Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 407

July 28-29, 2012: Matthew Goguen’s Guest Post

[Matt Goguen is a recent Fitchburg State University graduate and an up-and-coming young scholar of American history, culture, and Studies. I expect big things, and am excited to highlight his voice here!]

Damnatio Memoriae and Joe Paterno by Matthew Goguen
The following post is written by the most casual of spectators in the recent Jerry Sandusky/Joe Paterno/Penn State sexual abuse scandal. This post does not condone Jerry Sandusky's behavior, Joe Paterno's behavior or Penn State's response to sexual abuse allegations. The purpose of this post is to briefly examine the act of removing a person's name from history using Joe Paterno as a very recent example. Notorious and infamous persons have often had their names stricken from history books for a multitude of reasons. In the past twenty years, this act is very evident in sports. This post is more concerned with the alteration of history than the persons who found themselves altered.Introduction In 31 AD, Sejanus, commander of the Praetorian Guard in Rome was arrested and executed. The reasons for his arrest and execution are still somewhat shrouded in mystery. It is believed that Sejanus was conspiring to overthrow the emperor Tiberius. After being executed by strangling, the body of Sejanus was thrown down the stairs of the Senate where it was torn apart by angry mobs. Anyone believed to be a follower and supporter of Sejanus was hunted and murdered. The Roman Senate issued an order of damnatio memoriae (condemnation of memory) which resulted in the destruction of every statue of Sejanus and his name being officially removed from all public records. In this way, Sejanus only exists as a story, a legend and a name.In the wake of the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal riveting State College, Pennsylvania and arguably the country, a beloved figure is facing similar persecution. Joe Paterno, the longtime Penn State head football coach whose sports accomplishments need no further introduction, is currently having his name and likeness edited or removed from murals, buildings, athletic awards and even an iconic statue. If you place the removal of a person's name from history at one end of the memory spectrum, you must place the elevation of someone's name and memory at the other end. We are more accustomed to a person dying and seeing their name reach superstar status and solemnity, rather than being stricken from the human record. The deaths of Kurt Cobain and Heath Ledger are two recent examples of death causing a revival in a person's work. Though Cobain and Ledger were very popular figures in their lifetime, they were exponentially championed more after they died. But why do we choose to punish our more nefarious public figures by expunging them from the record? Why should we "forget" Joe Paterno? Does anyone actually succeed in forgetting after "forgetting"?Joe Paterno / Joe Paterno (Halo) / Joe Paterno (Ribbon) Twelve years ago, Michael Pilato painted a 100 foot mural at State College, Pennsylvania depicting notable Penn State figures including Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky. Because of the allegations and recent conviction of Sandusky, his likeness has been completely removed and replaced by a blue ribbon. The ribbon is a symbol of child abuse awareness, much akin to pink ribbons for breast cancer awareness. The likeness of Joe Paterno has undergone two transformations this year. Following Paterno's death, an angelic halo was added over his head. That halo has since been erased, and a blue ribbon has taken its place on his jacket. It is the opinion of this author that these three transformations of Joe Paterno represent his public image in three distinct eras. The era of Joe Paterno is 1966 - November 8th, 2011. The era of Joe Paterno (Halo) is January 22nd, 2012 - July 11th, 2012. The era of Joe Paterno (Ribbon) is July 12th, 2012 - ?. The era of Joe Paterno (1966-2011) is rooted in two national championships and over 400 victories as a head coach: the pride of State College, the head of the Nittany Lions, the coach's coach, and the cream of the crop. This era begins with Joe Paterno being named head coach of the Nittany Lions and ends with the indictment of Jerry Sandusky. The era of Joe Paterno (Halo) is a legendary coach caught in unfortunate circumstances. A man who should've made a better decision, should've done things differently, could’ve done more, etc. This era begins on the date of Paterno’s death and ends with the publication of the Freeh Report. The era of Joe Paterno (Ribbon) is a legendary coach who may have been involved in a large cover up with unknown explicit motives. Saving Penn State face, maintaining the visage of being the rock of a community, all of these are hearsay because of Paterno's physical absence from this earth. This era begins with the publication of the Freeh Report and may last for all time. How does a community reconcile from this? Does a community reconcile from this? It’s easy as a spectator to comment and discuss the probabilities and nature of "going back to normal" because the spectator does not have to engage in those unfortunate actions. In an example of Pilato's public art mural, Joe Paterno is remembered in three different and simultaneous ways. There will be ardent supporters who will never look to Paterno as anything less than greatness personified, there are those who will think he simply made the wrong decision and there are those who will believe he was a lying criminal with no regard for the well-being of abused children. He is all at once, a saint, a sinner, and the devil, depending on who you ask. When asked about the changes made to his