Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 411
June 8, 2012
June 8, 2012: America is For Lovers, Part 5
[As we enter the month of weddings, this week I’ll feature a series on interesting, relatively unknown, and meaningful American lovers, fictional and real.]
On some of the idealized and the more realistic depictions of love and marriage in our contemporary popular culture.It’s been said by literary scholars that one of the origin points for the realistic novel, in the mid-19th century, was when authors began seeing marriage as the starting point for, rather than the endpoint of, their novels. Obviously literary history is a good deal more complex than that, but it’s certainly interesting to note the overarching shift from novels that end with variations on “Reader, I married him” to those in which unhappy marriages form a core plot device, and the ways in which individuals and societies respond to thema core element for characterization, setting, and theme. Yet it’s more accurate still to say that the realistic novel allowed for these different narratives—of marriage as a romantic ideal and of it as a practical reality—to co-exist in literary texts; one of the greatest American novels about marriage, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), focuses on the conflict of precisely those different narratives in its central character’s perspective, identity, and communities. While our 21st century popular culture has become so expansive that it’d be foolish for even the most daring American Studier to argue for any dominant threads, I’d certainly argue that this conflict between idealized and romanticized images vs. realistic and practical depictions of love and marriage continues to form a core theme for our cultural texts and conversations. I’m not sure if I can think of any romantic comedy film, for example, that doesn’t end with either the marriage of its focal couple or at least the sense that said couple is moving in that direction; at the very least, the arc of every romantic comedy depends on us rooting for the couple to overcome the obstacles that life (often aided by themselves) throws their way and achieve that happy ending. At the same time, some of the most successful and awarded independent films in recent years have depicted with brutal and unflinching honesty the hardest realities of married life—I’m thinking in particular of the at times almost unwatchably painful Blue Valentine (2010), with its non-chronological structure that contrasts Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling’s romantic young love with their disintegrating marriage. If contemporary films tend to focus on one narrative of marriage or the other, television provides for a different possibility, one more akin to the realistic (and, specifically, the serial) novel: the opportunity to present both ideals and realities of love and marriage within a single text. Since the birth of my older son in December 2005 I’ve watched exactly two shows that don’t feature talking animals or adorable preschoolers, and neither of those (24 and Lost) spent too much time depicting married couples; but I get the sense that many of the best-received and most enduring recent shows have indeed had such complex couples at their core: The Sopranos, Friday Night Lights, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and more. Even some of the best-loved sitcoms of the last couple decades have relied heavily on couples at once hugely realistic and yet ultimately idealized: Marge and Homer Simpson, Ross and Rachel (and eventually Monica and Chandler), Jim and Pam, and many more. In each case, there’s a great deal to be said about the portrayals of love and marriage on their own terms—but I’d also stress how fully they consistently depend on an audience’s interest in the best and worst of marriage, on the romantic ideals for which we all still strive and the more realistic lives that we all come to inhabit. Changing gears this week with the next guest post! See you then,BenPS. What do you think?6/8 Memory Day nominee: Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect, designer, writer and philosopher, educator, and American legend whose legacies have informed countless aspects of contemporary society and life.
On some of the idealized and the more realistic depictions of love and marriage in our contemporary popular culture.It’s been said by literary scholars that one of the origin points for the realistic novel, in the mid-19th century, was when authors began seeing marriage as the starting point for, rather than the endpoint of, their novels. Obviously literary history is a good deal more complex than that, but it’s certainly interesting to note the overarching shift from novels that end with variations on “Reader, I married him” to those in which unhappy marriages form a core plot device, and the ways in which individuals and societies respond to thema core element for characterization, setting, and theme. Yet it’s more accurate still to say that the realistic novel allowed for these different narratives—of marriage as a romantic ideal and of it as a practical reality—to co-exist in literary texts; one of the greatest American novels about marriage, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), focuses on the conflict of precisely those different narratives in its central character’s perspective, identity, and communities. While our 21st century popular culture has become so expansive that it’d be foolish for even the most daring American Studier to argue for any dominant threads, I’d certainly argue that this conflict between idealized and romanticized images vs. realistic and practical depictions of love and marriage continues to form a core theme for our cultural texts and conversations. I’m not sure if I can think of any romantic comedy film, for example, that doesn’t end with either the marriage of its focal couple or at least the sense that said couple is moving in that direction; at the very least, the arc of every romantic comedy depends on us rooting for the couple to overcome the obstacles that life (often aided by themselves) throws their way and achieve that happy ending. At the same time, some of the most successful and awarded independent films in recent years have depicted with brutal and unflinching honesty the hardest realities of married life—I’m thinking in particular of the at times almost unwatchably painful Blue Valentine (2010), with its non-chronological structure that contrasts Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling’s romantic young love with their disintegrating marriage. If contemporary films tend to focus on one narrative of marriage or the other, television provides for a different possibility, one more akin to the realistic (and, specifically, the serial) novel: the opportunity to present both ideals and realities of love and marriage within a single text. Since the birth of my older son in December 2005 I’ve watched exactly two shows that don’t feature talking animals or adorable preschoolers, and neither of those (24 and Lost) spent too much time depicting married couples; but I get the sense that many of the best-received and most enduring recent shows have indeed had such complex couples at their core: The Sopranos, Friday Night Lights, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and more. Even some of the best-loved sitcoms of the last couple decades have relied heavily on couples at once hugely realistic and yet ultimately idealized: Marge and Homer Simpson, Ross and Rachel (and eventually Monica and Chandler), Jim and Pam, and many more. In each case, there’s a great deal to be said about the portrayals of love and marriage on their own terms—but I’d also stress how fully they consistently depend on an audience’s interest in the best and worst of marriage, on the romantic ideals for which we all still strive and the more realistic lives that we all come to inhabit. Changing gears this week with the next guest post! See you then,BenPS. What do you think?6/8 Memory Day nominee: Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect, designer, writer and philosopher, educator, and American legend whose legacies have informed countless aspects of contemporary society and life.
June 7, 2012
June 7, 2012: America is For Lovers, Part 4
[As we enter the month of weddings, this week I’ll feature a series on interesting, relatively unknown, and meaningful American lovers, fictional and real. Any and all suggestions very welcome as ever!]
