Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 407
September 5, 2012
September 5, 2012: Fall Forward, Part Two
[I’m on my first sabbatical this fall, and will be working on a bunch of different projects. All of them could benefit from the input and ideas of my fellow American Studiers, and so this week I’ll be blogging about a handful of those projects and asking for your contributions (not financial, it’s a paid sabbatical). I’d love to hear your thoughts! And please feel free to share some of what you’re working on too, so I can return the favor.]
On my goals for, and questions about, bringing some of my favorite courses into the digital age.When it comes to supplementing my in-class work with complementary uses of technology, I think I’m doing all right. Virtually every one of my courses uses either weekly email responses or weekly Blackboard posts, allowing me both to build discussions out of these existing student ideas shared (with me and/or with each other) between classes and to talk to students about papers and work in progress throughout the semester. I also use online versions of many shorter readings, keeping book prices down and giving my students’ access to far more content than would be the case in any one anthology or set of texts. Between those two most consistent uses of technology, I would say that students in most of my courses are reading, writing, and working online at least a couple of times a week, and are able to make decent use of their laptops in class (Fitchburg State has had a laptop initiative for many years now) as well.But of course reading and writing online, while easy for my students and better than no use of technology, in many ways aren’t radically different from reading and writing offline, or at least don’t use many other aspects of what’s available and possible in the digital realm. In the past year or two I have thus begun to feel that I’m not making the best use of technology, particularly in my two most frequently taught courses: part I and II of the American Literature survey. I even wrote an article about ways to enhance my work with content in those courses, focusing heavily on the use of technology as much to goad myself into further thought as to speak to other teachers. I like my syllabi and the main readings for those courses quite a bit—part I uses the first two volumes of the Norton Anthology of American Literature ; part II is grounded in six longer readings supplemented by short stories and poems available online—but I know that I’ve got to keep moving these courses forward, and am hoping this fall to do some significant work with those syllabi and to make technology and the digital key elements to those revisions.I could write more about my ideas, of course (and am happy to share my thoughts further in comment-conversations); but that linked article highlights some, and as with this whole series I’m especially interested in hearing your takes. So what are some ways you’ve used technology, digital sources, the web, and any related materials and/or content in your classes? (This question goes to students just as much as teachers!) Are there particular sites, particular sources, particular kinds of content, particular exercises or student work, that you have found to work better or work less well? Ways in which the non-digital still seems preferable or more successful? Or, if you’re still thinking about all these things too (and who isn’t these days?), what are some of the questions or problems you’re dealing with? What can we figure out together, as a community here?Thanks in advance for your thoughts, questions, and voices! Next fall project tomorrow,BenPS. You know what to do! Answers to any and all those questions, now and at any moment down the road, will be greatly appreciated and very valuable.9/5 Memory Day nominee: Amy Beach, the pianist and composer who is considered the first American woman to create large-scale artistic and symphonic music, and whose influence can still be felt in American music and culture.
On my goals for, and questions about, bringing some of my favorite courses into the digital age.When it comes to supplementing my in-class work with complementary uses of technology, I think I’m doing all right. Virtually every one of my courses uses either weekly email responses or weekly Blackboard posts, allowing me both to build discussions out of these existing student ideas shared (with me and/or with each other) between classes and to talk to students about papers and work in progress throughout the semester. I also use online versions of many shorter readings, keeping book prices down and giving my students’ access to far more content than would be the case in any one anthology or set of texts. Between those two most consistent uses of technology, I would say that students in most of my courses are reading, writing, and working online at least a couple of times a week, and are able to make decent use of their laptops in class (Fitchburg State has had a laptop initiative for many years now) as well.But of course reading and writing online, while easy for my students and better than no use of technology, in many ways aren’t radically different from reading and writing offline, or at least don’t use many other aspects of what’s available and possible in the digital realm. In the past year or two I have thus begun to feel that I’m not making the best use of technology, particularly in my two most frequently taught courses: part I and II of the American Literature survey. I even wrote an article about ways to enhance my work with content in those courses, focusing heavily on the use of technology as much to goad myself into further thought as to speak to other teachers. I like my syllabi and the main readings for those courses quite a bit—part I uses the first two volumes of the Norton Anthology of American Literature ; part II is grounded in six longer readings supplemented by short stories and poems available online—but I know that I’ve got to keep moving these courses forward, and am hoping this fall to do some significant work with those syllabi and to make technology and the digital key elements to those revisions.I could write more about my ideas, of course (and am happy to share my thoughts further in comment-conversations); but that linked article highlights some, and as with this whole series I’m especially interested in hearing your takes. So what are some ways you’ve used technology, digital sources, the web, and any related materials and/or content in your classes? (This question goes to students just as much as teachers!) Are there particular sites, particular sources, particular kinds of content, particular exercises or student work, that you have found to work better or work less well? Ways in which the non-digital still seems preferable or more successful? Or, if you’re still thinking about all these things too (and who isn’t these days?), what are some of the questions or problems you’re dealing with? What can we figure out together, as a community here?Thanks in advance for your thoughts, questions, and voices! Next fall project tomorrow,BenPS. You know what to do! Answers to any and all those questions, now and at any moment down the road, will be greatly appreciated and very valuable.9/5 Memory Day nominee: Amy Beach, the pianist and composer who is considered the first American woman to create large-scale artistic and symphonic music, and whose influence can still be felt in American music and culture.
September 4, 2012
September 4, 2012: Fall Forward, Part One
[I’m on my first sabbatical this fall, and will be working on a bunch of different projects. All of them could benefit from the input and ideas of my fellow American Studiers, and so this week I’ll be blogging about a handful of those projects and asking for your contributions (not financial, it’s a paid sabbatical). I’d love to hear your thoughts! And please feel free to share some of what you’re working on too, so I can return the favor.]
On my fall goals for this here American Studier site.The American Studier website that Graham Beckwith and I designed and created has been up and running for 8 months now, and there’s a lot about it that I’m already proud of for sure. It’s become a very good home for the daily blog posts and Memory Day calendarnominees, which have so far been and might always be the most consistently updated part of the site. But I’ve also, and even more importantly, really enjoyed the chance to include and highlight the voices and ideas of fellow American Studiers: in the Analytical Pieces section; in Forum posts; and in suggestions for Archives, Collections and other Resources, to name three places that have been constructed out of those other voices. My most central goal for the site is that it become generally communal and collaborative, and these represent definite starting points in that direction.I’d love to build each of those sections further this fall, so if you have: briefer American Studies questions, perspectives, interests, and thoughts, create a Forum thread; longer analytical takes that haven’t found a home (or that have but to which I can link), share ‘em (brailton@fitchburgstate.edu) for the Analytical Pieces section; suggestions for good American Studies Resources (online, archives and collections, in any of that page’s categories, etc.), send ‘em along; and so on. But I’m even more interested in seeing what we can do with the least developed (to date) part of the site, the Multimedia page. As you can see, I’ve created some preliminary categories and have posted a few examples for each; I’d love if every American Studier who visits this site could share one or another text (available, at least in part, online) that he or she believes we should all engage, making that page a genuine database of American Studies primary sources. But I’m also open to other ways to think about American Studies and to analyze our history, culture, identity, narratives, and so on—so if you have suggestions on how a page like that could be constructed, please send ‘em my way (again, brailton@fitchburgstate.edu) and I’ll make sure to credit you and your work.Those are some of my ideas and hopes. But the truth, to get all Rumsfeld-ian for a moment, is that I don’t know what I don’t know, and I need your help on that front even more fully. I’d say that’s particularly true when it comes to teachers, professors, and program directors in American Studies—what would benefit you all when it comes to a site like this? We could create a whole Pedagogy page, for example—what would you like to see there? What kinds of materials and resources could make your jobs easier, would benefit your students, could help you use a site like this in a course or the like? I’ll ask the same question of students, at every level—what could this site include and do to help you in your work? Ditto for researchers and scholars outside of any academic or educational setting—what would help you pursue your interests or work? No matter who or where you are, the simple fact is this: I would love to get a sense of those things, of what brings you to the site and of what could make it even more successful as a resource for you. That question, in any and every form, is what I hope will drive my—our—work on the site this fall.Next fall project tomorrow,BenPS. You know what to do! Answers to any and all those questions, now and at any moment down the road, will be greatly appreciated and very valuable.9/4 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two hugely talented, impressive, innovative, and inspiring African Americans, Lewis Latimer and Richard Wright.