mural, artist Michael Pilato commented, "As a public artist, you've got to listen to the public and I started to hear the public, and I wish I hadn't put [the halo] up there, to tell you the truth." Michael Pilato has the power to edit and paint new images on his art as he wants to, but what of other bearers of the Paterno name? Joe Paterno Child Development Center / Child Development Center Hours after the Freeh Report claimed that Joe Paterno and various higher-ups within the Penn State fold concealed critical information about Sandusky's victims that placed past and future victims in critical jeopardy, Nike made an announcement that they would be renaming the Joe Paterno Child Development Center in the near future. The new name has not been unveiled yet, but it is rather disgustingly ironic that it is a child development center that will be renamed. Nike, which of course is a corporate entity will understandably do what it can to remain in positive light. It is not surprising that they are choosing to rename the center to distance their relationship with Joe Paterno, but will there be anything more? Will Nike remove their sponsorship of Penn State athletics? Joe Paterno Outstanding Male Freshman Athlete of the Year / Outstanding Male Freshman Athlete of the Year At Paterno's alma mater, Brown University, the Joe Paterno Outstanding Male Freshman Athlete of the Year is also undergoing a facelift. This year, the award was given to an athlete with Joe Paterno's name stricken from it. Howard D. Williams '17 / Joseph V. Paterno '50 Football Coaching Chair Also this year at Brown, the head coach position formerly known as the Howard D. Williams '17 / Joseph V. Paterno '50 Football Coaching Chair has been eliminated. However, according to the university, the reasons are due to issues that predate the Penn State scandal. Brown University Hall of Fame Not altered as of yet, but Brown University is also looking into revising Joe Paterno's Hall of Fame status at their school. A decision may be made in September during the Board of Trustees next meeting. His induction in the hall took place in 1977, long before Sandusky's actions are believed to have taken place. This is an instance where Joe Paterno's athletic accomplishments are in jeopardy of being erased due to actions that have nothing to do with his time in a Brown University uniform. Paternoville / Nittanyville On Monday, July 16th, it was announced by a Penn State student group that Paternoville, the congregation of students who camp outside of Penn State's football stadium before games, will now be referred to as Nittanyville. The Paterno Statue / Statua Paterno In a final threat to the legacy of Joe Paterno, Penn State is being encouraged to tear down a statue of Joe Paterno that stands outside of the Penn State football stadium. Rumor has it that an airplane flying over the college was pulling a banner that read, "Take the statue down or we will." If the statue does indeed come down, it would be akin to burning every photograph of Paterno wearing Penn State colors. Will this make things better? Is it better to remember our failures along with our triumphs? A senior at Penn State named Jeff Taylor offered great words of wisdom in regards to the renaming of Paternoville, "You can't remove Joe completely from history; that's something that doesn't even make sense...we want, at least to...return to normalcy." In addition to Taylor’s comments, the overwhelming sense in State College is to prevent “distractions” from overtaking Penn State’s educational mission. Joe Paterno is currently Public Distraction #1 thanks to the swift justice of Jerry Sandusky. What more of a glaring distraction than the absence of the symbolic Praetorian Guard leading his men to battle. His reputation and visage are now all but cast down the stairs of public opinion, to be devoured and torn asunder. Aftermath If Joe Paterno cannot be removed from history, why do we feel it necessary to remove his likeness and his name? The common answer is to distance oneself from the scandal, the bad press, and the hurt feelings. But do these tactics work? It is truly unfortunate that a man as revered as Joe Paterno has now been reduced to mere mortality; a harsh fall from grace as a football titan. But we as a society have been disappointed before, what makes this different? Can we forget Joe Paterno? The answer is an emphatic no. We cannot forget Joe Paterno no matter how much we try. His image is synonymous with Penn State and football greatness. Rather than destroying the image of Joe Paterno, we should always look at it through the eyes of Michael Pilato's painting: Joe Paterno as saint, as sinner, and as the devil. Joe Paterno, like all of us, does not conform to one set of standards. Joe Paterno was a human being, who was not black or white, but various shades of grey. Sometimes the most vicious of wolves dress in sheep's clothing. The legacy of Joe Paterno will forever be tarnished, but it is not worth being destroyed. If we condemn Paterno, we cannot learn from Paterno. If he is reduced to rubble, he will remain as rubble. There are lessons that we still need to learn. If we act hastily, we will not be able to put the pieces back together. In this way, Joe Paterno will only be a story, a legend and a name.[Next series next week,BenPS. What do you think?7/28 Memory Day nominee: Lucy Burns, whose international and American efforts on behalf of women’s suffrage, women’s rights, and pacifism exemplified the ideals of the progressive era and movement at home and abroad, then and now.
7/29 Memory Day nominee: Daniel Callaghan, the US naval officer who served in both World Wars and whose courageous and fatal efforts during the Battle of Guadalcanal led him to receive a posthumous Medal of Honor.