On Georgia O’Keefe, Alfred Stieglitz, and the similar yet often opposing pulls of artistic and romantic passions.In her seminal 1963 text “The Problem That Has No Name” (that’s just an excerpt), the opening chapter in her equally pioneering The Feminine Mystique , Betty Friedan focuses on a variety of complex issues and struggles facing young married women, from media images and gender ideals to the day to day challenges of marriage, parenting, and home. Yet at heart of her analyses, at the core of that unnamed problem, lies a pair of contradictory pulls: on the one hand the desires for family, for marriage, for romantic and human connections; and on the other the desires for education, for career, for individual and professional successes. While there’s no doubt that the 1950s society Friedan analyzes privileged the former over the latter for these young women, I think she recognizes—and I know I would argue—that both pulls are also a part of most individuals, and that their contradictions thus stem at least in part from the complexities of our own identities and lives.Those contradictions and complexities affect all of us who hope to balance family and career, but they are perhaps particularly pronounced for artists, and even more especially in artistic geniuses. While the idea of a “muse” might be somewhat clichéd, it also accurately defines the way in which great artists are so often pulled to do their work, driven to produce by the same kinds of obsessions and forces that can characterize romantic connection and passion. Certainly that seems to have been the case for the modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe, both in her pursuit of her artistic career and in her lifelong romantic connection to photographer Alfred Stieglitz. That connection, which began in 1916 when O’Keeffe was 28 (and Stieglitz 52 and married), led to a professional partnership and a multi-decade marriage, and did not end until his death in 1946, was captured and preserved in the roughly 25,000 letters sent between the two; My Faraway One , the first of two planned volumes of selected letters, was published last year. I don’t want to reduce O’Keeffe and Stieglitz’s relationship to any one issue, no more than one painting or photograph could illustrate each artist’s career and talents. Yet it seems clear that O’Keeffe’s 1929 decision to move back west—she had come to New York in 1918 to live and work with Stieglitz, and they had been married in 1924—and live in the burgeoning artistic community of Taos, New Mexico (at the home and compound of Mable Dodge Luhan) was a true turning point, a moment when the painter chose to follow her craft and muse (which the west unquestionably was to O’Keeffe). When Stieglitz wrote to her that “I am broken” (and sent her the above picture with one of his July 1929 letters), she responded with one of the most powerful statements of that artistic pursuit: “There is much life in me … I realized it would die if it could not move toward something … I chose coming away because here at least I feel good – and it makes me feel I am growing very tall and straight inside – and very still.” Their marriage survived and endured, and American art and culture were significantly enriched by O’Keeffe’s works. Not a bad love story all the way around.Final lovers tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Any artistic love stories you’d highlight?6/7 Memory Day nominee: Louise Erdrich, the Chippewa and German American poet, storyteller, and novelist whose interconnected series of multi-generational novels comprise some of the most significant American fiction of the last thirty years.
On Georgia O’Keefe, Alfred Stieglitz, and the similar yet often opposing pulls of artistic and romantic passions.In her seminal 1963 text “The Problem That Has No Name” (that’s just an excerpt), the opening chapter in her equally pioneering The Feminine Mystique , Betty Friedan focuses on a variety of complex issues and struggles facing young married women, from media images and gender ideals to the day to day challenges of marriage, parenting, and home. Yet at heart of her analyses, at the core of that unnamed problem, lies a pair of contradictory pulls: on the one hand the desires for family, for marriage, for romantic and human connections; and on the other the desires for education, for career, for individual and professional successes. While there’s no doubt that the 1950s society Friedan analyzes privileged the former over the latter for these young women, I think she recognizes—and I know I would argue—that both pulls are also a part of most individuals, and that their contradictions thus stem at least in part from the complexities of our own identities and lives.Those contradictions and complexities affect all of us who hope to balance family and career, but they are perhaps particularly pronounced for artists, and even more especially in artistic geniuses. While the idea of a “muse” might be somewhat clichéd, it also accurately defines the way in which great artists are so often pulled to do their work, driven to produce by the same kinds of obsessions and forces that can characterize romantic connection and passion. Certainly that seems to have been the case for the modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe, both in her pursuit of her artistic career and in her lifelong romantic connection to photographer Alfred Stieglitz. That connection, which began in 1916 when O’Keeffe was 28 (and Stieglitz 52 and married), led to a professional partnership and a multi-decade marriage, and did not end until his death in 1946, was captured and preserved in the roughly 25,000 letters sent between the two; My Faraway One , the first of two planned volumes of selected letters, was published last year. I don’t want to reduce O’Keeffe and Stieglitz’s relationship to any one issue, no more than one painting or photograph could illustrate each artist’s career and talents. Yet it seems clear that O’Keeffe’s 1929 decision to move back west—she had come to New York in 1918 to live and work with Stieglitz, and they had been married in 1924—and live in the burgeoning artistic community of Taos, New Mexico (at the home and compound of Mable Dodge Luhan) was a true turning point, a moment when the painter chose to follow her craft and muse (which the west unquestionably was to O’Keeffe). When Stieglitz wrote to her that “I am broken” (and sent her the above picture with one of his July 1929 letters), she responded with one of the most powerful statements of that artistic pursuit: “There is much life in me … I realized it would die if it could not move toward something … I chose coming away because here at least I feel good – and it makes me feel I am growing very tall and straight inside – and very still.” Their marriage survived and endured, and American art and culture were significantly enriched by O’Keeffe’s works. Not a bad love story all the way around.Final lovers tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Any artistic love stories you’d highlight?6/7 Memory Day nominee: Louise Erdrich, the Chippewa and German American poet, storyteller, and novelist whose interconnected series of multi-generational novels comprise some of the most significant American fiction of the last thirty years.
June 6, 2012
June 6, 2012: America is For Lovers, Part 3
[As we enter the month of weddings, this week I’ll feature a series on interesting, relatively unknown, and meaningful American lovers, fictional and real. Any and all suggestions very welcome as ever!]
On the idealistic, activist, partly un-American and yet profoundly American lives and love of John Reed and Louise Bryant.I am, for I hope obvious reasons, very hesitant to call anyone or anything un-American. The phrase, after all, has almost always been used as a blatant, and very destructive, attack, one directly linked to treason (the highest national crime, as defined by our Constitution) and a host of other ills. Yet in a way that common usage represents a significant bit of slippage, since the act of treason is much more anti- than un-American, an action taken against the nation rather than simply outside of its definitions or communities. And if we use the word in the latter, more neutral sense, then it’s certainly fair to say that the late 1910s actions of journalists, writers, and lovers John Reed and Louise Bryant—as they embraced the Russian Revolution and the resulting new Soviet government, and indeed in Reed’s case sought formally to join that government’s propaganda efforts—were in a definite sense un-American.Of course it’s nowhere near that simple, though. For one thing, Reed and Bryantboth wrote complex, autobiographical yet also deeply journalistic books about their experiences in Russia, works clearly meant for American audiences and conversations; whatever their individual feelings about the Revolution, that is, they did not in any way abdicate their roles as journalists and writers in the face of it. And remembering those books connects us to both writers’ multi-stage careers as muckraking journalists and activists, histories that are, to my mind, as “American” (particularly in their era) as it’s possible to be. Reed’s 1914 experiences with and article on the Colorado miners’ strike and the resulting Ludlow massacre, for example, provide a unique and indispensable glimpse into a significant, under-narrated, and volatile American community; many of Bryant’s unpublished writings do the same for American artistic communities in the pre-modernist and modernist eras. In this light, Reed and Bryant’s Russian efforts represent just another community to which they traveled and out of which they sought to draw inspiration—one certainly less overtly American, but no less a part of the world they sought to impact.Moreover, Reed’s and Bryant’s passionate and eventually tragic romance provides additional and not at all irrelevant layers to their American stories. Obviously that romance is the most universally compelling side to their lives, as Hollywood proved; but it also connects them to multiple other contemporary stories and identities: the liberated communal lives of modernist authors like Eugene O’Neill, with whom both writers lived and Bryant had an affair; the post-World War I Lost Generation atmosphere, with its social rebellions, searches for meaning and companionship, and international influences and identities; and, perhaps most complexly, the ways in which Bryant’s radical feminism both connected her to the equally radical Reed and yet was (at least in part) silenced as a result of her relationship with him. In all those ways as well, Reed and Bryant exemplified their America, however much their lives (and particularly his life and death) took them away from it.Next lovers tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? And two more posts to come—any nominations or suggestions?6/6 Memory Day nominee: Nathan Hale, who had but one life to lose for his country, and in so losing it became one of America’s first truly mythologized heroes and figures.