On my fall goals for this here American Studier site.The American Studier website that Graham Beckwith and I designed and created has been up and running for 8 months now, and there’s a lot about it that I’m already proud of for sure. It’s become a very good home for the daily blog posts and Memory Day calendarnominees, which have so far been and might always be the most consistently updated part of the site. But I’ve also, and even more importantly, really enjoyed the chance to include and highlight the voices and ideas of fellow American Studiers: in the Analytical Pieces section; in Forum posts; and in suggestions for Archives, Collections and other Resources, to name three places that have been constructed out of those other voices. My most central goal for the site is that it become generally communal and collaborative, and these represent definite starting points in that direction.I’d love to build each of those sections further this fall, so if you have: briefer American Studies questions, perspectives, interests, and thoughts, create a Forum thread; longer analytical takes that haven’t found a home (or that have but to which I can link), share ‘em (brailton@fitchburgstate.edu) for the Analytical Pieces section; suggestions for good American Studies Resources (online, archives and collections, in any of that page’s categories, etc.), send ‘em along; and so on. But I’m even more interested in seeing what we can do with the least developed (to date) part of the site, the Multimedia page. As you can see, I’ve created some preliminary categories and have posted a few examples for each; I’d love if every American Studier who visits this site could share one or another text (available, at least in part, online) that he or she believes we should all engage, making that page a genuine database of American Studies primary sources. But I’m also open to other ways to think about American Studies and to analyze our history, culture, identity, narratives, and so on—so if you have suggestions on how a page like that could be constructed, please send ‘em my way (again, brailton@fitchburgstate.edu) and I’ll make sure to credit you and your work.Those are some of my ideas and hopes. But the truth, to get all Rumsfeld-ian for a moment, is that I don’t know what I don’t know, and I need your help on that front even more fully. I’d say that’s particularly true when it comes to teachers, professors, and program directors in American Studies—what would benefit you all when it comes to a site like this? We could create a whole Pedagogy page, for example—what would you like to see there? What kinds of materials and resources could make your jobs easier, would benefit your students, could help you use a site like this in a course or the like? I’ll ask the same question of students, at every level—what could this site include and do to help you in your work? Ditto for researchers and scholars outside of any academic or educational setting—what would help you pursue your interests or work? No matter who or where you are, the simple fact is this: I would love to get a sense of those things, of what brings you to the site and of what could make it even more successful as a resource for you. That question, in any and every form, is what I hope will drive my—our—work on the site this fall.Next fall project tomorrow,BenPS. You know what to do! Answers to any and all those questions, now and at any moment down the road, will be greatly appreciated and very valuable.9/4 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two hugely talented, impressive, innovative, and inspiring African Americans, Lewis Latimer and Richard Wright.
September 3, 2012
September 3, 2012: Labor Day Special
[In honor of Labor Day I’m taking the day off from blogging—but in the spirit of what this holiday should entail, a genuine effort to remember and engage with the complex and crucial histories of work and the labor movement in this country, here are a handful of past posts where I’ve tried to provide such engagement. Please add your own thoughts on labor, work, and America below!]
What It’s Like: On work, art, and empathyin Rebecca Harding Davis’s novella Life in the Iron-Mills (1861). A Human and Yet Holy Day: On Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement.Workers Write: On the images of young female mill workers in two very different but interestingly complementary 19th century texts, Herman Melville’s “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids” (1855) and The Lowell Offering (1840-1845).Anarchy in the USA: On the presence and absence of anarchists and revolutionaries in American history in general and social movements like labor in particular.Public Art: Diego Rivera’scontroversial, partially Marxist Rockefeller Center mural was one of the inspirations for this post on the complexities of public art.Next series starts tomorrow,BenPS. Any texts or histories related to work or the labor movement that you’d highlight? Other thoughts on these themes and questions?9/3 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two talented, unique, and pioneeringAmerican womenand writers, Sarah Orne Jewettand Marguerite Higgins.
What It’s Like: On work, art, and empathyin Rebecca Harding Davis’s novella Life in the Iron-Mills (1861). A Human and Yet Holy Day: On Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement.Workers Write: On the images of young female mill workers in two very different but interestingly complementary 19th century texts, Herman Melville’s “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids” (1855) and The Lowell Offering (1840-1845).Anarchy in the USA: On the presence and absence of anarchists and revolutionaries in American history in general and social movements like labor in particular.Public Art: Diego Rivera’scontroversial, partially Marxist Rockefeller Center mural was one of the inspirations for this post on the complexities of public art.Next series starts tomorrow,BenPS. Any texts or histories related to work or the labor movement that you’d highlight? Other thoughts on these themes and questions?9/3 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two talented, unique, and pioneeringAmerican womenand writers, Sarah Orne Jewettand Marguerite Higgins.
September 2, 2012
September 2, 2012: August 2012 Recap
[A recap of the month that was in American Studying.]