July 27, 2012: Jennings on the Long Haul

[Following up the weekend’s post, this week’s series will feature quotes and ideas from Francis Jennings’ The Creation of America, along with some American Studies perspectives to which I would connect them. This is the fifth and final entry in the series, and as always, your thoughts are very welcome!]
On two distinct and equally inspiring ways Francis Jennings modeled a career and life in American Studying.The Creation of America was published by Cambridge University Press in July 2000; in November of that same year, Francis Jennings passed away. While of course academic press books take some time to reach the publication stage, it’s still entirely accurate to say that Jennings was working on this book in the final stage of his life, as illustrated by the opening sentences of his Acknowledgments:“In first rank of essential debts, I owe deep gratitude to the staffs of the James C. King Home, which is my own home. They literally saved my life with surgery and watchful care during recuperation, and they made possible the rest periods during which this book could be completed.”It’s difficult to overstate how inspiring I find those sentences. I suppose they could be read a sign of someone who couldn’t let his work go, who wasn’t able to adequately relax or the like; but I would read them entirely differently and much more positively: as evidence of the deep significance of the work Jennings was doing, and of his profound commitment to do that work for as long as he possibly could and not a moment less. That he obviously took great and continuing pleasure from the work as well (a pleasure reflected in every ornery and impassioned sentence of the book) only adds one more inspiring level still, one more career and lifelong goal to which all of us American Studiers can and should aspire.But Jennings did more than just continue to do and take pleasure in his scholarly work until the end of his life; he also allowed that work to go in directions he didn’t expect, as evidenced by his book’s brief but crucial final three paragraphs:“Perhaps it may seem to some critics that I have written to sensationalize the subject. If so, I respectfully disagree. This book is not at all what I intended except in its effort to include all the people involved in the Revolution. That was what sensationalized the book, rather to my discomfort.Given the options of reporting my sources straightforwardly or producing what John Mack Faragher has called (in another connection) ‘an exclusionist reading of the past,’ I had no real choice.My book undoubtedly contains error; it is certainly not definitive. Yet I hope this inclusionist reading will inspire new understandings and initiate new explorations by readings as it did for me.”“Rather to my discomfort”; “as it did for me.” In his early 80s, after a lifetime of American historical investigations and scholarship, Jennings remained open enough in his ideas and his perspective to allow the sources and the evidence to take him in different directions, to amplify and reshape and shift and strengthen his understandings and analyses. In my own research and in my teaching I consistently argue for inductive reasoning, for examining the evidence and then trying to induce our arguments and ideas from it (rather than the deductive, argument-first approach that I believe many scholars employ and many teachers teach). And here is one of our most senior and established scholars practicing that approach in his final book, literally from his deathbed, in one more effort to inspire other scholars and American Studiers. Mission accomplished, Dr. Jennings.Next guest post this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Scholars and/or books that have inspired you?7/27 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two unique artists whose creations helped define late 20th century American culture and society, Norman Lear and Gary Gygax.