On the idealistic, activist, partly un-American and yet profoundly American lives and love of John Reed and Louise Bryant.I am, for I hope obvious reasons, very hesitant to call anyone or anything un-American. The phrase, after all, has almost always been used as a blatant, and very destructive, attack, one directly linked to treason (the highest national crime, as defined by our Constitution) and a host of other ills. Yet in a way that common usage represents a significant bit of slippage, since the act of treason is much more anti- than un-American, an action taken against the nation rather than simply outside of its definitions or communities. And if we use the word in the latter, more neutral sense, then it’s certainly fair to say that the late 1910s actions of journalists, writers, and lovers John Reed and Louise Bryant—as they embraced the Russian Revolution and the resulting new Soviet government, and indeed in Reed’s case sought formally to join that government’s propaganda efforts—were in a definite sense un-American.Of course it’s nowhere near that simple, though. For one thing, Reed and Bryantboth wrote complex, autobiographical yet also deeply journalistic books about their experiences in Russia, works clearly meant for American audiences and conversations; whatever their individual feelings about the Revolution, that is, they did not in any way abdicate their roles as journalists and writers in the face of it. And remembering those books connects us to both writers’ multi-stage careers as muckraking journalists and activists, histories that are, to my mind, as “American” (particularly in their era) as it’s possible to be. Reed’s 1914 experiences with and article on the Colorado miners’ strike and the resulting Ludlow massacre, for example, provide a unique and indispensable glimpse into a significant, under-narrated, and volatile American community; many of Bryant’s unpublished writings do the same for American artistic communities in the pre-modernist and modernist eras. In this light, Reed and Bryant’s Russian efforts represent just another community to which they traveled and out of which they sought to draw inspiration—one certainly less overtly American, but no less a part of the world they sought to impact.Moreover, Reed’s and Bryant’s passionate and eventually tragic romance provides additional and not at all irrelevant layers to their American stories. Obviously that romance is the most universally compelling side to their lives, as Hollywood proved; but it also connects them to multiple other contemporary stories and identities: the liberated communal lives of modernist authors like Eugene O’Neill, with whom both writers lived and Bryant had an affair; the post-World War I Lost Generation atmosphere, with its social rebellions, searches for meaning and companionship, and international influences and identities; and, perhaps most complexly, the ways in which Bryant’s radical feminism both connected her to the equally radical Reed and yet was (at least in part) silenced as a result of her relationship with him. In all those ways as well, Reed and Bryant exemplified their America, however much their lives (and particularly his life and death) took them away from it.Next lovers tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? And two more posts to come—any nominations or suggestions?6/6 Memory Day nominee: Nathan Hale, who had but one life to lose for his country, and in so losing it became one of America’s first truly mythologized heroes and figures.
June 5, 2012
June 5, 2012: America is For Lovers, Part 2
[As we enter the month of weddings, this week I’ll feature a series on interesting, relatively unknown, and meaningful American lovers, fictional and real. Any and all suggestions very welcome as ever!]
On Lorraine Hansberry’s realistic, flawed, and deeply moving young married couple.Walter and Ruth Younger, the young husband and wife at the center of Lorraine Hansberry’s seminal play A Raisin in the Sun (1959), are perhaps the least sympathetic of the Youngers, the drama’s major characters. To be sure, as in the case in any great dramatic work all the characters have their flaws: but while the overly proud, widowed Mama (Lena) is also struggling to keep her family together; self-centered elitist Beneatha is impressively going to school to become a doctor; and naïve young Travis is just trying to grow up; Travis’s parents Walter and Ruth are defined mostly by their hot-and-cold marriage and Walter’s foolish and destructive get-rich-quick schemes. Some combination of those factors, Walter’s individual pipe dreams and the extremities to which their marital problems drive them both, could be said to lead to most of the family’s worst arguments and problems throughout the play.That could be said, but it’d be wrong, as the play’s final scenes reveal a much more systematic and significant culprit, putting the Youngers in the center of a broad and crucial biographical and historical context: the racial “covenants” that made it so difficult for African American and other minority families to move out of cities like Chicago and into suburban neighborhoods in the decades after World War II. While not as regimented or all-encompassing as the South’s system of Jim Crow segregation, the covenants did an equally thorough job of segregating their respective urban and suburban worlds, and proved a powerfully difficult impediment to the dreams of families like the Youngers. Systems like the covenants don’t explain away all of Walter’s irresponsibilities or Ruth’s enabling—again, no dramatic work as impressive as Hansberry’s treats its characters as mere ciphers—but they certainly better reveal the world in which these characters are trying to survive and succeed, and to an open-minded audience render Walter and Ruth significantly more sympathetic as a result.But in the final scene Hansberry takes the couple, and her play, one step further still. The Youngers have been approached by a representative from the neighborhood association of the suburban community into which they hope to move, a man who is offering them money in exchange for their withdrawing their purchase of that suburban home. In one of the play’s most traditional moments, not only in terms of gender roles but also because it embodies the spirit of Walter Sr., the family’s departed father, both Mama and Ruth allow Walter to make the decision; and Walter rises to the occasion, saying no to the lure of easy money and rejecting the offer. He gains a great deal of respect from Mama in the process, but perhaps even more significant is Ruth’s response: she seems to see in her husband for the first time in years the man she married, a man who can model for Travis a strong, proud, resilient African American identity and manhood in the face of some of the worst their society can throw at them. The moment and scene are tremendously moving for many reasons, but certainly at the top of the list is seeing the reconnection between this flawed and troubled but likewise resilient and impressive couple.Next lovers tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Nominations for the series?6/5 Memory Day nominee: Bill Moyers, the pioneering television host and journalist whose investigative reporting, philosophical and spiritual conversations, and
On Lorraine Hansberry’s realistic, flawed, and deeply moving young married couple.Walter and Ruth Younger, the young husband and wife at the center of Lorraine Hansberry’s seminal play A Raisin in the Sun (1959), are perhaps the least sympathetic of the Youngers, the drama’s major characters. To be sure, as in the case in any great dramatic work all the characters have their flaws: but while the overly proud, widowed Mama (Lena) is also struggling to keep her family together; self-centered elitist Beneatha is impressively going to school to become a doctor; and naïve young Travis is just trying to grow up; Travis’s parents Walter and Ruth are defined mostly by their hot-and-cold marriage and Walter’s foolish and destructive get-rich-quick schemes. Some combination of those factors, Walter’s individual pipe dreams and the extremities to which their marital problems drive them both, could be said to lead to most of the family’s worst arguments and problems throughout the play.That could be said, but it’d be wrong, as the play’s final scenes reveal a much more systematic and significant culprit, putting the Youngers in the center of a broad and crucial biographical and historical context: the racial “covenants” that made it so difficult for African American and other minority families to move out of cities like Chicago and into suburban neighborhoods in the decades after World War II. While not as regimented or all-encompassing as the South’s system of Jim Crow segregation, the covenants did an equally thorough job of segregating their respective urban and suburban worlds, and proved a powerfully difficult impediment to the dreams of families like the Youngers. Systems like the covenants don’t explain away all of Walter’s irresponsibilities or Ruth’s enabling—again, no dramatic work as impressive as Hansberry’s treats its characters as mere ciphers—but they certainly better reveal the world in which these characters are trying to survive and succeed, and to an open-minded audience render Walter and Ruth significantly more sympathetic as a result.But in the final scene Hansberry takes the couple, and her play, one step further still. The Youngers have been approached by a representative from the neighborhood association of the suburban community into which they hope to move, a man who is offering them money in exchange for their withdrawing their purchase of that suburban home. In one of the play’s most traditional moments, not only in terms of gender roles but also because it embodies the spirit of Walter Sr., the family’s departed father, both Mama and Ruth allow Walter to make the decision; and Walter rises to the occasion, saying no to the lure of easy money and rejecting the offer. He gains a great deal of respect from Mama in the process, but perhaps even more significant is Ruth’s response: she seems to see in her husband for the first time in years the man she married, a man who can model for Travis a strong, proud, resilient African American identity and manhood in the face of some of the worst their society can throw at them. The moment and scene are tremendously moving for many reasons, but certainly at the top of the list is seeing the reconnection between this flawed and troubled but likewise resilient and impressive couple.Next lovers tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Nominations for the series?6/5 Memory Day nominee: Bill Moyers, the pioneering television host and journalist whose investigative reporting, philosophical and spiritual conversations, and
June 4, 2012
June 4, 2012: America is For Lovers, Part 1
[As we enter the month of weddings, this week I’ll feature a series on interesting, relatively unknown, and meaningful American lovers, fictional and real. Any and all suggestions very welcome as ever!]
