Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 426
January 13, 2012
January 13, 2012: Transnational American Studiers
[This week I'll be blogging about fellow American Studiers, colleagues and friends who exemplify the best kinds of scholarly engagement with our national histories, stories, and identities. That's in addition to other folks about whom you've already heard in this space, a list which would include Caroline Rody, Karl Jacoby, Christopher Cappozzola, Mike Branch, Heidi Kim, Kevin Levin and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Rob Velella, Larry Rosenwald, Steve Railton, my web guru Graham Beckwith, and many more. This is the fifth in the series.]
Scholars at the forefront of the transnational turn in American Studies exemplify how the field, like our nation, continues to evolve and deepen.
I have written in a couple of posts here, especially this request for ideas (which is still in effect!), about my ongoing work for the American Writers Museum, and more exactly my writing of an NEH proposal for a traveling exhibition on first- and second-generation immigrant writers and 21st century American literature. Hopefully the proposal (submitted this week) will be accepted and you'll get to hear a lot more about the exhibition in this space; but even if it isn't, one immensely inspiring benefit of my work to date has been the opportunity to recruit into the project and work closely with some very smart and impressive fellow American Studiers. At the top of that list are two scholars who embody the contemporary and ongoing transnational turn in American Studies: David Palumbo-Liu and Elena Machado Sáez.
Palumbo-Liu's own career trajectory strikingly mirrors that transnational turn—he first trained in East Asian area studies and classical Chinese literature, shifted into comparative literature (in which he received his PhD and the program in which he directs at Stanford), and then has gradually become one of America and the world's foremost scholarly voices in Asian American Studies (a program he founded at Stanford). Rather than seeing those different disciplines as separate or discrete, though, I would argue that Palumbo-Liu's work consistently reveals how interconnected and cross-culturally influential his different interests are, as illustrated by books such as his co-edited Streams of Cultural Capital: Transnational Cultural Studies (1997) and his own Asian/American: Historical Crossings of a Racial Frontier (1999). And his forthcoming The Deliverance of Others: Reading Literature in a Global Age promises to connect such transnational literary interests explicitly to some of the most crucial and defining public and communal questions of our 21st century moment.
Machado Sáez's career and work are just as centered on transnational literary and cultural identities and themes, directed in her case not across the Pacific but throughout the Western Hemisphere. She teaches Latino/a American and Caribbean American literature and theory at Florida Atlantic University, and has in just a half-dozen years already established herself as an expert scholarly voice on those cross-cultural and evolving fields. Her co-authored The Latino/a Canon and the Emergence of Post-Sixties Literature (2007) makes clear that such transnational and cross-cultural studies represent more than just an enlarging of what "American" or American Studies includes—that, in fact, such ideas have the power to fundamentally change how we think about our national literature, culture, and identity. And her current project, Caribbean Diasporic Historical Fiction: Marketing Multicultural Ethnics, Promoting Postcolonial Ethics—from which this compelling article on Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is drawn—promises to further push and enrich transnational, cross-cultural, and hemispheric American Studies.
Hard not to be inspired by the work of these two American Studiers, isn't it? As with all eight of this week's other subjects, they reveal the breadth and depth, the power and significance, of what this discipline has been and continues to be and offer for all Americans and citizens of the world. One more follow up this weekend,
Ben
PS. Any other American Studiers you'd highlight? Feel free to write about them in the Forum as well, or to share your own American Studies ideas and analyses here and/or there.
1/13 Memory Day nominee: Salmon Chase, best known as Lincoln's crucial Secretary of the Treasury and then as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who swore in Lincoln's successor Andrew Johnson and helped uphold the 13th and 14th amendments during Reconstruction, but just as inspiringly an abolitionist lawyer and activist who helped form the 1840s Liberty Party and continued after the war to take important stands such as his support for voting rights for black men.
Scholars at the forefront of the transnational turn in American Studies exemplify how the field, like our nation, continues to evolve and deepen.
I have written in a couple of posts here, especially this request for ideas (which is still in effect!), about my ongoing work for the American Writers Museum, and more exactly my writing of an NEH proposal for a traveling exhibition on first- and second-generation immigrant writers and 21st century American literature. Hopefully the proposal (submitted this week) will be accepted and you'll get to hear a lot more about the exhibition in this space; but even if it isn't, one immensely inspiring benefit of my work to date has been the opportunity to recruit into the project and work closely with some very smart and impressive fellow American Studiers. At the top of that list are two scholars who embody the contemporary and ongoing transnational turn in American Studies: David Palumbo-Liu and Elena Machado Sáez.