July 26, 2012: Jennings on Heroes and Humans

[Following up the weekend’s post, this week’s series will feature quotes and ideas from Francis Jennings’ The Creation of America, along with some American Studies perspectives to which I would connect them. This is the fourth in the series, and as always, your thoughts are very welcome!]
On Jennings’ recognition of the less and more productive kinds of sympathy with our historical subjects.We scholars like to pretend otherwise sometimes, but we’re no more capable of being entirely objective about our subjects than anyone else would be; we have our subjectivities, our passions, our personal connections, and they enter into our analyses whether we will it or no. As I wrote in this post on my youthful fondness for Robert E. Lee, the key is first to recognize those passions and then to push beyond them, to allow the complexities and challenges of history and culture and literature and all our topics to deepen and strengthen our ideas and work. That doesn’t mean that we end up vilifying historical figures—such simplified critiques are no more complex or meaningful than hero-worship—but instead that we seek to analyze and understand them in all their details and contexts, and see where that works takes us.In his concluding chapter, “In Sum,” Jennings engages directly with and poignantly responds to a critique of his work on these terms:“A good friend chides me for giving too little notice to historical persons who really did struggle and sacrifice for liberty for all. I an uncomfortable with that criticism, especially because of my own youthful experience as one of the strugglers. Yet I have written no more than what the evidence seemed to indicate, and I will not cover up; there has been much too much of that. Human animals are capable of behavior demonic as well as angelic, and sometimes both from the same creature.”After a paragraph highlighting once more a few of his book’s examples of such seeming contradictions, Jennings pushes his ideas one crucial step further:“It seems to me that the best service to be performed in behalf of strugglers for liberty is to talk straight—to show the complexity and ambiguities of their struggle, and to recognize humanity even where the strugglers did not. All men are brothers, and all women are sisters.”As he does in so many places, Jennings here articules succinctly and powerfully one of the ideas for which I hope to work throughout my career. We can indeed, he argues, sympathize with our historical subjects, and more exactly with their ideals and goals, with the best of what they were and represented and connected to. Moreover, recognizing their limitations and failures as well as their strengths and triumphs allows us not only to do full justice to American histories and identities, but also to move toward a more perfect union, toward a future that carries forward and builds upon but also is not circumscribed by these histories.What Jennings argues for here, then, is another seeming contradiction that is in fact a vital idea, and one I would locate at the heart of public American Studies scholarship: that doing our best to be objective and complete in our historical analyses can at the same time produce a genuinely progressive and practical vision for America’s present and future. By neither eliding the worst of our histories in an effort to create mythologized heroes nor cynically vilifying our figures in an effort to revise such mythologies, we can both better and more fully understand our past and find the most genuine and vital kinds of inspirations for our future.Final Jennings-inspired post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?7/26 Memory Day nominee: Stanley Kubrick, one of America’s most talented filmmakers and an artist whose interests consistently centered on complex themes of American identity, society, and community.