On the inspiring partnerships of Fanny Fern and James Parton.I’ve written in this space about Fanny Fern, and how much I admire and enjoy her sarcastic and serious, light and liberated, playful and powerful voice and style. That voice and style don’t need biographical detail to be clearly unique and important in American literary history; neither does the specific fact that Fern was for many years in the 1850s the highest-paid newspaper columnist in America depend on any contextualizing for its impressiveness. But it’s nonetheless the case that in the decade leading up to her first publishing successes, Fern went through significant traumas on two key levels: in her marriages, first with the early death of her first husband (which left her to care for two young daughters) and then in a very unhappy second marriage (which she courageously ended despite familial condemnation); and in her first professional forays, as she tried to submit her early columns to her brother, the editor and entrepeneur Nathaniel Parker Willis, and found herself more or less blacklisted at his request instead. (Fern fictionalized all of these experiences in her autobiographical novel Ruth Hall [1854] .)By the early 1850s, Fern had already begun conquering the professional challenges, with her unique and engaging style and themes more than compensating for any disadvantages created by either her circumstances or her brother. She got a significant assist in those efforts from James Parton, the young journalist and biographer who was then editing Willis’s magazine Home Journal—Parton began publishing her columns in the magazine, and when Willis objected and demanded that he stop, Parton instead resigned his position and continued the literary partnership. A few years later, in 1856, with Fern’s success and reputation well established, she and Parton united in a domestic partnership as well; Fern was 45 and Parton 33, but their difference in ages was clearly no more an obstacle to their happiness than any other aspect of their backgrounds or circumstances, as they stayed married until Fern’s death in 1872. Two years later, Parton continued the literary partnership and paid one more tribute to his wife’s talents, publishing Fanny Fern: A Memorial Volume .All of those details would be more than sufficient to establish the strength of Fern and Parton’s partnerships—but fortunately for those of us who love Fern’s style, we have further proof in a column of hers, “A Law More Nice than Just” (most of it is excerpted on pages 301-302). The column as a whole is pitch-perfect Fern: responding to a serious women’s rights issue (a woman who had been arrested for wearing men’s clothes in public), turning it into an occasion for humor (Fern decides to put on her husband’s clothes and try for a walk), but retaining social and satirical as well as light and funny tones throughout. And none of it would work anywhere near as well without Parton’s presence—from his genial acquiescence to the original plan to his mixture of laughter and support throughout the experience, Parton serves as a perfect partner for Fern on both of the levels I’ve been discussing; as a husband who helps her be herself and is clearly in love with that self; and as a supporter of and participant in her writing and work. If reading Fern’s columns makes it easy to fall in love with her, reading this one makes it just as easy to love Parton, and what the two meant to each other.Next lovers tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Any nominees, suggestions, or guest post possibilities?6/4 Memory Day nominee: Dr. Ruth Westheimer, whose funny accent, quirky personality, and risqué recommendations shouldn’t disguise the revolutionary and liberating nature of her frank and unashamed embrace of sex and the power of mass media.
On the inspiring partnerships of Fanny Fern and James Parton.I’ve written in this space about Fanny Fern, and how much I admire and enjoy her sarcastic and serious, light and liberated, playful and powerful voice and style. That voice and style don’t need biographical detail to be clearly unique and important in American literary history; neither does the specific fact that Fern was for many years in the 1850s the highest-paid newspaper columnist in America depend on any contextualizing for its impressiveness. But it’s nonetheless the case that in the decade leading up to her first publishing successes, Fern went through significant traumas on two key levels: in her marriages, first with the early death of her first husband (which left her to care for two young daughters) and then in a very unhappy second marriage (which she courageously ended despite familial condemnation); and in her first professional forays, as she tried to submit her early columns to her brother, the editor and entrepeneur Nathaniel Parker Willis, and found herself more or less blacklisted at his request instead. (Fern fictionalized all of these experiences in her autobiographical novel Ruth Hall [1854] .)By the early 1850s, Fern had already begun conquering the professional challenges, with her unique and engaging style and themes more than compensating for any disadvantages created by either her circumstances or her brother. She got a significant assist in those efforts from James Parton, the young journalist and biographer who was then editing Willis’s magazine Home Journal—Parton began publishing her columns in the magazine, and when Willis objected and demanded that he stop, Parton instead resigned his position and continued the literary partnership. A few years later, in 1856, with Fern’s success and reputation well established, she and Parton united in a domestic partnership as well; Fern was 45 and Parton 33, but their difference in ages was clearly no more an obstacle to their happiness than any other aspect of their backgrounds or circumstances, as they stayed married until Fern’s death in 1872. Two years later, Parton continued the literary partnership and paid one more tribute to his wife’s talents, publishing Fanny Fern: A Memorial Volume .All of those details would be more than sufficient to establish the strength of Fern and Parton’s partnerships—but fortunately for those of us who love Fern’s style, we have further proof in a column of hers, “A Law More Nice than Just” (most of it is excerpted on pages 301-302). The column as a whole is pitch-perfect Fern: responding to a serious women’s rights issue (a woman who had been arrested for wearing men’s clothes in public), turning it into an occasion for humor (Fern decides to put on her husband’s clothes and try for a walk), but retaining social and satirical as well as light and funny tones throughout. And none of it would work anywhere near as well without Parton’s presence—from his genial acquiescence to the original plan to his mixture of laughter and support throughout the experience, Parton serves as a perfect partner for Fern on both of the levels I’ve been discussing; as a husband who helps her be herself and is clearly in love with that self; and as a supporter of and participant in her writing and work. If reading Fern’s columns makes it easy to fall in love with her, reading this one makes it just as easy to love Parton, and what the two meant to each other.Next lovers tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Any nominees, suggestions, or guest post possibilities?6/4 Memory Day nominee: Dr. Ruth Westheimer, whose funny accent, quirky personality, and risqué recommendations shouldn’t disguise the revolutionary and liberating nature of her frank and unashamed embrace of sex and the power of mass media.
