections through this specific lens of race as well. In any case, I’d much, much rather end this week’s series (which I will do with a new post of mine tomorrow and then the crowd-sourced post this weekend) by adding some more voices and perspectives into the mix than by continuing to simply feature my own. So have at it! If you don’t want to log in to post a comment, email ‘em to me (brailton@fitchburgstate.edu)! Or Tweet ‘em (@AmericanStudier)! Final post in the series tomorrow,BenPS. You know what to do!11/8 Memory Day nominee: Dorothy Day!
November 7, 2012
November 7, 2012: Obama and America, Part Three
[I’m writing these posts ahead of time, as is my wont, so I can’t say whether this week’s series will be an epilogue on a four-year journey or a middle chapter in an evolving story. I sure hope the latter. But in any case, here are five posts through which I’ve tried to bring AmericanStudies to bear on our current president and some of the many national questions to which he connects. Your thoughts, on the election or the distant past or anything in between, will be very welcome for a special weekend post with my own new thoughts as well as yours.]
On the many frustrations and stakes of the Birther “debate.”In the analysis of Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father , his parents’ cross-cultural transformations, and his own status as the deeply representative and symbolic 21st-century American descendent of those transformations with which I conclude my second book, I wrote of the Birther movement (whose perspectives on Obama’s un-Americanness I try to contrast very explicitly with that sense of mine that his family history and identity makes him profoundly American as I hope to define the term) that it constitutes a “small but very vocal minority” of Americans. Yet in the last couple years I’ve been forced to reconsider that phrase very fully, as a significant and growing body of evidence—from Donald Trump’s meteoric rise in presidential polls based solely, it seemed, on his newfound Birtherism; to the Drudge-report hyped release of Jerome Corsi (he of the Swift Boat nonsense)’s new book entitled Where’s the Birth Certificate?; to the polls in which between 55 and 60% of registered Republicans consistently express doubt about Obama’s birthplace—makes it hard to see Birtherism as anything other than a widely shared and deeply entrenched national narrative.Part of the problem here, to be sure, has been the mainstream media’s tolerance of Birther views as if they represent simply another political point of view, and one that deserves an equal hearing among all others. Reporter Amy Nelson, in an ESPN.com article on the Baltimore Orioles outfielder Luke Scott, who made headlines in the 2011-12 off-season with a rambling news conference in which he very fully endorsed Birtherism, writes of the response to Scott’s comments that “some bloggers” argued back that “the evidence Obama was born in Hawaii is overwhelming.” Unless Ms. Nelson is counting Hawaii’s Republican governor and the US Department of State (which treats the short-form birth certificate, the only one Hawaii normally releases or even allows to be photocopied, as entirely legal and grants passports based on it) and the two newspapers that published birth announcements in 1961 and etc. as “some bloggers,” she’s blatantly misrepresenting what that evidence entails and who has argued for its overwhelming and entirely incontrovertible nature. One of the potential downsides to a nuanced scholarly perspective is the fact that an emphasis on multiple narratives and perspectives can be bastardized in precisely this way; some American facts and events, past and present, are indeed outside of the realm of multiple interpretations, making the presence of competing ones a nonsensical and very revealing farce. [I first wrote this paragraph before Obama convinced Hawaii to release the long-form birth certificate, but sadly most if not all of it still rings just as true.]Yet as frustrating as this continued Birtherism is, I would argue that the real conversation here needs to happen at a deeper level. I also discuss in that concluding chapter an October 2008 Time cover story about Obama entitled “Is Barack Obama American Enough?”; while I refuse to grant that Birtherism itself stems from anything other than the rankest ignorance and bigotry, I can certainly recognize that aspects of Obama’s actual biography (the Kenyan immigrant father whom he knew for only a couple of years, the years in Indonesia with him Mom and step-father, the Kenyan Muslim grandfather whose first-name became Obama’s middle name, and so on) seem to challenge many of our most implicit but most widely held narratives about what “American” is and is not, includes and excludes. While I tried in the book, and will continue to try throughout my career, to argue for the opposite—and not only by defining someone like Obama as profoundly American, but by arguing that even the most “heartland non-passport white Americans” (as Andrew Sullivan once called them in a post on Birtherism) share this heritage of cross-cultural transformation—I know that changing such narratives and definitions is far from simple, particularly for older generations whose versions of those narratives have been held and set for many decades (and who, I believe or perhaps I hope, constitute the core of Birthers). Yet such change must come—not because of what it would mean for our contemporary politics or elections if it doesn’t, but because I do not believe that 21st-century America can truly survive, much less prosper, if we fall back on traditional and very exclusive definitions of who and what we are. It’s long past time to recognize that of all nations, America has always been the one most constituted out of the whole world, out of the combinations and transformations of peoples and cultures and nations and communities from Kenya to Kansas, Indonesia to Illinois. That’s not just Obama’s story, it’s all of ours—and the most disheartening effect of Birtherism will be if it allows so many Americans to turn their backs on this newest and most profound piece of evidence for that shared national heritage and identity. Next post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?11/7 Memory Day nominee: Herman Mankiewicz, in whose two best