August 1: Sister Activism: The series on American siblings continues with the inspiring Grimké Sisters.August 2: Two Small Boys: On my next pair of American siblings, William and Henry James (and on my sons).August 3: Wholly American: My final post in the series, on Barack Obama’s half-siblings.August 4-5: Crowd-Sourcing American Siblings: The next crowd-sourced post, drawn from responses to the week’s series. (You can still add yours!)August 6: Two Talented, Troubling Americans: A series on Americans abroad begins with this repeat of a post on Tom Ripley and Jason Bourne.August 7: Quiet but Dangerous: The week’s next American abroad, Graham Greene’s title character, and American foreign policy.August 8: Not That Innocent: On the double-edged satire of Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad.August 9: Cultural Turistas: Americans in Mexico in John Sayles’ Men with Guns.August 10: Tortured Travelers: My last post in the series, on the tortured young Americans abroad in Hostel and Taken.August 11: Rachel Collins’ Guest Post: Professor Rachel Collins writes about Undercover Boss and class-passing narratives in America.August 12: Crowd-Sourcing Americans Abroad: A crowd-sourced post on the week’s topics—share your thoughts, please!August 13: They Call Me Mr. Mom: A series on fatherhood in America begins with the Michael Keaton movie and the question of how and whether we’ve changed in the decades since.August 14: Southern Sons: On what fathers and sons help us see in the Southern Renaissance.August 15: Birthday Best Redux: In honor of my 35th birthday, 35 of my favorite posts from the last year on the blog.August 16: Fathers of Their Country: On the myths and narratives of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as father figures.August 17: Missing Fathers: My last post in the series, on missing African American fathers in the Moynihan Report, two novels, and Boyz in the Hood.August 18-19: Crowd-Sourcing American Dads: The series ends with another crowd-sourced post—and another chance to add your take!August 20: Bad Memories, Part One: First in a series on how we remember dark American histories, on the Salem Witch Trials.August 21: Bad Memories, Part Two: Next in the series, on three different ways to remember Wounded Knee.August 22: Bad Memories, Part Three: On three innovative choices through which authors have tried to capture the Middle Passage.August 23: Bad Memories, Part Four: How works in three different genres help us remember the Japanese internment.August 24: Bad Memories, Part Five: My last post in the series, on how different figures and texts remember the My Lai Massacre and the Vietnam War.August 25-26: Crowd-Sourcing Bad Memories: The series ends with the fullest crowd-sourced post yet—and a few comments have been added to the week’s posts since, too. Check ‘em out and add your own!August 27: Books That Shaped American Studier, Childhood: A series on books that shaped my identity and perspective begins with a couple childhood favorites.August 28: Books That Shaped American Studier, Young Adult: The series continues with an author and work that got me out of my comfort zone.August 29: Books That Shaped American Studier, High School: On a book that helped greatly expand my sense of what literature could be and do.August 30: Books That Shaped American Studier, College: On one of the works that, eventually, inspired and contributed to a new career opportunity and path.August 31: Books That Shaped American Studier, Grad School: My last post in the series, on a work that reminds me of how excitingly far I still have to go.September 1: Crowd-Sourced Shaping Books: The series and month extend one more day, with some crowd-sourced thoughts on books that have shaped us.Next series begins tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts on any of these topics? Things you’d like to see on the blog? Guest posts you’d love to contribute? Lemme know!9/2 Memory Day nominee: Romare Bearden, the African American painter, collage artist, cartoonist, set and costume designer, and more whose day job as a social worker both informed his unique and powerful works and makes his ability to produce them that much more impressive still.
August 1: Sister Activism: The series on American siblings continues with the inspiring Grimké Sisters.August 2: Two Small Boys: On my next pair of American siblings, William and Henry James (and on my sons).August 3: Wholly American: My final post in the series, on Barack Obama’s half-siblings.August 4-5: Crowd-Sourcing American Siblings: The next crowd-sourced post, drawn from responses to the week’s series. (You can still add yours!)August 6: Two Talented, Troubling Americans: A series on Americans abroad begins with this repeat of a post on Tom Ripley and Jason Bourne.August 7: Quiet but Dangerous: The week’s next American abroad, Graham Greene’s title character, and American foreign policy.August 8: Not That Innocent: On the double-edged satire of Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad.August 9: Cultural Turistas: Americans in Mexico in John Sayles’ Men with Guns.August 10: Tortured Travelers: My last post in the series, on the tortured young Americans abroad in Hostel and Taken.August 11: Rachel Collins’ Guest Post: Professor Rachel Collins writes about Undercover Boss and class-passing narratives in America.August 12: Crowd-Sourcing Americans Abroad: A crowd-sourced post on the week’s topics—share your thoughts, please!August 13: They Call Me Mr. Mom: A series on fatherhood in America begins with the Michael Keaton movie and the question of how and whether we’ve changed in the decades since.August 14: Southern Sons: On what fathers and sons help us see in the Southern Renaissance.August 15: Birthday Best Redux: In honor of my 35th birthday, 35 of my favorite posts from the last year on the blog.August 16: Fathers of Their Country: On the myths and narratives of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as father figures.August 17: Missing Fathers: My last post in the series, on missing African American fathers in the Moynihan Report, two novels, and Boyz in the Hood.August 18-19: Crowd-Sourcing American Dads: The series ends with another crowd-sourced post—and another chance to add your take!August 20: Bad Memories, Part One: First in a series on how we remember dark American histories, on the Salem Witch Trials.August 21: Bad Memories, Part Two: Next in the series, on three different ways to remember Wounded Knee.August 22: Bad Memories, Part Three: On three innovative choices through which authors have tried to capture the Middle Passage.August 23: Bad Memories, Part Four: How works in three different genres help us remember the Japanese internment.August 24: Bad Memories, Part Five: My last post in the series, on how different figures and texts remember the My Lai Massacre and the Vietnam War.August 25-26: Crowd-Sourcing Bad Memories: The series ends with the fullest crowd-sourced post yet—and a few comments have been added to the week’s posts since, too. Check ‘em out and add your own!August 27: Books That Shaped American Studier, Childhood: A series on books that shaped my identity and perspective begins with a couple childhood favorites.August 28: Books That Shaped American Studier, Young Adult: The series continues with an author and work that got me out of my comfort zone.August 29: Books That Shaped American Studier, High School: On a book that helped greatly expand my sense of what literature could be and do.August 30: Books That Shaped American Studier, College: On one of the works that, eventually, inspired and contributed to a new career opportunity and path.August 31: Books That Shaped American Studier, Grad School: My last post in the series, on a work that reminds me of how excitingly far I still have to go.September 1: Crowd-Sourced Shaping Books: The series and month extend one more day, with some crowd-sourced thoughts on books that have shaped us.Next series begins tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts on any of these topics? Things you’d like to see on the blog? Guest posts you’d love to contribute? Lemme know!9/2 Memory Day nominee: Romare Bearden, the African American painter, collage artist, cartoonist, set and costume designer, and more whose day job as a social worker both informed his unique and powerful works and makes his ability to produce them that much more impressive still.
September 1, 2012
September 1, 2012: Crowd-Sourced Shaping Books
[The Library of Congress is currently hosting a pretty cool exhibition called
Books That Shaped America
. Many of its featured books are ones I (or Guest Posters) have written about in this space, and the topic as a whole is of course central to much of what I do here. But this week I bloged about a parallel but more intimate topic—a handful of the many books that have shaped this American Studier. This crowd-sourced post is drawn from the responses and stories shared by my fellow American Studiers—please add yours!]