June 2, 2012
June 2-3, 2012: Remembering or Commemorating War
[The final post in the Memorial Day-inspired series, on cultural images of war.]
On the more and less meaningful, complex, and valuable ways in which we remember wars.Michael Kammen, whose Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (1991) changed my life when I read it in college and remains one of the best American Studies books I’ve ever read (and is just one of many great books he’s written), has persuasively argued that we need at least two distinct concepts for public memory: remembrance, which would describe genuine attempts to remember the past in all its complexity; and commemoration, which would categorize those efforts that are more simplifying and mythologizing, and usually more tied to present concerns than to the past itself. Kammen goes into much more detail and nuance than that, as would I, but ultimately I do think there’s significant value to separating out such thoroughly distinct kinds of public (and at least potentially, for that matter, private) memory and history.There are many applications for that two-part concept, but in following up yesterday’s post on the Tuskegee Airmen, and in thinking about Memorial Day in general, it seems to me that our memories of war are particularly ripe for this kind of analysis. I’m thinking especially about cultural memories, stories and representations of war in popular culture—like Lucas’s Red Tails, and like so, so many other war films, TV shows, novels, and more. I would argue that many, if not the vast majority, of those cultural representations are commemorative (which doesn’t have to mean celebratory); that whether the cultural sources seek to celebrate wartime heroism (as does Lucas’ film) to attack the brutalities and horrors of war (as does for example Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket), or to stake out any position in between, they almost always create simplified and even mythologized depictions of war in service of their agendas and goals. They might incidentally introduce complexities and even contradictions (an ironic critique of American racism within the celebratory Red Tails; a positive depiction of soldierly comraderie in the cynical world of Jacket), but to my mind their overall construction of war is far closer to commemoration than to remembrance.We do have models in our popular culture for remembering rather than commemorating war, though. One such model is when a talented artist builds on but deepens and amplifies his or her personal experiences of war and creates a complex and powerful text as a result—Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five is one such text, as are the best novels by Tim O’Brien. Just as important, however, are those models that don’t depend on personal experience (at least not of the artist him or herself), and for that I would highlight two complementary films from one of my recent Memory Day nominees: Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima . If we try to consider what a battle like Iwo Jima, or a war like World War II, would look like and mean for those fighting it on both sides, it seems to me that we’re a long way toward remembering war in all its complexities. And it doesn’t hurt that Flags itself focuses directly on the most destructive effects of an emphasis on commemoration, in that case in the post-war lives of the Iwo Jima flag raisers. Commemoration has its value, as Kammen certainly acknowledges. But you know me well enough to know that I greatly prefer remembrance—even more so when it comes to a complex, dark, and crucial historical theme like war. More next week,BenPS. What do you think? Any texts that are particularly good at remembering rather than commemoration war?6/2 Memory Day nominee: Betty Freeman, whose philanthropic support of contemporary composers and musiciansprofoundly influenced world music, and who was a talented photographer in her own right.6/3 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two pioneering and controversial 20th century artists, Josephine Baker and Allen Ginsberg.
On the more and less meaningful, complex, and valuable ways in which we remember wars.Michael Kammen, whose Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (1991) changed my life when I read it in college and remains one of the best American Studies books I’ve ever read (and is just one of many great books he’s written), has persuasively argued that we need at least two distinct concepts for public memory: remembrance, which would describe genuine attempts to remember the past in all its complexity; and commemoration, which would categorize those efforts that are more simplifying and mythologizing, and usually more tied to present concerns than to the past itself. Kammen goes into much more detail and nuance than that, as would I, but ultimately I do think there’s significant value to separating out such thoroughly distinct kinds of public (and at least potentially, for that matter, private) memory and history.There are many applications for that two-part concept, but in following up yesterday’s post on the Tuskegee Airmen, and in thinking about Memorial Day in general, it seems to me that our memories of war are particularly ripe for this kind of analysis. I’m thinking especially about cultural memories, stories and representations of war in popular culture—like Lucas’s Red Tails, and like so, so many other war films, TV shows, novels, and more. I would argue that many, if not the vast majority, of those cultural representations are commemorative (which doesn’t have to mean celebratory); that whether the cultural sources seek to celebrate wartime heroism (as does Lucas’ film) to attack the brutalities and horrors of war (as does for example Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket), or to stake out any position in between, they almost always create simplified and even mythologized depictions of war in service of their agendas and goals. They might incidentally introduce complexities and even contradictions (an ironic critique of American racism within the celebratory Red Tails; a positive depiction of soldierly comraderie in the cynical world of Jacket), but to my mind their overall construction of war is far closer to commemoration than to remembrance.We do have models in our popular culture for remembering rather than commemorating war, though. One such model is when a talented artist builds on but deepens and amplifies his or her personal experiences of war and creates a complex and powerful text as a result—Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five is one such text, as are the best novels by Tim O’Brien. Just as important, however, are those models that don’t depend on personal experience (at least not of the artist him or herself), and for that I would highlight two complementary films from one of my recent Memory Day nominees: Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima . If we try to consider what a battle like Iwo Jima, or a war like World War II, would look like and mean for those fighting it on both sides, it seems to me that we’re a long way toward remembering war in all its complexities. And it doesn’t hurt that Flags itself focuses directly on the most destructive effects of an emphasis on commemoration, in that case in the post-war lives of the Iwo Jima flag raisers. Commemoration has its value, as Kammen certainly acknowledges. But you know me well enough to know that I greatly prefer remembrance—even more so when it comes to a complex, dark, and crucial historical theme like war. More next week,BenPS. What do you think? Any texts that are particularly good at remembering rather than commemoration war?6/2 Memory Day nominee: Betty Freeman, whose philanthropic support of contemporary composers and musiciansprofoundly influenced world music, and who was a talented photographer in her own right.6/3 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two pioneering and controversial 20th century artists, Josephine Baker and Allen Ginsberg.
June 1, 2012
June 1, 2012: Remembering the Tuskegee Airmen
[The next post in the Memorial Day-inspired series, on the pioneering World War II squadron.]