July 25, 2012: Jennings on What to Read

[Following up the weekend’s post, this week’s series will feature quotes and ideas from Francis Jennings’ The Creation of America, along with some American Studies perspectives to which I would connect them. This is the third in the series, and as always, your thoughts are very welcome!]
On the against-the-grain and very valuable types of sources at the heart of Jennings’ book.In the first of my Beach Read posts, when I recommended Alfred Young’s The Shoemaker and the Tea Party, I noted that some of the most famous and best-selling works of public American historical scholarship focus on the Revolutionary era: that would especially include David McCullough’s works, but also a similarly successful book like Joseph Ellis’ Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. As I wrote in that post, such works tend to be more narrative than analytical, telling compelling American stories but not necessarily engaging with the complex questions and contexts to which they connect. And these most prominent Revolutionary histories also share another limitation, not only with each other but also with some more analytical and almost equally famous books like Gordon Wood’s The Radicalism of the American Revolution: they focus almost entirely on the Revolutionary activities and ideas of the Framers and of the founding documents they produced.So central have those people and ideas been to our narratives of the Revolution that it can be difficult to imagine what a history of the period would look like that didn’t focus on them. But that was Jennings’ goal, and he illustrates how he tried to do it in an Introduction paragraph describing his preferred sources for the book:“In a sense, this book is not so much revisionist as a choice of existing but neglected intepretations. It rejects what currently dominant writers like to call ‘mainstream’ history—that is, theirs—and opts instead for studies done by specialists drudging through sources neglected by the mainstreamers. Such specialists have produced a large body of work generally omitted from standard preachments because of its irrefutable contradictions of orthodoxy. I have not indulged myself by simply dreaming up an eccentric fantasy. Rather, I have given attention to the implications of some of these alternative researches.”Despite the pararaph’s somewhat ornery tone (present throughout Jennings’ book; but when eighty-two years old you reach, write as jovially you will not), this is actually a profoundly open and generous perspective. It’s easy to imagine that a very senior and established historian and scholar would either rely on his own existing ideas or put himself in conversation with other particularly prominent voices; but instead Jennings is quite directly advocating seeking out other voices, often those of younger scholars but in any case those who have for whatever reason not received as much attention. In fact, he’s arguing something more—that the lack of attention might be a sign that these voices and ideas offer us something new and important, without which our narratives and analyses will remain too static and one-sided.As a public American scholar (at least in aim!), I spend a lot of time thinking about audiences, and how best to reach them. But as Jennings reminds us here, we public scholars should likewise think about our own community and conversations, about with which of our peers we want to especially engage. After all, in doing so we’re not only modeling certain kinds of analyses and approaches; we’re also helping highlight the ideas and works by those other scholars. Certainly some of the most already prominent voices can and must be echoed; but there’s even more value, Jennings and I would argue, in conversing with those who have a lot more to offer than our conversations yet include.Next inspiring quote tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Any not-yet prominent enough scholars or voices you’d highlight?7/25 Memory Day nominee: Thomas Eakins, whose realistic and humanistic paintings helped change American art, culture, and society as much as any single 19th century artist or figure.

July 24, 2012: Jennings on Why It Matters

[Following up the weekend’s post, this week’s series will feature quotes and ideas from Francis Jennings’ The Creation of America, along with some American Studies perspectives to which I would connect them. This is the second in the series, and as always, your thoughts are very welcome!]
On the impressive and important starting points for Jennings’ career and book.Tucked inside my grandfather’s copy of The Creation of America was Francis Jennings’ obituary, in which I discovered a couple specific facts (among many inspiring details of his life, from his World War II service to his leadership of a teacher’s union in opposition to the House Un-American Activities Committee) that definitely contributed to my renewed interest in Jennings’ scholarship and perspective. For one thing, Jennings was precisely the kind of exemplary Temple University undergraduate I met during my time at that institution: born and raised in a small Pennsylvania mining town, the first member of his family to attend college, and so on. And even more impressively, he spent the decade after receiving that degree (and before returning to graduate school to obtain his PhD) teaching history in the Philadelphia public schools.While he left that secondary school environment to enter the academic and public scholarly ones, however, he clearly didn’t leave it behind, as the opening paragraphs of his final book’s Introduction make clear:     “A long time ago when I tried to teach American history in a rough high school for slum boys, I thought to brighten the usual routine with an ‘educational’ film on the Revolution. Astonishingly, my students groaned. I had to wonder why.     There was no need to wonder long. As the ‘educational’ film’s actors strutted pompously about, they looked more like Martians than honest-to-goodness human beings. And as they declaimed about refusing to be slaves, my students’ eyes glazed over. My students were black.     I began dimly to see the error of conceiving the American Revolution as an unqualified struggle for liberty. Undeniably something of that sort had been involved, but liberty for whom and for what?”Rarely have I found in the work of any academic scholar a clearer sense of two hugely significant stakes to the work that we American Studiers do. First, Jennings recognizes here that every historical interpretation entails not only our ideas about the past, but also a particular connection to audience—or, far too often, a disconnection from many American audiences. In this case, for example, the “Great Men” narratives of the Founding Fathers, whatever their accuracy (and Jennings agrees with me that those narratives are too simplistic by far), certainly would seem entirely disconnected from the heritages, experiences, and identities of young African American men in 20th century Philadelphia. That wouldn’t mean that a teacher shouldn’t engage with those narratives; but he or she would at least have to acknowledge these gaps forthrightly, and to likewise engage with other American histories and identities alongside them.Second, and even more crucially, Jennings here grounds his American Studies public scholarship in an attempt to find and argue for a more genuinely communal American history—a vision of our national past and identity that can in fact include and thus speak to multiple audiences. While that vision has of course been part of a multicultural curriculum for many decades now, too often it is presented simply as a given—there have long been multiple communities in America, this argument goes, so of course we should engage with all of them. But the truth is that such engagement is much more active than that, represents a conscious choice to envision historical moments not only through the experiences of different communities, but also and even more overarchingly through the interconnections and relationships between those communities. Such a vision, after all, as Jennings acknowledges at the outset of his book, is the only one that has the potential to speak to all 21st century Americans.Next Jennings-inpsired post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Any experiences that have helped you see the stakes of your work?7/24 Memory Day nominee: Amelia Earhart, whose pioneering and inspirational life is rivaled by her mysterious and legendary final flight in our national narratives and stories.