In reponse to the childhood post, Rebecca D’Orsogna remembers “the nerd fantasy From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler —they slept in the Met, did research for fun!” Irene Martyniuk highlights the Nancy Drew series, noting that “Her blue roadster represented such freedom. She had perfect manners even if she didn't have a mother and she had guts. Hannah Gruen could always be counted on and her lawyer father backed her up on everything. Beth, the typical female was always a bit scared and cried, and George, the way ahead of her time tomboy (maybe even closeted lesbian) was tough as nails. And then there was Ned. When I was teaching [the series], I found one critic who wrote something like: the moment you start wondering when Nancy will sleep with Ned, you're too old for Nancy Drew. So true. To me, Nancy was way ahead of her time. This is why she is such a role model for girls (Nancy Drew still outsells the Hardy Boys by a large margin). She is so many things that are both expected and unexpected. While, indeed, the mysteries themselves are formulaic, the fun is in the details. She has Ned wrapped around her finger and she does everything with such grace. And she has her own car.” And later in the week, Irene adds that “Emily L. by Marguerite Duras was also a game changer. I look on it as the female A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.”Responding to the young adulthood post, Ilene Railton notes that for her such “books would have been Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventures, which were certainly more for boys than girls, but I loved them nonetheless.” (As Ilene noted in nominating her Dad, Herman Fine, for February 4th’s Memory Day, he contributed to her love for Stevenson’s works.)Isabella Greene writes that “As a young adult I think Romeo and Juliet and The Diary of Anne Frank would have to be the two that had the most impact on me. R&J because of the whole new style of writing that seemed so hard to understand, but once you put the effort into it, the most amazing story emerged—just when you are starting to really ramp up your own fantasies about love and passion and giving yourself over to it completely (or as completely as 15 year olds know how). And Diary because, again, here was a young girl who had thoughts I could understand but was living a life so foreign to me, so scary and different, yet she was just a teenager, like me, having teenage ideas and feelings.”Speaking of Proal Heartwell, as I was in the high school post, he has a new book coming out, on his relationship to and investigations into a Welsh poet: called Goronwy and Me, it’ll be out this coming week from Wipf and Stock Publishers. Check it out!My Fitchburg State colleague Kate Wells responds, “Too many to list! Thinking about high school off the top of my head: Assigned school reading - Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Personal reading - Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But college is where things started to truly blow my mind. Probably the book with the biggest ‘Holy Shit - THIS is how good books can be?’ moment was Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.”In response to the grad school post, Monica Jackson notes that “ Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy made me realize one day in a graduate class at UMass Boston that I was actually on the same level as the other students in my class. (I always had this fear like everyone was somehow smarter than me because they spoke the language of the discourse community and I was still learning what a discourse community was. ) That memoir helped me relate to the author and explain how we all kind of related to the author. My explanation made others question and discuss, which I guess is really the point of graduate school (adding your own perspective to what’s already out there).”August recap tomorrow and next series next week,BenPS. Any shaping books you’d add?9/1 Memory Day nominee: James Gordon Bennett, Sr., the Scottish immigrant, journalist, and editor whose New York Herald pioneered virtually every significant form of newspaper journalism and who helped shape American politics and society in numerous ways.
In reponse to the childhood post, Rebecca D’Orsogna remembers “the nerd fantasy From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler —they slept in the Met, did research for fun!” Irene Martyniuk highlights the Nancy Drew series, noting that “Her blue roadster represented such freedom. She had perfect manners even if she didn't have a mother and she had guts. Hannah Gruen could always be counted on and her lawyer father backed her up on everything. Beth, the typical female was always a bit scared and cried, and George, the way ahead of her time tomboy (maybe even closeted lesbian) was tough as nails. And then there was Ned. When I was teaching [the series], I found one critic who wrote something like: the moment you start wondering when Nancy will sleep with Ned, you're too old for Nancy Drew. So true. To me, Nancy was way ahead of her time. This is why she is such a role model for girls (Nancy Drew still outsells the Hardy Boys by a large margin). She is so many things that are both expected and unexpected. While, indeed, the mysteries themselves are formulaic, the fun is in the details. She has Ned wrapped around her finger and she does everything with such grace. And she has her own car.” And later in the week, Irene adds that “Emily L. by Marguerite Duras was also a game changer. I look on it as the female A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.”Responding to the young adulthood post, Ilene Railton notes that for her such “books would have been Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventures, which were certainly more for boys than girls, but I loved them nonetheless.” (As Ilene noted in nominating her Dad, Herman Fine, for February 4th’s Memory Day, he contributed to her love for Stevenson’s works.)Isabella Greene writes that “As a young adult I think Romeo and Juliet and The Diary of Anne Frank would have to be the two that had the most impact on me. R&J because of the whole new style of writing that seemed so hard to understand, but once you put the effort into it, the most amazing story emerged—just when you are starting to really ramp up your own fantasies about love and passion and giving yourself over to it completely (or as completely as 15 year olds know how). And Diary because, again, here was a young girl who had thoughts I could understand but was living a life so foreign to me, so scary and different, yet she was just a teenager, like me, having teenage ideas and feelings.”Speaking of Proal Heartwell, as I was in the high school post, he has a new book coming out, on his relationship to and investigations into a Welsh poet: called Goronwy and Me, it’ll be out this coming week from Wipf and Stock Publishers. Check it out!My Fitchburg State colleague Kate Wells responds, “Too many to list! Thinking about high school off the top of my head: Assigned school reading - Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Personal reading - Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But college is where things started to truly blow my mind. Probably the book with the biggest ‘Holy Shit - THIS is how good books can be?’ moment was Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.”In response to the grad school post, Monica Jackson notes that “ Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy made me realize one day in a graduate class at UMass Boston that I was actually on the same level as the other students in my class. (I always had this fear like everyone was somehow smarter than me because they spoke the language of the discourse community and I was still learning what a discourse community was. ) That memoir helped me relate to the author and explain how we all kind of related to the author. My explanation made others question and discuss, which I guess is really the point of graduate school (adding your own perspective to what’s already out there).”August recap tomorrow and next series next week,BenPS. Any shaping books you’d add?9/1 Memory Day nominee: James Gordon Bennett, Sr., the Scottish immigrant, journalist, and editor whose New York Herald pioneered virtually every significant form of newspaper journalism and who helped shape American politics and society in numerous ways.
August 31, 2012
August 31, 2012: Books That Shaped American Studier, Grad School
[The Library of Congress is currently hosting a pretty cool exhibition called
Books That Shaped America
. Many of its featured books are ones I (or Guest Posters) have written about in this space, and the topic as a whole is of course central to much of what I do here. But this week I wanted to blog about a parallel but more intimate topic—a handful of the many books that have shaped this American Studier. Please share your responses and/or your own such books for the crowd-sourced weekend post!]
On a book that reminds me how excitingly far I still have to go.From the names for the degrees—Master of Arts, Doctor of Philosophy—to the purpose of the PhD dissertation (and its accompanying oral “defense”), and certainly through the last few decades’ evolving emphasis on hyper-specialization within academia, the demonstrated purpose of grad school (at least in English and the humanities; this may be less true for the sciences) would seem to be to achieve a significant level of mastery over one’s particular subject and focus. There’s obviously good reason for that, especially since graduate students are professors in training and it’s perfectly reasonable to expect a professor to have some significant mastery of his or her field (particularly in an era when students and their families are paying so much to be educated by those professors). But at the same time, this perspective on grad school can make it seem like the key to being a successful scholar is to have all the answers, to know just how you would analyze any given text or event or question, to never admit that you don’t know or are still trying to figure out what to make of something.If I were ever tempted to feel that way—although of course I’m far too humble, not to mention talented and good-looking, to do so—I had the good fortune during grad school to encounter plenty of correctives, in the form of works that left me at a loss and forced me to recognize how much American Studying is a lifelong learning kind of pursuit. At the top of that list would have to be Nathanael West’snovella The Day of the Locust (1939), a work that within its 150 pages manages to be a bildungsroman about a young arrival to Los Angeles, a funny and biting satire of Hollywood, a gritty socially realistic novel of the Depression, a psychological study of gender and sex, and an apocalyptic cautionary tale in which religion, celebrity, popular culture, and violence yield the titular plague—among other things. In the conclusion to my weekly analytical post about the novel in the grad class where I first encountered it, I was simply left reciting the eternal question, voiced so eloquently by Marvin Gaye and slightly less eloquently by the Four Non-Blondes: “What’s going on?” Can’t say I have any more definitive of an answer today than I did then.Does that mean I should have failed my defense, been laughed out of grad school, am now outing myself as the phoniest American Studier this side of David Barton? I don’t think so. First of all, I’m not giving up on analyzing West’s novel—quite the opposite, I’m excited to keep figuring out what I want to say about it, and in particular to get the chance at some point to teach it and participate in some communal such analyses. Second, and more broadly and importantly still, the day I pretend like I’ve got this whole American Studying thing figured out will be the day you all should reach through your computers and slap some sense into me, Cher in Moonstruck style. Both American Studies and public American Studies scholarship are, it seems to me, not about having all the answers—they’re about learning as much as we can to be sure, from our sources and our texts and our histories but also from each other; and then about continuing to ask the questions that allow us all to keep learning, to build a communal perspective on our national identity and history, culture and community, that are as complex and evolving as America itself. Works like West’s have helped me to do that for sure, and I’m very appreciative.Crowd-sourced post this weekend,BenPS. So last chance ahead of that post—thoughts? Books that shaped you?8/31 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two hugely impressive and inspiring 19thcentury Americans, Ely Parker and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin.