On the many frustrations and stakes of the Birther “debate.”In the analysis of Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father , his parents’ cross-cultural transformations, and his own status as the deeply representative and symbolic 21st-century American descendent of those transformations with which I conclude my second book, I wrote of the Birther movement (whose perspectives on Obama’s un-Americanness I try to contrast very explicitly with that sense of mine that his family history and identity makes him profoundly American as I hope to define the term) that it constitutes a “small but very vocal minority” of Americans. Yet in the last couple years I’ve been forced to reconsider that phrase very fully, as a significant and growing body of evidence—from Donald Trump’s meteoric rise in presidential polls based solely, it seemed, on his newfound Birtherism; to the Drudge-report hyped release of Jerome Corsi (he of the Swift Boat nonsense)’s new book entitled Where’s the Birth Certificate?; to the polls in which between 55 and 60% of registered Republicans consistently express doubt about Obama’s birthplace—makes it hard to see Birtherism as anything other than a widely shared and deeply entrenched national narrative.Part of the problem here, to be sure, has been the mainstream media’s tolerance of Birther views as if they represent simply another political point of view, and one that deserves an equal hearing among all others. Reporter Amy Nelson, in an ESPN.com article on the Baltimore Orioles outfielder Luke Scott, who made headlines in the 2011-12 off-season with a rambling news conference in which he very fully endorsed Birtherism, writes of the response to Scott’s comments that “some bloggers” argued back that “the evidence Obama was born in Hawaii is overwhelming.” Unless Ms. Nelson is counting Hawaii’s Republican governor and the US Department of State (which treats the short-form birth certificate, the only one Hawaii normally releases or even allows to be photocopied, as entirely legal and grants passports based on it) and the two newspapers that published birth announcements in 1961 and etc. as “some bloggers,” she’s blatantly misrepresenting what that evidence entails and who has argued for its overwhelming and entirely incontrovertible nature. One of the potential downsides to a nuanced scholarly perspective is the fact that an emphasis on multiple narratives and perspectives can be bastardized in precisely this way; some American facts and events, past and present, are indeed outside of the realm of multiple interpretations, making the presence of competing ones a nonsensical and very revealing farce. [I first wrote this paragraph before Obama convinced Hawaii to release the long-form birth certificate, but sadly most if not all of it still rings just as true.]Yet as frustrating as this continued Birtherism is, I would argue that the real conversation here needs to happen at a deeper level. I also discuss in that concluding chapter an October 2008 Time cover story about Obama entitled “Is Barack Obama American Enough?”; while I refuse to grant that Birtherism itself stems from anything other than the rankest ignorance and bigotry, I can certainly recognize that aspects of Obama’s actual biography (the Kenyan immigrant father whom he knew for only a couple of years, the years in Indonesia with him Mom and step-father, the Kenyan Muslim grandfather whose first-name became Obama’s middle name, and so on) seem to challenge many of our most implicit but most widely held narratives about what “American” is and is not, includes and excludes. While I tried in the book, and will continue to try throughout my career, to argue for the opposite—and not only by defining someone like Obama as profoundly American, but by arguing that even the most “heartland non-passport white Americans” (as Andrew Sullivan once called them in a post on Birtherism) share this heritage of cross-cultural transformation—I know that changing such narratives and definitions is far from simple, particularly for older generations whose versions of those narratives have been held and set for many decades (and who, I believe or perhaps I hope, constitute the core of Birthers). Yet such change must come—not because of what it would mean for our contemporary politics or elections if it doesn’t, but because I do not believe that 21st-century America can truly survive, much less prosper, if we fall back on traditional and very exclusive definitions of who and what we are. It’s long past time to recognize that of all nations, America has always been the one most constituted out of the whole world, out of the combinations and transformations of peoples and cultures and nations and communities from Kenya to Kansas, Indonesia to Illinois. That’s not just Obama’s story, it’s all of ours—and the most disheartening effect of Birtherism will be if it allows so many Americans to turn their backs on this newest and most profound piece of evidence for that shared national heritage and identity. Next post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?11/7 Memory Day nominee: Herman Mankiewicz, in whose two best
November 6, 2012
November 6, 2012: Obama and America, Part Two
[I’m writing these posts ahead of time, as is my wont, so I can’t say whether this week’s series will be an epilogue on a four-year journey or a middle chapter in an evolving story. I sure hope the latter. But in any case, here are five posts through which I’ve tried to bring AmericanStudies to bear on our current president and some of the many national questions to which he connects. Your thoughts, on the election or the distant past or anything in between, will be very welcome for a special weekend post with my own new thoughts as well as yours.]
