Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 411
July 23, 2012
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.
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, 2012
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.
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, 2012
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!
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, 2012
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.
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
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
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
July 12, 2012
July 12, 2012: American Studies Beach Reads, Part Four
[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!]
Why you should read an epic four-volume sci fi series on the beach this summer.If you’re a fan of science fiction already, I probably won’t have to work very hard to convince you to give Tad Williams’ Otherland series—all four 800-page volumes of it—a shot. Williams has had a long and impressively varied career in sci fi, fantasy, and related genres, in print and in numerous other media (Otherland is in fact currently being developed into an online gaming system and also has been optioned as a film which Williams is set to script), and to my mind this series remains his most significant achievement; I’d put it alongside Dan Simmons’ Hyperion novels as the best sci fi series of the last couple decades. So if you’re a fan of the genre and haven’t read Williams’ series yet, feel free to stop reading now and go pick ‘em up; I promise you won’t be disappointed. But if you’re not a fan, I know that much of that paragraph—and especially the part about 3200 pages of epic science fiction—is more likely to send you running in the other direction than to scream “beach read!” to you. Moreover, Williams’ series is set in numerous places, real and virtual, and if I’m remembering correctly only two of its many central plot threads take place in the United States; hardly an obvious fit for a series on American Studies beach reads. Yet I am including Williams’ series in my own, and there are a couple of pretty good reasons why. For one thing, Williams sets his series in a near-future in which numerous early 21st century American and world trends—historical, cultural, technological, and more—have been extended and amplified; as with all of the best sci fi, then, his works allow us to consider and analyze our own moment and society from that distance. It doesn’t hurt, for the beach reading and for helping that socially critical medicine go down more smoothly, that Williams’ touch in these areas is both wry and funny; each chapter begins with a brief glimpse into one or another of these futuristic trends, and taken together they comprise a dark satirical vision on par with the kinds of black comedy I referenced in yesterday’s post.That’s one good reason for any American Studier to engage with science fiction, and particularly with a series as pitch-perfect in its futuristic world-building and social commentary as Williams’. But I would argue that the series’ central theme is even more salient for any and all 21st century American Studiers. I’m not going to spoil the specifics of how Williams develops this theme, as it’s central to the series’ mysteries and arcs, but will say that his characters and his books are concerned, on multiple key levels, with questions of story-telling: how we create and tell stories; what stories mean for individuals and communities; how stories can be put to the worst as well as the best uses; what the oldest and most enduring stories have to offer all of us in a 21st century, technologically driven society; and many more such questions. As I’ve argued many times in this space, I think few questions matter more to American politics, culture, society, and Studies than that of our national narratives, the stories we tell about our past, our community, our identity. Williams’ series makes for a hugely imaginative and entertaining way in to thinking about such narratives, and about the deepest human questions to which they connect. Definitely worth your suntanning time!Next beach read post tomorrow,BenPS. Nominations for American Studies beach reads, for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post? Bring ‘em!7/12 Memory Day nominee: Henry David Thoreau, one of America’s foremost philosophers, environmentalists, political activists, travel writers, lecturers and essayists, and literary voices.