On a book that reminds me how excitingly far I still have to go.From the names for the degrees—Master of Arts, Doctor of Philosophy—to the purpose of the PhD dissertation (and its accompanying oral “defense”), and certainly through the last few decades’ evolving emphasis on hyper-specialization within academia, the demonstrated purpose of grad school (at least in English and the humanities; this may be less true for the sciences) would seem to be to achieve a significant level of mastery over one’s particular subject and focus. There’s obviously good reason for that, especially since graduate students are professors in training and it’s perfectly reasonable to expect a professor to have some significant mastery of his or her field (particularly in an era when students and their families are paying so much to be educated by those professors). But at the same time, this perspective on grad school can make it seem like the key to being a successful scholar is to have all the answers, to know just how you would analyze any given text or event or question, to never admit that you don’t know or are still trying to figure out what to make of something.If I were ever tempted to feel that way—although of course I’m far too humble, not to mention talented and good-looking, to do so—I had the good fortune during grad school to encounter plenty of correctives, in the form of works that left me at a loss and forced me to recognize how much American Studying is a lifelong learning kind of pursuit. At the top of that list would have to be Nathanael West’snovella The Day of the Locust (1939), a work that within its 150 pages manages to be a bildungsroman about a young arrival to Los Angeles, a funny and biting satire of Hollywood, a gritty socially realistic novel of the Depression, a psychological study of gender and sex, and an apocalyptic cautionary tale in which religion, celebrity, popular culture, and violence yield the titular plague—among other things. In the conclusion to my weekly analytical post about the novel in the grad class where I first encountered it, I was simply left reciting the eternal question, voiced so eloquently by Marvin Gaye and slightly less eloquently by the Four Non-Blondes: “What’s going on?” Can’t say I have any more definitive of an answer today than I did then.Does that mean I should have failed my defense, been laughed out of grad school, am now outing myself as the phoniest American Studier this side of David Barton? I don’t think so. First of all, I’m not giving up on analyzing West’s novel—quite the opposite, I’m excited to keep figuring out what I want to say about it, and in particular to get the chance at some point to teach it and participate in some communal such analyses. Second, and more broadly and importantly still, the day I pretend like I’ve got this whole American Studying thing figured out will be the day you all should reach through your computers and slap some sense into me, Cher in Moonstruck style. Both American Studies and public American Studies scholarship are, it seems to me, not about having all the answers—they’re about learning as much as we can to be sure, from our sources and our texts and our histories but also from each other; and then about continuing to ask the questions that allow us all to keep learning, to build a communal perspective on our national identity and history, culture and community, that are as complex and evolving as America itself. Works like West’s have helped me to do that for sure, and I’m very appreciative.Crowd-sourced post this weekend,BenPS. So last chance ahead of that post—thoughts? Books that shaped you?8/31 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two hugely impressive and inspiring 19thcentury Americans, Ely Parker and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin.
August 30, 2012
August 30, 2012: Books That Shaped American Studier, College
[The Library of Congress is currently hosting a pretty cool exhibition called
Books That Shaped America
. Many of its featured books are ones I (or Guest Posters) have written about in this space, and the topic as a whole is of course central to much of what I do here. But this week I wanted to blog about a parallel but more intimate topic—a handful of the many books that have shaped this American Studier. Please share your responses and/or your own such books for the crowd-sourced weekend post!]
On the book that helped open my eyes to a new career opportunity.One of this blog’s most overarching threads—indeed one of its central purposes, but also oneI have explicitly discussedon multiple occasions—has been my evolving perspectives on and goals for a career in public scholarship. To some degree this is a new-ish development in my thinking, and one I could trace to the shift from my first book (which was based on my dissertation and as such constructed almost entirely for an academic audience) to my second (which I hoped, and still hope, could interest American Studiers outside the academy just as much if not more as those inside; check it out and see for yourself, wherever you are!). Yet as I’ve made this shift in my thinking, I’ve been greatly helped by the many strong examples of public American Studies scholarship I’ve encountered throughout my life—and one that particularly stands out is Paul Johnson and Sean Wilentz’s The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America (1994). I read Johnson and Wilentz’s book as a freshman in college, in a History and Literature (America) sophomore tutorial that included a ton of great scholarly works: John Demos’ The Unredeemed Captive, Christine Stansell’s City of Women, and David Hollinger’s Post-Ethnic America, to cite only three. Yet The Kingdom of Matthias stood out, as it’s able to combine some of the strongest features of each of those exemplary works: it’s a narrative history every bit as compelling as Demos’, is grounded in as extensive and thorough research and citation as Stansell’s, and feels as relevant to big American questions and narratives as Hollinger’s (particularly when Johnson and Wilentz get to their climactic reveal about Sojourner Truth, about which I’ve blogged previously). This is a book that reads quickly and compellingly while introducing its audiences to a great deal of specific sources and history, that does justice to a bygone era and subject while feeling fresh and relevant to our contemporary moment, and that highlights a far-too forgotten set of American histories and identities without feeling the slightest bit didactic or antiquarian. Books are only part of the future of public American Studies scholarship, of course; as might be obvious, I’m also a big fan of blogs, websites, conferencesand colloquia, and many other ways American Studiers can connect and converse about these key questions. But the truth is that what makes a great public scholarly book great parallels very directly what produces the best of all those other forms of scholarship; that means all those things in the last paragraph’s closing sentence, but it also and most directly means this: that it be unique, based on meaningful research and knowledge and analysis, and able to connect to other American Studiers and what’s important to them. Content that’s worth our time; authors with something genuine to contribute; an awareness of audience and ability to connect to those audiences. Might seem like a simple enough equation, but getting it right, well, that’s the trick (and one I’m most definitely still working toward). To my mind, Johnson and Wilentz got it exactly right—even if it took me a few years to really appreciate that college lesson.Next shaping book tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts? Books that shaped you? I’d love to hear ‘em, for lots of reasons including the weekend’s post!8/30 Memory Day nominee: Roy Wilkins, the Civil Rights and NAACP leader whose editorial, political, social, and legal efforts contributed as much as any American to some of the 20thcentury’s most important achievements.