Why we need to continue working to remember a particularly impressive group of American soldiers.I don’t see many movies these days (something about two little action films of minethat take up most of my free time), and so I’m not usually very invested in which ones do well and which don’t. Moreover, my general fan boy frustration with George Lucas over his increasingly mercenary endeavors with the Star Wars franchise, one of this American Studier’s foundational childhood texts, makes me even less likely to root for a Lucas film to succeed. Yet despite those factors, I’l l freely admit that I was hoping for much bigger box office performance and buzz for Lucas’s latest movie, Red Tails, a historical action film based on the lives and World War II experiences of the Tuskegee Airmen.It’s important to note, as that TAI website does in its opening description, that African American soldiers have been a part of every U.S. military effort; since Harry Truman desegregated the army after World War II, in 1948, it’s fair to say that the Tuskegee Airmen were thus in one sense not pioneering but rather culminating, the final impressive African American service in the face of a segregated and circumscribed military role. But in other important ways the Airmen did represent a significant step forward: created as a result of extended pressure and work by African American civil rights and media organizations and allies, the squadron performed prominently and heroically, contributing directly to the changed climate that made Truman’s actions possible at all. In many crucial senses, then, the Airmen’s legacy is overt and indisputable, whether our national narratives or histories do full justice to their efforts and impacts or not.Yet as anyone who has read this blog for more than a couple minutes knows, I think more full and accurate national narratives and histories are pretty important too. Partly that’s just because the Airmen deserve to be better remembered, to have their contributions recognized for the amazingly meaningful American histories and stories they were and are. Partly it’s because our national narratives about African Americans stilltend to break down into either victims (of slavery, of Jim Crow, of racism in general, and so on) or threats (too many contemporary narratives to cite, but here’s one good example), and the Airmen provide a welcome alternative to either role. And partly it’s because they offer all of us a rare and crucial combination: the opportunity to remember with more accuracy and complexity some of our more painful American histories, and at the same time to be inspired by the best of what America has been and can be. Lucas may have stated that second point most clearly when he said that young black kids “have a right to have their history … made corny and wonderful just like anybody else does.” Word, George.Unfortunately Red Tails didn’t do as well as it should have (yet—it can and hopefully will have a post-theatrical afterlife), so that important American work continues. Final Memorial Day post this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Any inspiring American war stories we should better remember?6/1 Memory Day nominee: John Marshall Harlan, the Civil War veteran and long-serving Supreme Court Justice whose greatest legacy lies in his inspiring dissents on the Civil Rights Cases (1883) and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) .
Why we need to continue working to remember a particularly impressive group of American soldiers.I don’t see many movies these days (something about two little action films of minethat take up most of my free time), and so I’m not usually very invested in which ones do well and which don’t. Moreover, my general fan boy frustration with George Lucas over his increasingly mercenary endeavors with the Star Wars franchise, one of this American Studier’s foundational childhood texts, makes me even less likely to root for a Lucas film to succeed. Yet despite those factors, I’l l freely admit that I was hoping for much bigger box office performance and buzz for Lucas’s latest movie, Red Tails, a historical action film based on the lives and World War II experiences of the Tuskegee Airmen.It’s important to note, as that TAI website does in its opening description, that African American soldiers have been a part of every U.S. military effort; since Harry Truman desegregated the army after World War II, in 1948, it’s fair to say that the Tuskegee Airmen were thus in one sense not pioneering but rather culminating, the final impressive African American service in the face of a segregated and circumscribed military role. But in other important ways the Airmen did represent a significant step forward: created as a result of extended pressure and work by African American civil rights and media organizations and allies, the squadron performed prominently and heroically, contributing directly to the changed climate that made Truman’s actions possible at all. In many crucial senses, then, the Airmen’s legacy is overt and indisputable, whether our national narratives or histories do full justice to their efforts and impacts or not.Yet as anyone who has read this blog for more than a couple minutes knows, I think more full and accurate national narratives and histories are pretty important too. Partly that’s just because the Airmen deserve to be better remembered, to have their contributions recognized for the amazingly meaningful American histories and stories they were and are. Partly it’s because our national narratives about African Americans stilltend to break down into either victims (of slavery, of Jim Crow, of racism in general, and so on) or threats (too many contemporary narratives to cite, but here’s one good example), and the Airmen provide a welcome alternative to either role. And partly it’s because they offer all of us a rare and crucial combination: the opportunity to remember with more accuracy and complexity some of our more painful American histories, and at the same time to be inspired by the best of what America has been and can be. Lucas may have stated that second point most clearly when he said that young black kids “have a right to have their history … made corny and wonderful just like anybody else does.” Word, George.Unfortunately Red Tails didn’t do as well as it should have (yet—it can and hopefully will have a post-theatrical afterlife), so that important American work continues. Final Memorial Day post this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Any inspiring American war stories we should better remember?6/1 Memory Day nominee: John Marshall Harlan, the Civil War veteran and long-serving Supreme Court Justice whose greatest legacy lies in his inspiring dissents on the Civil Rights Cases (1883) and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) .
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012: May 2012 Recap
[A break in the Memorial Day-inspired series to recap the month that was in American Studier. Couple more days in the series, so keep the suggestions coming please!]
May 1: Great Historical Fiction, Part 1: A series on great American historical novels starts with Gore Vidal’s Burr.May 2: Great Historical Fiction, Part 2: The series continues with Octavia Butler’s Kindred.May 3: Great Historical Fiction, Part 3: Next up is Russell Banks’ Cloudsplitter.May 4: Great Historical Fiction, Part 4: James Michener’s classic Hawaii carries the baton forward.May 5-6: Great Historical Fiction, Part 5: Five more great recent novels, from Doctorow to Eugenides, round out the series.May 7: American Studies Insights, Part One: A series on insights provided by this semester’s classes starts with Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, and narration.May 8: American Studies Insights, Part Two: The series continues with a thought on lost parents and identity in postmodern American literature.May 9: American Studies Insights, Part Three: A new perspective on Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” as the insights roll on.May 10: Maurice Sendak: Taking a break from the series to remember and celebrate one of America’s most unique and influential artists.May 11: American Studies Insights, Part Four: An optimistic insight on gay marriage, thanks to my students and their generation, ends the series.May 12-13: The Mother of All Stories: A Mother’s Day special on the challenges of motherhood and one of my favorite American texts.May 14: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part One: First in a series following up a great event on public sites and memory; this post is on Boston’s Old State House.May 15: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part Two: Next in the series, on public sites and memory in Salem (MA).May 16: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part Three: Public statues and sculptures in Salem as the series continues.May 17: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part Four: A musical interlude (and history) keeps the series going.May 18: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part Five: A compelling new reading of Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown.”May 19-20: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part Six: The series concludes with some further questions about Salem and public sites and spaces—including one for you!May 21-25: Nominees Needed for a National Big Read: A weeklong series asks for your nominees for one book all Americans could read at the same time—and I’m still taking suggestions!May 26-27: Memory and Memorials: A Memorial Day weekend special, on remembering Memorial Day in all its complex historical depth and meaning.May 28: Remembering Joshua Chamberlain: The Memorial Day series continues with a post on my favorite American soldier and wartime moment.May 29: Remembering Pat Tillman: Trying to remember the complexities and contradictions behind one of our most famous contemporary soldiers.May 30: Remembering Danny Chen: Remembering the tragic and important story and history behind another prominent 21st century soldier.The Memorial Day series resumes tomorrow!BenPS. Any topics or focal points you’d like to see in this space?5/31 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two defining American artists who likely need no introduction, Walt Whitman and