Why you should read an epic four-volume sci fi series on the beach this summer.If you’re a fan of science fiction already, I probably won’t have to work very hard to convince you to give Tad Williams’ Otherland series—all four 800-page volumes of it—a shot. Williams has had a long and impressively varied career in sci fi, fantasy, and related genres, in print and in numerous other media (Otherland is in fact currently being developed into an online gaming system and also has been optioned as a film which Williams is set to script), and to my mind this series remains his most significant achievement; I’d put it alongside Dan Simmons’ Hyperion novels as the best sci fi series of the last couple decades. So if you’re a fan of the genre and haven’t read Williams’ series yet, feel free to stop reading now and go pick ‘em up; I promise you won’t be disappointed. But if you’re not a fan, I know that much of that paragraph—and especially the part about 3200 pages of epic science fiction—is more likely to send you running in the other direction than to scream “beach read!” to you. Moreover, Williams’ series is set in numerous places, real and virtual, and if I’m remembering correctly only two of its many central plot threads take place in the United States; hardly an obvious fit for a series on American Studies beach reads. Yet I am including Williams’ series in my own, and there are a couple of pretty good reasons why. For one thing, Williams sets his series in a near-future in which numerous early 21st century American and world trends—historical, cultural, technological, and more—have been extended and amplified; as with all of the best sci fi, then, his works allow us to consider and analyze our own moment and society from that distance. It doesn’t hurt, for the beach reading and for helping that socially critical medicine go down more smoothly, that Williams’ touch in these areas is both wry and funny; each chapter begins with a brief glimpse into one or another of these futuristic trends, and taken together they comprise a dark satirical vision on par with the kinds of black comedy I referenced in yesterday’s post.That’s one good reason for any American Studier to engage with science fiction, and particularly with a series as pitch-perfect in its futuristic world-building and social commentary as Williams’. But I would argue that the series’ central theme is even more salient for any and all 21st century American Studiers. I’m not going to spoil the specifics of how Williams develops this theme, as it’s central to the series’ mysteries and arcs, but will say that his characters and his books are concerned, on multiple key levels, with questions of story-telling: how we create and tell stories; what stories mean for individuals and communities; how stories can be put to the worst as well as the best uses; what the oldest and most enduring stories have to offer all of us in a 21st century, technologically driven society; and many more such questions. As I’ve argued many times in this space, I think few questions matter more to American politics, culture, society, and Studies than that of our national narratives, the stories we tell about our past, our community, our identity. Williams’ series makes for a hugely imaginative and entertaining way in to thinking about such narratives, and about the deepest human questions to which they connect. Definitely worth your suntanning time!Next beach read post tomorrow,BenPS. Nominations for American Studies beach reads, for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post? Bring ‘em!7/12 Memory Day nominee: Henry David Thoreau, one of America’s foremost philosophers, environmentalists, political activists, travel writers, lecturers and essayists, and literary voices.
July 11, 2012
July 11, 2012: American Studies Beach Reads, Part Three
[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!]
Why you should read two Holocaust novels on the beach this summer.When faced with the worst of what humanity can do and be, sometimes all we can do is laugh. That idea is at the heart of a particular post-war strain of American literature and art, the satirical black comedy of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove(and later Full Metal Jacket), and other similar works. Yet while some of these works (especially Vonnegut’s novel) do feature relatively sympathetic characters, I would argue that our laughter is not with these characters so much as at them, or at least at the ironic and ridiculous situations in which we encounter them. Such laughter might well help us deal with the horrors behind those situations, or render the memories of them powerless to inflict further pain; but it also has the potential to distance us from the horrors, to make histories that were dead serious to those who experienced them instead seem somewhat silly to us.That’s one kind of laughter in response to the worst in humanity, and whatever its strengths and weaknesses, I don’t think it makes for entertaining beach reading (although to each his or her own!). But there’s another, very different kind of laughter, one in which the funny voices and perspectives of sympathetic characters lead us as an audience to laugh even as those characters deal with such historical horrors. I think that was the intent behind Roberto Benigni’s Holocaust-centered film Life is Beautiful (which I haven’t seen, so I can’t personally speak to the results!). And that kind of laughter also comprises a big part of two recent, popular and award-winning American Holocaust novels (written by a pair of married New Yorkers): Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated(2002) and Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love(2005).Both Foer’s and Krauss’s novels are in many ways mysteries, puzzles in which the final pieces don’t lock together until their conclusions, and I’m certainly not going to spoil either here (what kind of beach read commendation would that be?). But I will say that one of the chief pleasures of both novels is in the very funny narrative voices of two of their protagonists: Foer’s Alex, a supremely self-confident yet secretly sensitive Ukrainian kid whose efforts at translating and writing in English aren’t exactly prize-winning; and Krauss’s Leo, a self-deprecating and gloomy elderly Jewish American man whose experiences posing nude for an art class form a throughline for much of the novel’s opening section. It’s no spoiler to say that the novels go many other places as well—they are, after all, Holocaust novels—but as readers we are guided to and through those places by Alex and Leo’s voices, and the genuine, sympathetic, and hearty laughs that each provides. Not a bad reaction to get from a beach read!Next beach read tomorrow,BenPS. Nominations for American Studies beach reads, for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post? Bring ‘em!7/11 Memory Day nominee: Jhumpa Lahiri, author of some of the 21st century’s best American short stories and one of its best novels, and a singular talent whose next steps I can’t wait to follow!