On the book that helped open my eyes to a new career opportunity.One of this blog’s most overarching threads—indeed one of its central purposes, but also oneI have explicitly discussedon multiple occasions—has been my evolving perspectives on and goals for a career in public scholarship. To some degree this is a new-ish development in my thinking, and one I could trace to the shift from my first book (which was based on my dissertation and as such constructed almost entirely for an academic audience) to my second (which I hoped, and still hope, could interest American Studiers outside the academy just as much if not more as those inside; check it out and see for yourself, wherever you are!). Yet as I’ve made this shift in my thinking, I’ve been greatly helped by the many strong examples of public American Studies scholarship I’ve encountered throughout my life—and one that particularly stands out is Paul Johnson and Sean Wilentz’s The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America (1994). I read Johnson and Wilentz’s book as a freshman in college, in a History and Literature (America) sophomore tutorial that included a ton of great scholarly works: John Demos’ The Unredeemed Captive, Christine Stansell’s City of Women, and David Hollinger’s Post-Ethnic America, to cite only three. Yet The Kingdom of Matthias stood out, as it’s able to combine some of the strongest features of each of those exemplary works: it’s a narrative history every bit as compelling as Demos’, is grounded in as extensive and thorough research and citation as Stansell’s, and feels as relevant to big American questions and narratives as Hollinger’s (particularly when Johnson and Wilentz get to their climactic reveal about Sojourner Truth, about which I’ve blogged previously). This is a book that reads quickly and compellingly while introducing its audiences to a great deal of specific sources and history, that does justice to a bygone era and subject while feeling fresh and relevant to our contemporary moment, and that highlights a far-too forgotten set of American histories and identities without feeling the slightest bit didactic or antiquarian. Books are only part of the future of public American Studies scholarship, of course; as might be obvious, I’m also a big fan of blogs, websites, conferencesand colloquia, and many other ways American Studiers can connect and converse about these key questions. But the truth is that what makes a great public scholarly book great parallels very directly what produces the best of all those other forms of scholarship; that means all those things in the last paragraph’s closing sentence, but it also and most directly means this: that it be unique, based on meaningful research and knowledge and analysis, and able to connect to other American Studiers and what’s important to them. Content that’s worth our time; authors with something genuine to contribute; an awareness of audience and ability to connect to those audiences. Might seem like a simple enough equation, but getting it right, well, that’s the trick (and one I’m most definitely still working toward). To my mind, Johnson and Wilentz got it exactly right—even if it took me a few years to really appreciate that college lesson.Next shaping book tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts? Books that shaped you? I’d love to hear ‘em, for lots of reasons including the weekend’s post!8/30 Memory Day nominee: Roy Wilkins, the Civil Rights and NAACP leader whose editorial, political, social, and legal efforts contributed as much as any American to some of the 20thcentury’s most important achievements.
August 29, 2012
August 29, 2012: Books That Shaped American Studier, High School
[The Library of Congress is currently hosting a pretty cool exhibition called
Books That Shaped America
. Many of its featured books are ones I (or Guest Posters) have written about in this space, and the topic as a whole is of course central to much of what I do here. But this week I wanted to blog about a parallel but more intimate topic—a handful of the many books that have shaped this American Studier. Please share your responses and/or your own such books for the crowd-sourced weekend post!]
On one of the books that greatly expanded my sense of what literature can be and do.It’s not at the top of the list of the reasons why Mr. Heartwell was my favorite and most influential English teacher, but it sure didn’t hurt: he had a large and full bookshelf at the corner of his room from which students were welcome to pick out and borrow any books they wanted. Both of my parents had bookshelves like that too—I’m pretty sure I first encountered David Bradley’s The Chaneysville Incident(1981), also in high school, by pulling it off of a shelf of my Mom’s—but there’s something about a totally unexplored shelf, you know? A whole new frontier, waiting for this budding literary pioneer to follow his own Oregon Trail and find untapped rivers of gold from which to—okay, shelving the metaphor. In any case, it was a great resource, and one of the books I pulled from that shelf that made a significant impression was Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America (1967).By this time I had encountered plenty of stylistically innovative and experimental authors and works, but there was still something about Brautigan’s book that, to quote Emily Dickinson’s definition of poetry, made me “feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off.” To be honest, I had no idea what I was getting into and not much more of an idea what to make of it once I did—per the above link, one of Brautigan’s rejections from a publisher remarked with confusion that “I gather from the reports that it was not about trout fishing,” and I know how he or she felt—but I know that there was something compelling, irresistible even, about that state of reading. As with many experimental texts, it’s difficult to describe adequately or sufficiently the book’s style and voice; but this short sample chapter, “A Walden Pond for Winos,” is a good place to start. The mix of realism and poetry (or at least a poetic sentiment); the dark humor and yet shared humanity; the balance of the narrator’s individual voice and a more communal set of experiences and identities; the fact that the chapter has precious little to do with trout fishing, or even with those that come before and after it, demanding that we create a sense of structure ourselves since he’s damend if he’s going to do it for us—all key elements to Brautigan’s style and novel.I don’t want to misrepresent my relationship to Brautigan’s novel—I haven’t touched it since that high school reading, and have thought more about it in the time I’ve been writing this post than I had in most of those intervening years—but the fact remains that when I was brainstorming which high school-era book to highlight, it was the first one that came to mind. And the reason, again, is quite simple but very significant: it wasn’t like anything else I had read. I was a pretty well-read kid, across many different genres and eras and traditions—but I was still a high school kid, and as such had that delightful teenage combination of ignorance and yet a certainty that I knew what was what. Brautigan’s was one of the books that reminded me how much I had yet to experience and learn, how much more than was in heaven and earth than I had dreamt of in my philosophy (we read Hamlet that year too). A pretty valuable lesson, and one that has helped carry me forward into can American Studier’s life of continual learning and growth.Next shaping book tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts? Books that shaped you? I’d love to hear ‘em, for lots of reasons including the weekend’s post!8/29 Memory Day nominee: Temple Grandin, the doctor and professor of animal science who is also and most significantly one of autism’s most vocal and inspiringadvocates and voices.