May 1: Great Historical Fiction, Part 1: A series on great American historical novels starts with Gore Vidal’s Burr.May 2: Great Historical Fiction, Part 2: The series continues with Octavia Butler’s Kindred.May 3: Great Historical Fiction, Part 3: Next up is Russell Banks’ Cloudsplitter.May 4: Great Historical Fiction, Part 4: James Michener’s classic Hawaii carries the baton forward.May 5-6: Great Historical Fiction, Part 5: Five more great recent novels, from Doctorow to Eugenides, round out the series.May 7: American Studies Insights, Part One: A series on insights provided by this semester’s classes starts with Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, and narration.May 8: American Studies Insights, Part Two: The series continues with a thought on lost parents and identity in postmodern American literature.May 9: American Studies Insights, Part Three: A new perspective on Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” as the insights roll on.May 10: Maurice Sendak: Taking a break from the series to remember and celebrate one of America’s most unique and influential artists.May 11: American Studies Insights, Part Four: An optimistic insight on gay marriage, thanks to my students and their generation, ends the series.May 12-13: The Mother of All Stories: A Mother’s Day special on the challenges of motherhood and one of my favorite American texts.May 14: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part One: First in a series following up a great event on public sites and memory; this post is on Boston’s Old State House.May 15: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part Two: Next in the series, on public sites and memory in Salem (MA).May 16: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part Three: Public statues and sculptures in Salem as the series continues.May 17: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part Four: A musical interlude (and history) keeps the series going.May 18: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part Five: A compelling new reading of Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown.”May 19-20: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part Six: The series concludes with some further questions about Salem and public sites and spaces—including one for you!May 21-25: Nominees Needed for a National Big Read: A weeklong series asks for your nominees for one book all Americans could read at the same time—and I’m still taking suggestions!May 26-27: Memory and Memorials: A Memorial Day weekend special, on remembering Memorial Day in all its complex historical depth and meaning.May 28: Remembering Joshua Chamberlain: The Memorial Day series continues with a post on my favorite American soldier and wartime moment.May 29: Remembering Pat Tillman: Trying to remember the complexities and contradictions behind one of our most famous contemporary soldiers.May 30: Remembering Danny Chen: Remembering the tragic and important story and history behind another prominent 21st century soldier.The Memorial Day series resumes tomorrow!BenPS. Any topics or focal points you’d like to see in this space?5/31 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two defining American artists who likely need no introduction, Walt Whitman and
May 30, 2012
May 30, 2012: Remembering Danny Chen
[The next post in the Memorial Day-inspired series, a repeat of a pretty important (and still very relevant) post from earlier this year. Still plenty of room in the series for your suggestions, and/or guest posts!]
How another tragic case can reveal some of the worst and the best of Asian American identities and experiences in the early 21st century.As I’ve highlighted before in this space, Asian Americans have had a meaningful and complex presence in our national community for at least 150 years; but nonetheless, this American community has significantly grown, statistically and in prominence, in recent decades. As recent analyses of the 2010 census reflect, the Asian American community is the fastest-growing American population thus far in the 21st century. Such statistical growths can be connected to two recent examples of prominent, successful Asian Americans: Jeremy Lin, the Taiwanese American basketball player whose New York Knicks’ star turns dominated weeks of news cycles earlier this year (and appeared on two consecutive Sports Illustrated covers); and Dr. Jim Yong Kim, the Korean American physician, global health expert, and Dartmouth College president whom President Obama recently nominated to lead the World Bank when its current president’s term is over. Yet the story of the last year’s other most prominent Asian American, Private Danny Chen, complicates that picture quite thoroughly. That linked New York magazine article does a great job highlighting the key stages of that story, from Chen’s parents’ immigrations from China to his childhood in New York’s Chinatown, his decision to enlist in the army to his deployment to Afghanistan, and, most significantly, the torments and tortures he apparently received on a daily basis from his superiors and fellow soldiers once there; tortures that were consistently and brutally tied to Chen’s racial identity (or rather to ridiculous stereotypes related to it) and that, once again apparently (since information has been at times painfully difficult for Chen’s family and advocates to learn), culminated in the particularly brutal hazing that led to his suicide on October 3rdof last year. Chen’s story certainly has to be contextualized on multiple levels, including in relationship to the war in Afghanistan, the presence of white supremacists and other divisive figures in the military, and national debates over bullying; yet there’s also no question, given what we know about the treatment of Chen, that he was hazed and, effectively, killed, due to his Chinese American heritage, and more exactly to how much that heritage seemed to separate him from his peers, to render him (despite his having volunteered for the US Army) somehow outside of this shared American community.On the other hand, the fact that we know any of that, and moreover that a number of Chen’s superiors and peers are now in the process of being charged and brought to trial, is due quite directly to Asian American voices and communities. Chen’s family and friends had virtually no luck getting information about his experiences and death out of the military until the Organization of Chinese Americans—NY Chapter (OCA-NY) got involved; his story has since gained in national attention and awareness thanks in large part to numerous other Asian American organizations and communities; and some of our most eloquent and talented Asian American writers, scholars and social activists, and political leaders have dedicated significant efforts to engaging with and extending the story’s questions and meanings. What this tragedy has also made clear, that is, is that the Asian American community in the early 21st century is as multi-layered, multi-vocal, and nationally engaged as any; moreover, these voices and efforts, individually but even more so collectively, have constituted a deeply inspiring representation of American ideals (free speech, assembly and protest, democratic resistance to powerful narratives, and more) at their best.May recap tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? And any suggestions for the series?UPDATE: A petition inspired by Danny Chen, and shared with me by Jasmine Stephenson of ipetitions.com: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/zerotoleranceharassment/.5/30 Memory Day nominees: A tie between Randolph Bourne, the journalist, activist, and cultural criticwhose ideas of a trans-national America foreshadowed much late 20th and early 21st century American Studies work;and James Chaney, the young Misssissippi student and Civil Rights worker whose brutal murder epitomized white supremacist violence and inspired multiple cultural responses.