On the book of Obama’s that every American, regardless of political party, should read.I’ve tried in many posts in this space to highlight some of the best works of AmericanStudies scholarship I know, but I begin today with a quick mention of one of the very worst: Dinesh D’Souza’s The Roots of Obama’s Rage (2010). D’Souza’s book, which seeks to explain much of Obama’s perspective and emphases (as D’Souza falsifies, I mean defines, them) through an “analysis” of his father Barack Obama’s “Kenyan anti-colonialism” (one of those times I’m using actual quotation marks and the other time they’re scare quotes, I’ll let you figure out which is which), is so chock-full of lies and nonsense that it beggars description, and I’m going to stop writing about in one more sentence and hopefully never mention or even think about it again (although the recent “documentary” that builds upon the book has forced me to do so). But of all the reasons why it’s such a horrifically awful work, perhaps the most frustrating is that it allegedly builds upon one of the most impressive and engaging American personal narratives I’ve ever read: Obama’s own first book, Dreams from My Father (1995).Autobiographies by political figures tend to fall into one of two categories: quickies published during campaigns, mostly to sell the candidate’s platform and identity to prospective voters; and massive tomes published after the person has left office, both to cement certain hoped-for legacies and to admit to things that would have cost him or her votes at the time. Obama has written at least a couple of books in the former category, but I would argue that Dreams is very much not one of them: it was published while he was an attorney and law professor in Chicago, a year before he first ran for the Illinois State Senate and five years before he first ran for Congress; and while of course he likely had political ambitions at that point, the book is profoundly honest about some of the darkest and most potentially controversial aspects of his life and identity, including drug use in college, his complex perspectives on the young African American men with whom he worked as a community organizer, and his experiences and relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity Church. While conspiracy theorists like to argue that we know little about who Obama really is, the truth is that for fifteen years now the reading public has had more intimate access to his life and identity and perspective than has been possible for any other president.But the reason why I’m writing about Obama’s book here—which very much parallels the reasons why it’s the focus of the Conclusion of my second book—is that it includes and analyzes such a wide and interesting range of essentially American lives and identities. That would include of course Obama himself, born to a Kenyan immigrant father and a Scotch-Irish mother in Hawaii, raised there by his mom and by grandparents who had transplanted their family from Kansas, and married to a woman who is the descendent of slaves (among other crucial details); would certainly include both of his parents and all of those other family members and generations; but also includes a number of other pivotal figures in the book, most especially his half-sister Auma (herself a Kenyan American immigrant) and half-brother Roy (likewise). Obama’s ability and willingness to cede significant portions of the book over to these other voices and lives helps create this narrative of a multi-part American community; when Roy reappears at Obama’s wedding in the book’s Epilogue, for example, having embraced his Kenyan heritage more fully and renamed himself Obongo, yet also gaining two “honorary mothers” in Obama’s mother and grandmother at that ceremony, we can truly see just how much his own American story and identity have continued to evolve and deepen, and how much Obama’s sense of who he is likewise evolves and deepens through his conversations and encounters with these other American voices and lives.As with everything I write about in this space, my ultimate message here is a simple but significant one: I think all Americans should read and engage with this text and history and story. Of course in this context it is perhaps impossible that said message could ever be disentangled from many other and more troublingly divisive narratives—according to many polls upwards of 60% of GOP voters would have to read the section about Obama’s parents and his birth in Hawaii and believe that he’s lying, for example. But I have to believe that a substantial part of the strength of those divisive narratives is that many Americans don’t read into our history and culture and literature at all, relying instead solely on what they hear about them from less nuanced and analytical sources than (I certainly hope) this one. So, in the words of Levar Burton one more time, “Read the book!” Next post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?11/6 Memory Day nominees: A tie between John Philip Sousa, whose compositionsdefine Americaas much as any single musical voice and genrecould; and Derrick Bell.