On one of the books that greatly expanded my sense of what literature can be and do.It’s not at the top of the list of the reasons why Mr. Heartwell was my favorite and most influential English teacher, but it sure didn’t hurt: he had a large and full bookshelf at the corner of his room from which students were welcome to pick out and borrow any books they wanted. Both of my parents had bookshelves like that too—I’m pretty sure I first encountered David Bradley’s The Chaneysville Incident(1981), also in high school, by pulling it off of a shelf of my Mom’s—but there’s something about a totally unexplored shelf, you know? A whole new frontier, waiting for this budding literary pioneer to follow his own Oregon Trail and find untapped rivers of gold from which to—okay, shelving the metaphor. In any case, it was a great resource, and one of the books I pulled from that shelf that made a significant impression was Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America (1967).By this time I had encountered plenty of stylistically innovative and experimental authors and works, but there was still something about Brautigan’s book that, to quote Emily Dickinson’s definition of poetry, made me “feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off.” To be honest, I had no idea what I was getting into and not much more of an idea what to make of it once I did—per the above link, one of Brautigan’s rejections from a publisher remarked with confusion that “I gather from the reports that it was not about trout fishing,” and I know how he or she felt—but I know that there was something compelling, irresistible even, about that state of reading. As with many experimental texts, it’s difficult to describe adequately or sufficiently the book’s style and voice; but this short sample chapter, “A Walden Pond for Winos,” is a good place to start. The mix of realism and poetry (or at least a poetic sentiment); the dark humor and yet shared humanity; the balance of the narrator’s individual voice and a more communal set of experiences and identities; the fact that the chapter has precious little to do with trout fishing, or even with those that come before and after it, demanding that we create a sense of structure ourselves since he’s damend if he’s going to do it for us—all key elements to Brautigan’s style and novel.I don’t want to misrepresent my relationship to Brautigan’s novel—I haven’t touched it since that high school reading, and have thought more about it in the time I’ve been writing this post than I had in most of those intervening years—but the fact remains that when I was brainstorming which high school-era book to highlight, it was the first one that came to mind. And the reason, again, is quite simple but very significant: it wasn’t like anything else I had read. I was a pretty well-read kid, across many different genres and eras and traditions—but I was still a high school kid, and as such had that delightful teenage combination of ignorance and yet a certainty that I knew what was what. Brautigan’s was one of the books that reminded me how much I had yet to experience and learn, how much more than was in heaven and earth than I had dreamt of in my philosophy (we read Hamlet that year too). A pretty valuable lesson, and one that has helped carry me forward into can American Studier’s life of continual learning and growth.Next shaping book tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts? Books that shaped you? I’d love to hear ‘em, for lots of reasons including the weekend’s post!8/29 Memory Day nominee: Temple Grandin, the doctor and professor of animal science who is also and most significantly one of autism’s most vocal and inspiringadvocates and voices.
August 28, 2012
August 28, 2012: Books That Shaped American Studier, Young Adult
[The Library of Congress is currently hosting a pretty cool exhibition called
Books That Shaped America
. Many of its featured books are ones I (or Guest Posters) have written about in this space, and the topic as a whole is of course central to much of what I do here. But this week I wanted to blog about a parallel but more intimate topic—a handful of the many books that have shaped this American Studier. Please share your responses and/or your own such books for the crowd-sourced weekend post!]
On the book that helped push me out of my comfort zone, both as a reader and as a thinker.In yesterday’s post I highlighted what I would call the first genuine stage in this American Studier’s evolution as a reader: finding those books that first spoke to me and shaped me in individual, specific, and enduring ways. It’s fair to say that they did so in part because they connected to nascent interests and passions that would remain central to my identity and perspective throughout my life—in the fantastic and related literary genres, in the case of David and the Phoenix; in mystery fiction, in the case of the Hardy Boys. That is, while those books certainly helped shape those particular interests as well as my overall identity, they did so in relatively comfortable ways; while such comfort is not at all a bad thing, and is probably necessary to making those initial connections with stories and books, I firmly believe it can and should be supplemented by some discomfort, by those works that compel us in part because they push us beyond the bounds of what we instinctively enjoy (while still entertaining and enriching us, that is—I’m not advocating for masochistic reading!).For me, one of the first works to push me in that way was John Bellairs’ The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull (1984). One of the early works in Bellairs’ Johnny Dixon series, Spell certainly shared some key features with both David and the Hardy Boys—a youthful protagonist who finds himself involved in a supernatural and mysterious situation—but with a couple of very significant differences, both captured by the book’s cover: that protagonist, Johnny, confronted the book’s villains and terrors on his own, both because of his status as an orphan and because the story’s plot involved his mentor figure going missing; and those threats were indeed terrifying, far more scary to this young adult reader than either the scientist villain in David or any of the Hardy’s antagonists. Spell kept me up at night in distinctly different ways than did those earlier books, which I simply wanted to keep reading into the wee hours; I felt somewhat the same about Bellairs’ book, but also didn’t want to stop reading because that would entail turning off the light and wondering if the Sorcerer’s Skull was lurking in the shadows in the corner of my room. That fear, it’s worth adding, paralleled very fully Johnny’s own emotions, making his journey mine in a way that was also distinct from my connections to the protagonists of my other early favorites.That kind of empathetic connection is certainly one reason why Bellairs’ book impacted me the way it did, and why I’m highlighting it in a post in this series. But I’d still emphasize even more fully the effects of reading something that made me distinctly uncomfortable—not, again, in a painful way, but in terms of being unsettled, of experiencing unfamiliar sensations, of feeling emotionally, psychologically, and intellectually challenged by what I was reading. It’s certainly fair to say that such discomfort shouldn’t be our most central association with reading or with art in general—living in the world produces enough discomfort without consistently seeking it out in our artistic experiences! But it’s equally fair to say that our perspectives can’t grow and expand if we’re always comfortable, and that being challenged and pushed beyond what we have known and what we instinctively enjoy is one important and valuable way to become a more rounded and successful person within that world, within our communities, and in our own skin. Johnny Dixon and John Bellairs helped me do that from a young age, and despite—no, in conjunction with—those late-night shivers, I’ll always be grateful.Next shaping book tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts? Books that shaped you? I’d love to hear ‘em, for lots of reasons including the weekend’s post!8/28 Memory Day nominee: Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first native-born American to be sanctified by the Catholic Church, and a woman whose educational and social efforts on behalf of American women and the poor should be inspiring regardless of one’s faith or spiritual perspective.
On the book that helped push me out of my comfort zone, both as a reader and as a thinker.In yesterday’s post I highlighted what I would call the first genuine stage in this American Studier’s evolution as a reader: finding those books that first spoke to me and shaped me in individual, specific, and enduring ways. It’s fair to say that they did so in part because they connected to nascent interests and passions that would remain central to my identity and perspective throughout my life—in the fantastic and related literary genres, in the case of David and the Phoenix; in mystery fiction, in the case of the Hardy Boys. That is, while those books certainly helped shape those particular interests as well as my overall identity, they did so in relatively comfortable ways; while such comfort is not at all a bad thing, and is probably necessary to making those initial connections with stories and books, I firmly believe it can and should be supplemented by some discomfort, by those works that compel us in part because they push us beyond the bounds of what we instinctively enjoy (while still entertaining and enriching us, that is—I’m not advocating for masochistic reading!).For me, one of the first works to push me in that way was John Bellairs’ The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull (1984). One of the early works in Bellairs’ Johnny Dixon series, Spell certainly shared some key features with both David and the Hardy Boys—a youthful protagonist who finds himself involved in a supernatural and mysterious situation—but with a couple of very significant differences, both captured by the book’s cover: that protagonist, Johnny, confronted the book’s villains and terrors on his own, both because of his status as an orphan and because the story’s plot involved his mentor figure going missing; and those threats were indeed terrifying, far more scary to this young adult reader than either the scientist villain in David or any of the Hardy’s antagonists. Spell kept me up at night in distinctly different ways than did those earlier books, which I simply wanted to keep reading into the wee hours; I felt somewhat the same about Bellairs’ book, but also didn’t want to stop reading because that would entail turning off the light and wondering if the Sorcerer’s Skull was lurking in the shadows in the corner of my room. That fear, it’s worth adding, paralleled very fully Johnny’s own emotions, making his journey mine in a way that was also distinct from my connections to the protagonists of my other early favorites.That kind of empathetic connection is certainly one reason why Bellairs’ book impacted me the way it did, and why I’m highlighting it in a post in this series. But I’d still emphasize even more fully the effects of reading something that made me distinctly uncomfortable—not, again, in a painful way, but in terms of being unsettled, of experiencing unfamiliar sensations, of feeling emotionally, psychologically, and intellectually challenged by what I was reading. It’s certainly fair to say that such discomfort shouldn’t be our most central association with reading or with art in general—living in the world produces enough discomfort without consistently seeking it out in our artistic experiences! But it’s equally fair to say that our perspectives can’t grow and expand if we’re always comfortable, and that being challenged and pushed beyond what we have known and what we instinctively enjoy is one important and valuable way to become a more rounded and successful person within that world, within our communities, and in our own skin. Johnny Dixon and John Bellairs helped me do that from a young age, and despite—no, in conjunction with—those late-night shivers, I’ll always be grateful.Next shaping book tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts? Books that shaped you? I’d love to hear ‘em, for lots of reasons including the weekend’s post!8/28 Memory Day nominee: Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first native-born American to be sanctified by the Catholic Church, and a woman whose educational and social efforts on behalf of American women and the poor should be inspiring regardless of one’s faith or spiritual perspective.