Why you should read two Holocaust novels on the beach this summer.When faced with the worst of what humanity can do and be, sometimes all we can do is laugh. That idea is at the heart of a particular post-war strain of American literature and art, the satirical black comedy of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove(and later Full Metal Jacket), and other similar works. Yet while some of these works (especially Vonnegut’s novel) do feature relatively sympathetic characters, I would argue that our laughter is not with these characters so much as at them, or at least at the ironic and ridiculous situations in which we encounter them. Such laughter might well help us deal with the horrors behind those situations, or render the memories of them powerless to inflict further pain; but it also has the potential to distance us from the horrors, to make histories that were dead serious to those who experienced them instead seem somewhat silly to us.That’s one kind of laughter in response to the worst in humanity, and whatever its strengths and weaknesses, I don’t think it makes for entertaining beach reading (although to each his or her own!). But there’s another, very different kind of laughter, one in which the funny voices and perspectives of sympathetic characters lead us as an audience to laugh even as those characters deal with such historical horrors. I think that was the intent behind Roberto Benigni’s Holocaust-centered film Life is Beautiful (which I haven’t seen, so I can’t personally speak to the results!). And that kind of laughter also comprises a big part of two recent, popular and award-winning American Holocaust novels (written by a pair of married New Yorkers): Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated(2002) and Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love(2005).Both Foer’s and Krauss’s novels are in many ways mysteries, puzzles in which the final pieces don’t lock together until their conclusions, and I’m certainly not going to spoil either here (what kind of beach read commendation would that be?). But I will say that one of the chief pleasures of both novels is in the very funny narrative voices of two of their protagonists: Foer’s Alex, a supremely self-confident yet secretly sensitive Ukrainian kid whose efforts at translating and writing in English aren’t exactly prize-winning; and Krauss’s Leo, a self-deprecating and gloomy elderly Jewish American man whose experiences posing nude for an art class form a throughline for much of the novel’s opening section. It’s no spoiler to say that the novels go many other places as well—they are, after all, Holocaust novels—but as readers we are guided to and through those places by Alex and Leo’s voices, and the genuine, sympathetic, and hearty laughs that each provides. Not a bad reaction to get from a beach read!Next beach read tomorrow,BenPS. Nominations for American Studies beach reads, for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post? Bring ‘em!7/11 Memory Day nominee: Jhumpa Lahiri, author of some of the 21st century’s best American short stories and one of its best novels, and a singular talent whose next steps I can’t wait to follow!
July 10, 2012
July 10, 2012: American Studies Beach Reads, Part Two
[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!]