On the book of Obama’s that every American, regardless of political party, should read.I’ve tried in many posts in this space to highlight some of the best works of AmericanStudies scholarship I know, but I begin today with a quick mention of one of the very worst: Dinesh D’Souza’s The Roots of Obama’s Rage (2010). D’Souza’s book, which seeks to explain much of Obama’s perspective and emphases (as D’Souza falsifies, I mean defines, them) through an “analysis” of his father Barack Obama’s “Kenyan anti-colonialism” (one of those times I’m using actual quotation marks and the other time they’re scare quotes, I’ll let you figure out which is which), is so chock-full of lies and nonsense that it beggars description, and I’m going to stop writing about in one more sentence and hopefully never mention or even think about it again (although the recent “documentary” that builds upon the book has forced me to do so). But of all the reasons why it’s such a horrifically awful work, perhaps the most frustrating is that it allegedly builds upon one of the most impressive and engaging American personal narratives I’ve ever read: Obama’s own first book, Dreams from My Father (1995).Autobiographies by political figures tend to fall into one of two categories: quickies published during campaigns, mostly to sell the candidate’s platform and identity to prospective voters; and massive tomes published after the person has left office, both to cement certain hoped-for legacies and to admit to things that would have cost him or her votes at the time. Obama has written at least a couple of books in the former category, but I would argue that Dreams is very much not one of them: it was published while he was an attorney and law professor in Chicago, a year before he first ran for the Illinois State Senate and five years before he first ran for Congress; and while of course he likely had political ambitions at that point, the book is profoundly honest about some of the darkest and most potentially controversial aspects of his life and identity, including drug use in college, his complex perspectives on the young African American men with whom he worked as a community organizer, and his experiences and relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity Church. While conspiracy theorists like to argue that we know little about who Obama really is, the truth is that for fifteen years now the reading public has had more intimate access to his life and identity and perspective than has been possible for any other president.But the reason why I’m writing about Obama’s book here—which very much parallels the reasons why it’s the focus of the Conclusion of my second book—is that it includes and analyzes such a wide and interesting range of essentially American lives and identities. That would include of course Obama himself, born to a Kenyan immigrant father and a Scotch-Irish mother in Hawaii, raised there by his mom and by grandparents who had transplanted their family from Kansas, and married to a woman who is the descendent of slaves (among other crucial details); would certainly include both of his parents and all of those other family members and generations; but also includes a number of other pivotal figures in the book, most especially his half-sister Auma (herself a Kenyan American immigrant) and half-brother Roy (likewise). Obama’s ability and willingness to cede significant portions of the book over to these other voices and lives helps create this narrative of a multi-part American community; when Roy reappears at Obama’s wedding in the book’s Epilogue, for example, having embraced his Kenyan heritage more fully and renamed himself Obongo, yet also gaining two “honorary mothers” in Obama’s mother and grandmother at that ceremony, we can truly see just how much his own American story and identity have continued to evolve and deepen, and how much Obama’s sense of who he is likewise evolves and deepens through his conversations and encounters with these other American voices and lives.As with everything I write about in this space, my ultimate message here is a simple but significant one: I think all Americans should read and engage with this text and history and story. Of course in this context it is perhaps impossible that said message could ever be disentangled from many other and more troublingly divisive narratives—according to many polls upwards of 60% of GOP voters would have to read the section about Obama’s parents and his birth in Hawaii and believe that he’s lying, for example. But I have to believe that a substantial part of the strength of those divisive narratives is that many Americans don’t read into our history and culture and literature at all, relying instead solely on what they hear about them from less nuanced and analytical sources than (I certainly hope) this one. So, in the words of Levar Burton one more time, “Read the book!” Next post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?11/6 Memory Day nominees: A tie between John Philip Sousa, whose compositionsdefine Americaas much as any single musical voice and genrecould; and Derrick Bell.