How another tragic case can reveal some of the worst and the best of Asian American identities and experiences in the early 21st century.As I’ve highlighted before in this space, Asian Americans have had a meaningful and complex presence in our national community for at least 150 years; but nonetheless, this American community has significantly grown, statistically and in prominence, in recent decades. As recent analyses of the 2010 census reflect, the Asian American community is the fastest-growing American population thus far in the 21st century. Such statistical growths can be connected to two recent examples of prominent, successful Asian Americans: Jeremy Lin, the Taiwanese American basketball player whose New York Knicks’ star turns dominated weeks of news cycles earlier this year (and appeared on two consecutive Sports Illustrated covers); and Dr. Jim Yong Kim, the Korean American physician, global health expert, and Dartmouth College president whom President Obama recently nominated to lead the World Bank when its current president’s term is over. Yet the story of the last year’s other most prominent Asian American, Private Danny Chen, complicates that picture quite thoroughly. That linked New York magazine article does a great job highlighting the key stages of that story, from Chen’s parents’ immigrations from China to his childhood in New York’s Chinatown, his decision to enlist in the army to his deployment to Afghanistan, and, most significantly, the torments and tortures he apparently received on a daily basis from his superiors and fellow soldiers once there; tortures that were consistently and brutally tied to Chen’s racial identity (or rather to ridiculous stereotypes related to it) and that, once again apparently (since information has been at times painfully difficult for Chen’s family and advocates to learn), culminated in the particularly brutal hazing that led to his suicide on October 3rdof last year. Chen’s story certainly has to be contextualized on multiple levels, including in relationship to the war in Afghanistan, the presence of white supremacists and other divisive figures in the military, and national debates over bullying; yet there’s also no question, given what we know about the treatment of Chen, that he was hazed and, effectively, killed, due to his Chinese American heritage, and more exactly to how much that heritage seemed to separate him from his peers, to render him (despite his having volunteered for the US Army) somehow outside of this shared American community.On the other hand, the fact that we know any of that, and moreover that a number of Chen’s superiors and peers are now in the process of being charged and brought to trial, is due quite directly to Asian American voices and communities. Chen’s family and friends had virtually no luck getting information about his experiences and death out of the military until the Organization of Chinese Americans—NY Chapter (OCA-NY) got involved; his story has since gained in national attention and awareness thanks in large part to numerous other Asian American organizations and communities; and some of our most eloquent and talented Asian American writers, scholars and social activists, and political leaders have dedicated significant efforts to engaging with and extending the story’s questions and meanings. What this tragedy has also made clear, that is, is that the Asian American community in the early 21st century is as multi-layered, multi-vocal, and nationally engaged as any; moreover, these voices and efforts, individually but even more so collectively, have constituted a deeply inspiring representation of American ideals (free speech, assembly and protest, democratic resistance to powerful narratives, and more) at their best.May recap tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? And any suggestions for the series?UPDATE: A petition inspired by Danny Chen, and shared with me by Jasmine Stephenson of ipetitions.com: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/zerotoleranceharassment/.5/30 Memory Day nominees: A tie between Randolph Bourne, the journalist, activist, and cultural criticwhose ideas of a trans-national America foreshadowed much late 20th and early 21st century American Studies work;and James Chaney, the young Misssissippi student and Civil Rights worker whose brutal murder epitomized white supremacist violence and inspired multiple cultural responses.
May 29, 2012
May 29, 2012: Remembering Pat Tillman
[The next post in the Memorial Day-inspired series, on a much more contemporary and controversial American soldier. Plenty of room in the series for your suggestions, and/or guest posts!]
Why we must remember the contradictions at the heart of the identity and story of perhaps our most famous contemporary soldier.Pat Tillman was opposed, in his political and personal opinions, to both the concept of the “War on Terror” and the particular wars (especially the Iraq War) that it precipated. And yet he volunteered to serve, leaving behind (tragically, forever) a successful and lucrative career in the NFL. For those of us American Studiers who likewise opposed and continue to oppose this sweeping post-9/11 set of foreign and domestic policies, and yet who recognize the individual, familial, and communal sacrifices entailed in wartime military service, Tillman’s story is both strikingly representative and yet extremely complex. Does his political opposition render his own sacrifice more genuine and impressive? Ironic and even more tragic? Courageous? Ridiculous? Pat Tillman was, according to his own words but even more fully to the testimony of his parents and family after his death, an atheist. In an era when a striking strain of fundamentalist Christianity has become at times virtually synonymous with the U.S. military—and I’m familiar with the cliché that “there are no atheists in foxholes,” but this zealous missionary fervor is nonetheless at least somewhat new to our military’s overt identity and community—Tillman’s overt lack of religious faith was even more significantly at odds with his public image than were his political opinions. For those of us American Studiers who would like atheist Americans to be more widely acknowledged and accepted in our national conversations, Tillman’s perspective could be an important element in that work; but it’s also a deeply private element, one revealed in large part only because of his death and the subsequent narratives about it. So how we discuss his religious perspective without further dishonoring or even abusing his memory?Pat Tillman was apparently, as a grudgingly slow and secretive military investigation was eventually forced to reveal, killed by friendly fire. Of all the complex sides to Tillman’s story, this is without a doubt the most difficult and yet perhaps the most important with which we must grapple. Or is it totally unimportant? Does the tragedy, the sacrifice, the familial loss, change at all if Tillman were killed by Taliban fighters, or by local Afghan insurgents? Obviously Tillman’s family deserves to know the truth about what happened, or at least to learn as much as it is possible for them to know (and certainly as much as the military knows)—but do the rest of us? Is that another invasion of his and their privacy? Can we use this information critically, or analytically, or will it just become another chip in various arguments and debates? Can we, that is, remember Tillman, and every side of his story, or will we always already be making him into an icon and an idol, for one purpose or another?Damned if I know. But on this Memorial Day week, seems like we should try, doesn’t it? More tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?5/29 Memory Day nominee: Patrick Henry, whose genuine courage and radicalism were instrumental in starting the American Revolution, whose war-time governorships of Virginia helped it succeed, and whose opposition to the Constitutional convention makes clear just how much diversity of opinion the founding era and community included.
Why we must remember the contradictions at the heart of the identity and story of perhaps our most famous contemporary soldier.Pat Tillman was opposed, in his political and personal opinions, to both the concept of the “War on Terror” and the particular wars (especially the Iraq War) that it precipated. And yet he volunteered to serve, leaving behind (tragically, forever) a successful and lucrative career in the NFL. For those of us American Studiers who likewise opposed and continue to oppose this sweeping post-9/11 set of foreign and domestic policies, and yet who recognize the individual, familial, and communal sacrifices entailed in wartime military service, Tillman’s story is both strikingly representative and yet extremely complex. Does his political opposition render his own sacrifice more genuine and impressive? Ironic and even more tragic? Courageous? Ridiculous? Pat Tillman was, according to his own words but even more fully to the testimony of his parents and family after his death, an atheist. In an era when a striking strain of fundamentalist Christianity has become at times virtually synonymous with the U.S. military—and I’m familiar with the cliché that “there are no atheists in foxholes,” but this zealous missionary fervor is nonetheless at least somewhat new to our military’s overt identity and community—Tillman’s overt lack of religious faith was even more significantly at odds with his public image than were his political opinions. For those of us American Studiers who would like atheist Americans to be more widely acknowledged and accepted in our national conversations, Tillman’s perspective could be an important element in that work; but it’s also a deeply private element, one revealed in large part only because of his death and the subsequent narratives about it. So how we discuss his religious perspective without further dishonoring or even abusing his memory?Pat Tillman was apparently, as a grudgingly slow and secretive military investigation was eventually forced to reveal, killed by friendly fire. Of all the complex sides to Tillman’s story, this is without a doubt the most difficult and yet perhaps the most important with which we must grapple. Or is it totally unimportant? Does the tragedy, the sacrifice, the familial loss, change at all if Tillman were killed by Taliban fighters, or by local Afghan insurgents? Obviously Tillman’s family deserves to know the truth about what happened, or at least to learn as much as it is possible for them to know (and certainly as much as the military knows)—but do the rest of us? Is that another invasion of his and their privacy? Can we use this information critically, or analytically, or will it just become another chip in various arguments and debates? Can we, that is, remember Tillman, and every side of his story, or will we always already be making him into an icon and an idol, for one purpose or another?Damned if I know. But on this Memorial Day week, seems like we should try, doesn’t it? More tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?5/29 Memory Day nominee: Patrick Henry, whose genuine courage and radicalism were instrumental in starting the American Revolution, whose war-time governorships of Virginia helped it succeed, and whose opposition to the Constitutional convention makes clear just how much diversity of opinion the founding era and community included.
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