Why you should read a collection of poems on the beach this summer.When I teach first-year writing, one of my four main units features close readings of song lyrics—collective practice with the skill with songs that I bring in; and individual papers in which the students analyze the lyrics to a song of their choice. There are lots of reasons why I think this unit is worth including on my syllabus—including its introduction to that skill of close reading and analysis, one that has applications well beyond the literary critical—but one of them is, I’ll admit, particularly sneaky: I think it’s a great way to show students that “poetry” doesn’t have to mean “incredibly dense and difficult literary works written in what seems to be a foreign language”; that the concept can instead describe works and artists that they already love. (I’ll also freely admit to stealing this idea from multiple teachers, including my two favorite English teachers growing up.)I start this post there because of my assumption—and if it’s wrong, forgive me, dear readers—that for many American Studiers, “poetry” and “beach reads” don’t exactly seem synonymous. There’s no question that much poetry, including the works of many of those poets I’ve highlighted in this space, requires the kinds of extended, in-depth, and challenging attention and reading that don’t seem possible when shared with umbrella drinks and sand castles. But there’s also no question that some of the greatest American poets and poems are as engaging and fun as they are deep and relevatory, enthrall and entertain while they also help us elucidate some of the most complex truths of identity and community, history and nation, and more. And at the very top of that list for me would be the poems anthologized in The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (1994).The 868 poems collected in that book span nearly five decades, and so it’d be ludicrous of me to argue that there’s any single feature that links all of them—indeed, the book reveals most fully Hughes’s tremendous range and versatility, the breadth as well as the depth of his talents. Certainly it’s not the case that all or even most of Hughes’s poems are fun—there are plenty of fun and funny ones, such as all those in the “Madam” series and many in the book-length poem “Montage of a Dream Deferred,” but just as many are far more dark and dramatic, tragic and sarcastic, solemn and serious. Yet what I would say of all Hughes’s poems, in all those categories and many others besides, is that they’re compellingly readable; that they drawn readers in, making us part of their tones and themes, identities and communities, perspectives and worlds. Whether you dip into the collection at random, read it from cover to cover, or browse in any other way, you’re always likely to find poems that speak to you, engagingly and powerfully. Would make for a pretty good beach read!Next beach read tomorrow,BenPS. Nominations for American Studies beach reads, for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post? Bring ‘em!7/10 Memory Day nominee: Mary McLeod Bethune, the pioneering civil rights leader, activist, and educator who started the National Council of Negro Women, founded Bethune-Cookman College, and served for nearly a decade in Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, among many other achievements.
Why you should read a collection of poems on the beach this summer.When I teach first-year writing, one of my four main units features close readings of song lyrics—collective practice with the skill with songs that I bring in; and individual papers in which the students analyze the lyrics to a song of their choice. There are lots of reasons why I think this unit is worth including on my syllabus—including its introduction to that skill of close reading and analysis, one that has applications well beyond the literary critical—but one of them is, I’ll admit, particularly sneaky: I think it’s a great way to show students that “poetry” doesn’t have to mean “incredibly dense and difficult literary works written in what seems to be a foreign language”; that the concept can instead describe works and artists that they already love. (I’ll also freely admit to stealing this idea from multiple teachers, including my two favorite English teachers growing up.)I start this post there because of my assumption—and if it’s wrong, forgive me, dear readers—that for many American Studiers, “poetry” and “beach reads” don’t exactly seem synonymous. There’s no question that much poetry, including the works of many of those poets I’ve highlighted in this space, requires the kinds of extended, in-depth, and challenging attention and reading that don’t seem possible when shared with umbrella drinks and sand castles. But there’s also no question that some of the greatest American poets and poems are as engaging and fun as they are deep and relevatory, enthrall and entertain while they also help us elucidate some of the most complex truths of identity and community, history and nation, and more. And at the very top of that list for me would be the poems anthologized in The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (1994).The 868 poems collected in that book span nearly five decades, and so it’d be ludicrous of me to argue that there’s any single feature that links all of them—indeed, the book reveals most fully Hughes’s tremendous range and versatility, the breadth as well as the depth of his talents. Certainly it’s not the case that all or even most of Hughes’s poems are fun—there are plenty of fun and funny ones, such as all those in the “Madam” series and many in the book-length poem “Montage of a Dream Deferred,” but just as many are far more dark and dramatic, tragic and sarcastic, solemn and serious. Yet what I would say of all Hughes’s poems, in all those categories and many others besides, is that they’re compellingly readable; that they drawn readers in, making us part of their tones and themes, identities and communities, perspectives and worlds. Whether you dip into the collection at random, read it from cover to cover, or browse in any other way, you’re always likely to find poems that speak to you, engagingly and powerfully. Would make for a pretty good beach read!Next beach read tomorrow,BenPS. Nominations for American Studies beach reads, for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post? Bring ‘em!7/10 Memory Day nominee: Mary McLeod Bethune, the pioneering civil rights leader, activist, and educator who started the National Council of Negro Women, founded Bethune-Cookman College, and served for nearly a decade in Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, among many other achievements.
July 9, 2012
July 9, 2012: American Studies Beach Reads, Part One
[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!]