November 5, 2012
November 5, 2012: Obama and America, Part One
[I’m writing these posts ahead of time, as is my wont, so I can’t say whether this week’s series will be an epilogue on a four-year journey or a middle chapter in an evolving story. I sure hope the latter. But in any case, here are five posts through which I’ve tried to bring AmericanStudies to bear on our current president and some of the many national questions to which he connects. Your thoughts, on the election or the distant past or anything in between, will be very welcome for a special weekend post with my own new thoughts as well as yours.]
On the stakes of 2012 for an American issue that can seem abstract but has plenty of very concrete and crucial effects.Anyone who has read this blog for a while, or who has read my second book, or who has ever talked with me about anything American Studies-related, knows how centrally interested I am in the question of how we define “American,” of what that idea, that identity, that community, means. As I argue at length in that book’s Conclusion, I believe that the debates over Barack Obama’s “American-ness,” over the question (to quote a Time cover story from just before the 2008 election) “Is Barack Obama American Enough?,” have been central to our political culture for the last four years. You can see those debates in the Birther movement, in the Tea Party cry of “I want my country back,” and in so many other moments and issues in contemporary America. And Mitt Romney has been a part of those debates for just as long, dating back at least to his statement, during the 2008 presidential campaign, that “Barack Obama looks toward Europe for a lot of his inspiration; John McCain is going to make sure that America stays America.” It’s easy to see this issue as less significant than many in this election year, and I’m not going to argue that it has nearly the immediate and practical relevance that they do. Certainly the question of where Obama was born, while incredibly frustrating to those of us in the reality-based community, would only be practically significant if one of the many Birther lawsuits managed to actually keep him off of a state’s ballot or the like. But I think there are any number of immediate and significant effects to each possible definition of America, from the most to the least inclusive; is there any doubt, to cite one ongoing current event, that the debate over a possible mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, depends entirely on whether we see Muslim Americans as part of “America” or somehow outside of it? Isn’t it clear, as Obama acknowledged in the speech with which he announced his DREAM Act executive order, that seeing its young beneficiaries as “Americans in their hearts, in their minds” is crucial to supporting that policy change? The second of those examples is without doubt more complex than the first, includes legal and governmental factors much more centrally; but both nonetheless hinge on precisely who and what we mean (and don’t mean) by “American.”Yet there’s another, and to my mind even more meaningful, effect to these debates: what they mean for the identities and perspectives of each individual American. I’ve expressed before my admiration for Colin Powell’s answer, during his 2008 endorsement of Obama, to lies about Obama’s Muslim identity, his statement that while the correct answer is that Obama is not a Muslim, the “more correct” answer is: “Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That's not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president?” If I had to express most succinctly why I think these debates over the meaning of “American” are so crucial, I would ask precisely the same question, writ large: how do you think it feels for a young kid—a Muslim American kid, or the child of undocumented immigrants, or a kid realizing he or she is gay—to be told, implicitly but often explicitly as well, that he or she is outside of “American” identity, is an other within his or her homeland? That’s the stake of these debates—and, I believe, one of the most fundamental stakes of the 2012 election, and many of our ongoing political arguments beyond it.Next Obama post tomorrow (tomorrow!),BenPS. What do you think?11/5 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two controversial and inspiring Americans who came to embody much of their respective eras: Benjamin Butler, the Civil War General, Reconstruction leader, and civil rights activist; and Ida Tarbell, the Gilded Age and Progressive-eramuckraker par excellence.