July 23, 2012: Jennings on America’s Origins

[Following up the weekend’s post, this week’s series will feature quotes and ideas from Francis Jennings’ The Creation of America, along with some American Studies perspectives to which I would connect them. This is the first in the series, and as always, your thoughts are very welcome!]
On the most unique, significant, and inspiring paragraphs in Jennings’ book.The Creation of America is ostensibly a re-interpretation of the Revolutionary era; but as I wrote in the weekend post, it also and more overarchingly represents a chance for Jennings, near the culmination of his career and life, to articulate some of his most significant ideas about American historiography and scholarship, history and culture, identity and ideals. No such idea jumped out at me more than that comprised by the final two paragraphs of Jennings’ “Introduction,” and those two paragraphs are worth quoting in full:     “Even at the very beginning of English attempts at colonization, established data suggest a need for new angles of interpretation. When Sir Walter Raleigh’s abandoned colony at Roanoke picked itself up and emigrated to Chief Manteo’s town of Croatan in 1586, ethnocentrism has dictated that bloodlusting savages exterminated those white and civilized colonists. But it seems clear that the Roanoke people went voluntarily to Croatan for refuge, and it is quite well established today that Indians all over North America were trying desperately to rebuild populations ravaged by epidemic disease. It would be perfectly rational for Manteo’s people to adopt those Roanoke refugees who had been abandoned by their civilized countrymen, and it would have been equally rational for the adoptees to settle down where they were given ‘savage’ hospitality. It is conceivable—it can be neither proved nor disproved—that Roanoke’s people became part of the ancestry of today’s tribe of Lumbee Indians. Would it not be wondrous if Virginia Dare, the first English child born on American soil, became one of those Lumbee ancestors?     I like this as a pleasanter notion than equally speculative and equally unprovable racist snarls about murderous savages. More evidence exists for subsequent events. Let us accept the door opened to them by the courtesy of Virginia Dare.”How do I love those paragraphs? I won’t count all the ways, but I’ll highlight two of (to my mind) the most significant. For one thing, I’ll admit that I have never encountered another scholarly narrative of America’s (possible) origins that lines up more exactly with my concept of cross-cultural transformation; I named Cabeza de Vaca my 16th-century exemplary American within that definition, but Jennings’ take on Virginia Dare, while more speculative, would work just as well—and given Dare’s symbolic status as that first-born Anglo-American would make this cross-cultural experience even more overtly defining of the American experience.But for another thing, I love Jennings’ perspective here, on two key levels. He’s straight-forwardly honest about preferring a particular take on American history and identity—obviously such preferences shouldn’t lead us to misrepresent the historical sources and facts, but as Jennings recognizes here, history-writing is always partly about an interpretation of those sources and facts, about creating our own narratives based on them; and why shouldn’t we try to find the more communal and inspiring narratives in them, rather than then most divisive and violent? Moreover, while there are of course plenty of cases in which we can’t dispute that cultural contacts led to such divisions and violence, there are likewise plenty in which they produced communal understanding and connections, and the kinds of transformations that can result from them—so why should we assume the worst of our histories, rather than arguing for the best?Those are my favorite paragraphs in Jennings’ book, but they’re far from the only inspiring ones. Next example tomorrow!BenPS. What do you think? How would you respond to these ideas?7/23 Memory Day nominee: Raymond Chandler, one of America’s (and the world’s) greatest mystery novelists, and also one of our most thoughtful and complex chroniclers of masculinity, heroism, social class, and more.