Why you should read about a shoemaker on the beach this summer.For those of us who are interested in writing works of American Studies scholarship that will be engaging for a broad public audience, it can be particularly difficult to find great models of that style. There are plenty of hugely popular works on American history, but I would argue that most of them—such as David McCullough’s books about the Revolutionary era, or Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City —are explicitly written as narratives, focused on telling their interesting and important stories. There’s nothing at all wrong with that, but once an author makes that choice, I would argue that it’s very tough for him or her to also include the kinds of analytical questions and themes with which American Studies scholarship engages. So when we can find a book that does address such questions while still creating a page-turning narrative—well, that’s a good American Studies beach read!Near the top of that list, for me, is Alfred F. Young’s The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution (2000). Young’s book definitely highlights a compelling story, that of Boston shoemaker George Robert Twelves Hewes, a man who both took part in the city’s pre-Revolutionary 1770s events (the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party) and later led some of the 1820s efforts to commemorate those events. Yet while telling the multiple stages of Hewes’ story, Young likewise—and just as engagingly, for this reader at least—highlights and engages with some pretty crucial American questions, of historical and communal memory, of contested commemorations, of the origins of the Founding Father narrative and other Revolutionary images, and of how American stories and histories developed in the Early Republic period. Needless to say, such questions remain pretty salient today, not only with the rise of our 21st century Tea Party but in a moment when how we remember and tell the stories of our past is so crucially tied to where we go in the future.But I’m making Young’s book sound more appropriate for the classroom than the beach. So let me be clear—this is a great story, and Young tells it very effectively; when he uses that story to address his American Studies questions, he moves between those levels smoothly and successfully, and never loses sight of what makes the story engaging and meaningful for a broad American audience. Young begins his book by asking “How does an ordinary person win a place in history?”, and he not only answers that question (and many others) very thoroughly, but exemplifies a parallel idea: that history can and should be written for audiences well beyond those trained in academic historiography. Those are key lessons for any public American Studiers, but they also make for a book that you’ll be entirely comfortable reading while sunbathing, drink in hand. Next beach read tomorrow,BenPS. Nominations for American Studies beach reads, for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post? Bring ‘em!7/9 Memory Day nominee: Fanny Fern!
Why you should read about a shoemaker on the beach this summer.For those of us who are interested in writing works of American Studies scholarship that will be engaging for a broad public audience, it can be particularly difficult to find great models of that style. There are plenty of hugely popular works on American history, but I would argue that most of them—such as David McCullough’s books about the Revolutionary era, or Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City —are explicitly written as narratives, focused on telling their interesting and important stories. There’s nothing at all wrong with that, but once an author makes that choice, I would argue that it’s very tough for him or her to also include the kinds of analytical questions and themes with which American Studies scholarship engages. So when we can find a book that does address such questions while still creating a page-turning narrative—well, that’s a good American Studies beach read!Near the top of that list, for me, is Alfred F. Young’s The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution (2000). Young’s book definitely highlights a compelling story, that of Boston shoemaker George Robert Twelves Hewes, a man who both took part in the city’s pre-Revolutionary 1770s events (the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party) and later led some of the 1820s efforts to commemorate those events. Yet while telling the multiple stages of Hewes’ story, Young likewise—and just as engagingly, for this reader at least—highlights and engages with some pretty crucial American questions, of historical and communal memory, of contested commemorations, of the origins of the Founding Father narrative and other Revolutionary images, and of how American stories and histories developed in the Early Republic period. Needless to say, such questions remain pretty salient today, not only with the rise of our 21st century Tea Party but in a moment when how we remember and tell the stories of our past is so crucially tied to where we go in the future.But I’m making Young’s book sound more appropriate for the classroom than the beach. So let me be clear—this is a great story, and Young tells it very effectively; when he uses that story to address his American Studies questions, he moves between those levels smoothly and successfully, and never loses sight of what makes the story engaging and meaningful for a broad American audience. Young begins his book by asking “How does an ordinary person win a place in history?”, and he not only answers that question (and many others) very thoroughly, but exemplifies a parallel idea: that history can and should be written for audiences well beyond those trained in academic historiography. Those are key lessons for any public American Studiers, but they also make for a book that you’ll be entirely comfortable reading while sunbathing, drink in hand. Next beach read tomorrow,BenPS. Nominations for American Studies beach reads, for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post? Bring ‘em!7/9 Memory Day nominee: Fanny Fern!