On the stakes of 2012 for an American issue that can seem abstract but has plenty of very concrete and crucial effects.Anyone who has read this blog for a while, or who has read my second book, or who has ever talked with me about anything American Studies-related, knows how centrally interested I am in the question of how we define “American,” of what that idea, that identity, that community, means. As I argue at length in that book’s Conclusion, I believe that the debates over Barack Obama’s “American-ness,” over the question (to quote a Time cover story from just before the 2008 election) “Is Barack Obama American Enough?,” have been central to our political culture for the last four years. You can see those debates in the Birther movement, in the Tea Party cry of “I want my country back,” and in so many other moments and issues in contemporary America. And Mitt Romney has been a part of those debates for just as long, dating back at least to his statement, during the 2008 presidential campaign, that “Barack Obama looks toward Europe for a lot of his inspiration; John McCain is going to make sure that America stays America.” It’s easy to see this issue as less significant than many in this election year, and I’m not going to argue that it has nearly the immediate and practical relevance that they do. Certainly the question of where Obama was born, while incredibly frustrating to those of us in the reality-based community, would only be practically significant if one of the many Birther lawsuits managed to actually keep him off of a state’s ballot or the like. But I think there are any number of immediate and significant effects to each possible definition of America, from the most to the least inclusive; is there any doubt, to cite one ongoing current event, that the debate over a possible mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, depends entirely on whether we see Muslim Americans as part of “America” or somehow outside of it? Isn’t it clear, as Obama acknowledged in the speech with which he announced his DREAM Act executive order, that seeing its young beneficiaries as “Americans in their hearts, in their minds” is crucial to supporting that policy change? The second of those examples is without doubt more complex than the first, includes legal and governmental factors much more centrally; but both nonetheless hinge on precisely who and what we mean (and don’t mean) by “American.”Yet there’s another, and to my mind even more meaningful, effect to these debates: what they mean for the identities and perspectives of each individual American. I’ve expressed before my admiration for Colin Powell’s answer, during his 2008 endorsement of Obama, to lies about Obama’s Muslim identity, his statement that while the correct answer is that Obama is not a Muslim, the “more correct” answer is: “Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That's not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president?” If I had to express most succinctly why I think these debates over the meaning of “American” are so crucial, I would ask precisely the same question, writ large: how do you think it feels for a young kid—a Muslim American kid, or the child of undocumented immigrants, or a kid realizing he or she is gay—to be told, implicitly but often explicitly as well, that he or she is outside of “American” identity, is an other within his or her homeland? That’s the stake of these debates—and, I believe, one of the most fundamental stakes of the 2012 election, and many of our ongoing political arguments beyond it.Next Obama post tomorrow (tomorrow!),BenPS. What do you think?11/5 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two controversial and inspiring Americans who came to embody much of their respective eras: Benjamin Butler, the Civil War General, Reconstruction leader, and civil rights activist; and Ida Tarbell, the Gilded Age and Progressive-eramuckraker par excellence.
November 3, 2012
November 3-4, 2012: Crowd-sourcing American Scares
[This week’s series has been, well, obvious. Your thoughts on American scary stories—real or fictional, artistic or historical, fun or horrifying, and anything else you can think of—have helped me assemble a weekend post that’s all treats and no tricks. Boo!]
Vince Kling reminds us not to forget M.R. James, and Jeff Renye mentions James’s “Casting the Runes” and follows up by highlighting R.W. Chambers’s collection The King in Yellow (1895).Kisha Tracy reminds us of Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds scare, which aired on Halloween eve in 1938.Rob Gosselin points to one of America’s scariest real-life stories, the case of Lizzie Borden.On Twitter, @VendettaStudieshighlights the supernatural works of Washington Irving, especially “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”and “Rip Van Winkle.”Next series starts Monday,BenPS. What would you add to these ideas?11/3 Memory Day nominees: A tie between William Cullen Bryant, whose poems and journalism helped establish and define American literature and identity in the Early Republic; and Walker Evans, whose photographs helped chart the worst and best of Depression-era America.11/4 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two 20th century figures who heavily influenced American culture and society, if in profoundly different ways, Will Rogers and Ruth Handler.
Vince Kling reminds us not to forget M.R. James, and Jeff Renye mentions James’s “Casting the Runes” and follows up by highlighting R.W. Chambers’s collection The King in Yellow (1895).Kisha Tracy reminds us of Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds scare, which aired on Halloween eve in 1938.Rob Gosselin points to one of America’s scariest real-life stories, the case of Lizzie Borden.On Twitter, @VendettaStudieshighlights the supernatural works of Washington Irving, especially “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”and “Rip Van Winkle.”Next series starts Monday,BenPS. What would you add to these ideas?11/3 Memory Day nominees: A tie between William Cullen Bryant, whose poems and journalism helped establish and define American literature and identity in the Early Republic; and Walker Evans, whose photographs helped chart the worst and best of Depression-era America.11/4 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two 20th century figures who heavily influenced American culture and society, if in profoundly different ways, Will Rogers and Ruth Handler.
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