July 21-22, 2012: Rediscovering Francis Jennings

On the surprising but (at least in this case) entirely appropriate places we find renewed inspiration for our American Studying.
There are lots of different kinds of scholarly conversations, and I’d say that each is equally and vitally important for a life of scholarly work. There are certainly those we have with our colleagues, both at a particular institution and around the world. There are those with our models and mentors, in- and outside of academia. These days there are those we find online, such as at the many sites I highlighted in last week’s post. But for me, one of the most significant and inspiring conversations is also one that it’s all too easy to minimize, both because it’s less overtly dialogic and because it’s more old school: the conversation that we have with prior scholars, with those pioneering and influential voices who have come before us and with whose ideas we must and should remember to keep conversing in our own careers.That conversation can also be easy to minimize because it seems distinctly tied to our work in graduate school—to those reading lists that we create for exams, for example, and the many scholarly voices we encounter during that experience. Obviously the ideas and lessons we take away from those graduate conversations remain with us throughout our career, but as we move into our own scholarly identity, it can be easy to feel as if we have moved as well into the more present and ongoing conversations such as those I cited in the prior paragraph. Such, for me, was the case of historian Francis Jennings; Jennings’s pioneering book The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (1975), with its exemplary and hugely innovative revisions of our historiographies of the era of European arrival and settlement and of the relationships between settlers and Native Americans, was one of the most inspiring and striking texts I read in graduate school. Yet while I certainly tried to pay back that debt by citing Invasionprominently in the first chapter of my Redefining American Identity , I didn’t necessarily feel that I needed further conversation with Jennings.Needless to say, I couldn’t have been more wrong. While staying in my late grandfather’s house this past week, I dipped into his impressive collection of American Studies books, and picked up Jennings’ final work, The Creation of America: Through Revolution to Empire (2000). And wow. While the book is officially a history of the Revolutionary era, and certainly represents a very distinct and important perspective on that period, it is also and most significantly a culminating statement in Jennings’ life and career, a final chance for him to articulate some of his most over-arching and meaningful ideas about American history, culture, and identity. And as such, I found it full of incredibly inspiring moments and ideas, passages that speak directly to some of my own most central interests and ideas. So this coming week, I’ll be highlighting five such passages, and using them as jumping off points for my own evolving ideas. I can’t think of a better way to make clear how much conversations with Jennings still have to offer, for me and for all American Studiers.Series coming up,BenPS. What do you think? Any prior scholars whose voices and ideas you’d highlight?7/21 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two hugely distinct but equally talented and influentialModernist writers, Hart Crane and Ernest Hemingway.7/22 Memory Day nominees: Another tie, this time between two unique and interesting Americanartists, Emma Lazarus and Alexander Calder.

July 16-20, 2012: Talk Amongst Yourselves

This American Studier is headed for vacation this week, taking his little American Studiers back to one of his favorite places in the whole world. I’ll be back (I guess an American Studier should say “I shall return”), and new posts will resume on Saturday, July 21st. But in the meantime, here are a few places where you can find some great American Studies conversations (among the many such sites and conversations to which I’ve linked here over the years; see also all the posts under the “Scholarly Reviews” category):
1)      Mixed Race America, an amazingly thoughtful and interesting blog and community of commenters on all things race, ethnicity, and identity;2)     
PPS. And I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: check out the New England American Studies Association's Pre-Conference Blog for some very timely and equally great conversations!For the 7/16 through 7/20 Memory Day nominees, see the Memory Day Calendar!