July 7, 2012
July 7-8, 2012: Two American Studies Requests
As this patriotic week concludes, two different ways in which you can support current American Studies efforts.
1) Those of you who’ve been reading this blog since last summer might remember the New England American Studies Association (NEASA) Pre-Conference Blog that I organized, where conference presenters and attendees, and other interested American Studiers, had weekly dialogues about different conference (and related) topics and themes. Well I’m no longer NEASA’s Jefe, but the current President Sara Sikes, along with Webmaster Jonathan Silverman, have organized another Pre-Conference Blog, to lead up to this October’s digital humanities-centered conference. Please check it out when you can over the next few months (I’m sure I’ll mention it again!), add your voice and ideas to the mix, and take part in the conference this way, whether you can come to Providence in October or not!2) Thanks to an email from last year’s NEASA keynote speaker, Jim Loewen, I’ve learned about a very worthwhile effort, to establish an endowed Civil Rights Chair at Mississippi’s Tougaloo College. Tougaloo’s students and faculty supported the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi as much as any community and organization, often at significant cost (in every sense); it’s the perfect place for such an endowed chair, and the position would allow the college to continue doing great work in the 21st century as well as to better remember and teach this vital American history. If you’re able to give any money (as I have) in support of the chair, this link tells you how; but even if not, you can still spread the word!Digital and institutional; forward-looking and historically grounded; conversational and educational; communal and dialogic. Sounds like American Studies to me!Next series this coming week,BenPS. Any American Studies links, conversations, or efforts you’d highlight? Don’t be shy!7/7 Memory Day nominee: Margaret Walker, the Alabama-born writer and poet who followed the Great Migration to Chicago, worked there for the Federal Writers Project and with Richard Wright, and published some of the most powerful political and social poetry and fictionof the late 20th century.7/8 Memory Day nominee: George Antheil, the Modernist avant garde composer who had a hugely prolific career, was also a talented writer, philosopher, and critic, and with actress Hedy Lamarr helped invent an innovative communications system that’s still in use today.
1) Those of you who’ve been reading this blog since last summer might remember the New England American Studies Association (NEASA) Pre-Conference Blog that I organized, where conference presenters and attendees, and other interested American Studiers, had weekly dialogues about different conference (and related) topics and themes. Well I’m no longer NEASA’s Jefe, but the current President Sara Sikes, along with Webmaster Jonathan Silverman, have organized another Pre-Conference Blog, to lead up to this October’s digital humanities-centered conference. Please check it out when you can over the next few months (I’m sure I’ll mention it again!), add your voice and ideas to the mix, and take part in the conference this way, whether you can come to Providence in October or not!2) Thanks to an email from last year’s NEASA keynote speaker, Jim Loewen, I’ve learned about a very worthwhile effort, to establish an endowed Civil Rights Chair at Mississippi’s Tougaloo College. Tougaloo’s students and faculty supported the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi as much as any community and organization, often at significant cost (in every sense); it’s the perfect place for such an endowed chair, and the position would allow the college to continue doing great work in the 21st century as well as to better remember and teach this vital American history. If you’re able to give any money (as I have) in support of the chair, this link tells you how; but even if not, you can still spread the word!Digital and institutional; forward-looking and historically grounded; conversational and educational; communal and dialogic. Sounds like American Studies to me!Next series this coming week,BenPS. Any American Studies links, conversations, or efforts you’d highlight? Don’t be shy!7/7 Memory Day nominee: Margaret Walker, the Alabama-born writer and poet who followed the Great Migration to Chicago, worked there for the Federal Writers Project and with Richard Wright, and published some of the most powerful political and social poetry and fictionof the late 20th century.7/8 Memory Day nominee: George Antheil, the Modernist avant garde composer who had a hugely prolific career, was also a talented writer, philosopher, and critic, and with actress Hedy Lamarr helped invent an innovative communications system that’s still in use today.
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