August 27, 2012
August 27, 2012: Books That Shaped American Studier, Childhood
[The Library of Congress is currently hosting a pretty cool exhibition called
Books That Shaped America
. Many of its featured books are ones I (or Guest Posters) have written about in this space, and the topic as a whole is of course central to much of what I do here. But this week I wanted to blog about a parallel but more intimate topic—a handful of the many books that have shaped this American Studier. Please share your responses and/or your own such books for the crowd-sourced weekend post!]
On one of the books that most powerfully sparked my young imagination.In my experience, there are a couple of fundamental truths about young kids and books: all young kids like listening to books (says something about the power of words, images, and stories, I’d say); and young kids don’t tend to be very picky about the quality of those books (ditto, I suppose; but also something about how taste evolves). I won’t name names, as this is supposed to be a positive series, but I have found that in these early years my boys have enjoyed the worst books I’ve ever read them nearly as much as they have Frog and Toad , Dr. Seuss, the Elephant and Piggie series, and so on. Which makes me that much more excited to see which books start to speak to them more individually and meaningfully, which ones begin to take hold of their imaginations not just because they create stories out of words and pictures on a page (again, a magical thing no matter what), but because of some of the specific effects and meanings contained within their particular words (and possibly images, although I’m thinking especially of slightly older, non-picture books).I think Edward Ormondroyd’s David and the Phoenix(1957) might have been the first book to do that for me, but since I’ve blogged about it before, I’ll focus here on another, even more lastingly influential (for me) work. Or rather many such works—because when my Dad and I had finished reading more or less all of the 30-odd books in “Franklin W. Dixon’s” (a pseudonym for multiple ghost-writers) Hardy Boys series, I was old enough to move on by myself to the late 1980s series reboot and tackle most of those numerous contemporary, teen-oriented updates as well. All told, I must have spent tens of thousands of pages solving mysteries alongside Frank and Joe Hardy (as well as their parents, peppery Aunt Gertrude, food-loving Chet, and the other recurring characters). But while most of those pages have blurred together rather thoroughly (partly because of the similarly recurring phrases and tropes, such Gertrude’s peppery nature; partly because I’m getting old), I can still remember quite vividly how taken I was by the first volume in the original series, The Tower Treasure . There are lots of reasons why the Hardy’s first adventure spoke to me so vividly: it was one of the first mystery stories I had encountered, with all the pleasures of uncertainty and fear and yet detection and resolution that the genre presents; it featured likeable young boys acting like, well, recognizable young boys yet having wondrous and meaningful adventures; the cover picture was just plain amazing (the image thing never entirely goes away). But I would say that one particularly potent reason aligns the Hardy series with David and the Phoenix very interestingly: both are clearly set in the world of reality, with both communities and villainous forces that are very much of that world; yet both suggest the possibility that their heroes can step outside of the norms of that world in order to make it better. They do so of course in dramatically different ways—David by befriending and helping preserve a host of mythological creatures, the Hardy Boys by solving a seemingly supernatural yet ultimately all-too-real mystery and saving the day—but nonetheless, in each case the protagonists both confront the realities around them and refuse to be limited by them, creating and living their own stories within those worlds. Pretty evocative and enduring lesson for this American Studier.Next shaping book tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts? Books that shaped you? I’d love to hear ‘em, for lots of reasons including the weekend’s post!8/27 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two very different but equally unique, talented, and influential American authors, Theodore Dreiser and William Least Heat-Moon.
On one of the books that most powerfully sparked my young imagination.In my experience, there are a couple of fundamental truths about young kids and books: all young kids like listening to books (says something about the power of words, images, and stories, I’d say); and young kids don’t tend to be very picky about the quality of those books (ditto, I suppose; but also something about how taste evolves). I won’t name names, as this is supposed to be a positive series, but I have found that in these early years my boys have enjoyed the worst books I’ve ever read them nearly as much as they have Frog and Toad , Dr. Seuss, the Elephant and Piggie series, and so on. Which makes me that much more excited to see which books start to speak to them more individually and meaningfully, which ones begin to take hold of their imaginations not just because they create stories out of words and pictures on a page (again, a magical thing no matter what), but because of some of the specific effects and meanings contained within their particular words (and possibly images, although I’m thinking especially of slightly older, non-picture books).I think Edward Ormondroyd’s David and the Phoenix(1957) might have been the first book to do that for me, but since I’ve blogged about it before, I’ll focus here on another, even more lastingly influential (for me) work. Or rather many such works—because when my Dad and I had finished reading more or less all of the 30-odd books in “Franklin W. Dixon’s” (a pseudonym for multiple ghost-writers) Hardy Boys series, I was old enough to move on by myself to the late 1980s series reboot and tackle most of those numerous contemporary, teen-oriented updates as well. All told, I must have spent tens of thousands of pages solving mysteries alongside Frank and Joe Hardy (as well as their parents, peppery Aunt Gertrude, food-loving Chet, and the other recurring characters). But while most of those pages have blurred together rather thoroughly (partly because of the similarly recurring phrases and tropes, such Gertrude’s peppery nature; partly because I’m getting old), I can still remember quite vividly how taken I was by the first volume in the original series, The Tower Treasure . There are lots of reasons why the Hardy’s first adventure spoke to me so vividly: it was one of the first mystery stories I had encountered, with all the pleasures of uncertainty and fear and yet detection and resolution that the genre presents; it featured likeable young boys acting like, well, recognizable young boys yet having wondrous and meaningful adventures; the cover picture was just plain amazing (the image thing never entirely goes away). But I would say that one particularly potent reason aligns the Hardy series with David and the Phoenix very interestingly: both are clearly set in the world of reality, with both communities and villainous forces that are very much of that world; yet both suggest the possibility that their heroes can step outside of the norms of that world in order to make it better. They do so of course in dramatically different ways—David by befriending and helping preserve a host of mythological creatures, the Hardy Boys by solving a seemingly supernatural yet ultimately all-too-real mystery and saving the day—but nonetheless, in each case the protagonists both confront the realities around them and refuse to be limited by them, creating and living their own stories within those worlds. Pretty evocative and enduring lesson for this American Studier.Next shaping book tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts? Books that shaped you? I’d love to hear ‘em, for lots of reasons including the weekend’s post!8/27 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two very different but equally unique, talented, and influential American authors, Theodore Dreiser and William Least Heat-Moon.
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