July 14-15, 2012: Crowd-Sourcing Beach Reads

[The next crowd-sourced post, with suggestions on American Studies beach reads drawn from readers, Facebook commenters, Tweeters, friends, and more! Add yours below, and happy reading!]
Michelle Moravechighlights Clarence Lusane’s The Black History of the White House, a “very readable yet informative” work of American political and social history.Heidi Kim writes that “Shawn Wong wrote his novel American Knees specifically so his wife could have something to read at the beach. Also for his students, who wanted something fun to relate to. It’s basically a bunch of mixed-up interracial romantic relationships that yield funny but serious reflections on racial identity."Rob Velella (author of this guest post) describes a beach read as “something you can sit down and read in a single sitting, regardless of how challenging it is or its multiplicity of depth. On that note, then, I have to recommend Stephen Crane’s ‘The Monster’as well as Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s ‘The Story of a Bad Boy.’ Just because.”Irene Martyniuk writes that “Beach reads, or summer reads, to me, are more about entertainment than analysis. That doesn't preclude the two from coming together, by any means. In fact, when they do, it is remarkably pleasant and useful in surprising ways. For instance, when I had only been at FSU for a few years, I read Clancy's Patriot Games with the notion of just arguing about it with my conservative family. Instead, I was able to discuss it at great length at an Irish Lit conference back in South Carolina, focusing on terrorism and presentations of terrorists. Even further, after 9/11, I went back to the same group and talked about how I need to rethink my ideas in light of what had happened.”Max Cohen writes that “As far as American Studies sci-fi/fantasy book reads go may I suggest The Demon Trapper’s Daughter ? YA but still worth the read. Set in the year 2018 in Atlanta, GA after our education system has failed (because of privatization) and Atlanta is basically a festering pile of demons and death. Kind of a light read (at least compared to Tad Williams) but the underlying collapse of America should be pretty interesting to you.”And a bonus: following up last week’s series on the Jackson Homestead and Museum, Faith Sutter of Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology recommends Digging Veritas , the Peabody’s exhibition on Harvard’s 17th century Indian College.Vacation post (with many links!) next week,BenPS. Any suggestions to add?7/14 Memory Day nominee: Woody Guthrie, for lots of reasons but especially for the song that I have nominated as our new national anthem!7/15 Memory Day nominee: Clement Clarke Moore, who might or might not have written “A Visit from St. Nicholas”—which is pretty appropriate since the poem did more than any other single work to cement our images of perhaps our most mythic and frequently lied-about figure.

July 13, 2012: American Studies Beach Reads, Part Five

[Having spent many a youthful summer’s day with Tom Clancy’s latest, I’ve got nothing against a good low-brow beach read. But there are also works that offer complex, compelling, and significant American experiences along with their page-turning pleasures. This week I’ll be highlighting some of those American Studies beach reads—and please share yours for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post!]
A handful of other great choices for your reading on the beach this summer.1)      Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust (1933 and 1939): Darkly cynical satires on human nature, Hollywood, and America don’t get any more funny and fun than this!2)      Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943): One of the most readable and engaging entries in perhaps my favorite American literary genre: the multi-generational immigrant family novel.3)      Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969): One of the best American autobiographies (or starting points for one—there are more volumes if you like this one!), by one of our most important poets.4)      Roger Zelazny, Doorways in the Sand (1975): If you want a shorter work of sci fi than Tad Williams’ series, try this slim but hugely entertaining and thought-provoking novel by one of sci fi’s all-time greats.5)      THIS SPACE FOR RENT: I’ll say it even before the PS this time—the weekend’s crowd-sourced post needs your suggestions! What should American Studiers read on the beach this summer?That crowd-sourced post this weekend,BenPS. You know what to do!7/13 Memory Day nominee: Stewart Culin, the museum researcher, archivist, and ethnographer whose work on games, language, and objects, particularly in Native American cultures but also