Palumbo-Liu's own career trajectory strikingly mirrors that transnational turn—he first trained in East Asian area studies and classical Chinese literature, shifted into comparative literature (in which he received his PhD and the program in which he directs at Stanford), and then has gradually become one of America and the world's foremost scholarly voices in Asian American Studies (a program he founded at Stanford). Rather than seeing those different disciplines as separate or discrete, though, I would argue that Palumbo-Liu's work consistently reveals how interconnected and cross-culturally influential his different interests are, as illustrated by books such as his co-edited Streams of Cultural Capital: Transnational Cultural Studies (1997) and his own Asian/American: Historical Crossings of a Racial Frontier (1999). And his forthcoming The Deliverance of Others: Reading Literature in a Global Age promises to connect such transnational literary interests explicitly to some of the most crucial and defining public and communal questions of our 21st century moment.
Machado Sáez's career and work are just as centered on transnational literary and cultural identities and themes, directed in her case not across the Pacific but throughout the Western Hemisphere. She teaches Latino/a American and Caribbean American literature and theory at Florida Atlantic University, and has in just a half-dozen years already established herself as an expert scholarly voice on those cross-cultural and evolving fields. Her co-authored The Latino/a Canon and the Emergence of Post-Sixties Literature (2007) makes clear that such transnational and cross-cultural studies represent more than just an enlarging of what "American" or American Studies includes—that, in fact, such ideas have the power to fundamentally change how we think about our national literature, culture, and identity. And her current project, Caribbean Diasporic Historical Fiction: Marketing Multicultural Ethnics, Promoting Postcolonial Ethics—from which this compelling article on Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is drawn—promises to further push and enrich transnational, cross-cultural, and hemispheric American Studies.
Hard not to be inspired by the work of these two American Studiers, isn't it? As with all eight of this week's other subjects, they reveal the breadth and depth, the power and significance, of what this discipline has been and continues to be and offer for all Americans and citizens of the world. One more follow up this weekend,
Ben
PS. Any other American Studiers you'd highlight? Feel free to write about them in the Forum as well, or to share your own American Studies ideas and analyses here and/or there.
1/13 Memory Day nominee: Salmon Chase, best known as Lincoln's crucial Secretary of the Treasury and then as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who swore in Lincoln's successor Andrew Johnson and helped uphold the 13th and 14th amendments during Reconstruction, but just as inspiringly an abolitionist lawyer and activist who helped form the 1840s Liberty Party and continued after the war to take important stands such as his support for voting rights for black men.
January 12, 2012
January 12, 2012: International American Studiers
[This week I'll be blogging about fellow American Studiers, colleagues and friends who exemplify the best kinds of scholarly engagement with our national histories, stories, and identities. That's in addition to other folks about whom you've already heard in this space, a list which would include Caroline Rody, Karl Jacoby, Christopher Cappozzola, Mike Branch, Heidi Kim, Kevin Levin and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Rob Velella, Larry Rosenwald, Steve Railton, my web guru Graham Beckwith, and many more. This is the fourth in the series.]
American Studies work being done around the globe importantly complements, and often complicates and challenges, the work being done by those of us within the US.
Of the many inspiring things about the fall's New England American Studies Association conference, I was particularly excited that we had such a large international turnout—multiple scholars (at least half a dozen) from Great Britain, a couple each from Canada and Germany, and one from Denmark. Any scholarly conversation and community is of course enhanced by the addition of different, international perspectives and voices, but I think such additions are particularly key when it comes to American Studies; it can be difficult to separate our own American experiences and identities from our scholarly and analytical perspectives, and while there's value in acknowledging our own influences, there's potential limitation there as well. Which makes the work of exemplary international American Studiers like Maureen Mahoney and Velichka Ivanova that much more important.
Mahoney is working on her PhD in History at Ottawa's Carleton University, writing about European influences, American internationalism, and the late 19th century City Beautiful movement, but she's already making a major impact on American Studies scholarship and conversations through her work as a founder, editor, and contributor for NeoAmericanist , an Open Access (which means entirely free!), "interdisciplinary online journal for the study of America." Founded and run by American Studies students around the world, the journal consistently exemplifies not only the best of cutting-edge American Studies scholarship, but also the kinds of young voices and perspectives that can help the field move into the 21st century even more fully. Mahoney's own article in the journal's debut issue, on George Bush (the elder), masculinity, and the invasion of Panama, certainly embodies all those elements; but the full contents of the current issue, featuring articles on the Lost Cause and cultural performance, Woody Allen and kitsch, Boston's Civil War draft riot, political sermons as cultural texts, vampires in contemporary narratives, and 19th century novelist George Lippard, even more clearly demonstrates the range of American Studies work being done by these international students.
Ivanova, a literary scholar who teaches at the New Sorbonne University in Paris and the University of Strasbourg in Alsace, is further along in her American Studying, having published in 2010 her first book, a comparative study of themes of utopia and history in the novels of Philip Roth and Milan Kundera. That cross-cultural subject, one influenced by Ivanova's own multi-national heritage and experiences, already reflects the value of an international American Studies perspective. But Ivanova has exemplified that value even more overtly, assembling an impressive and impressively multi-national collection of scholars and writers (including, I'm honored to say, this AmericanStudier) for her recently published edited collection Reading Philip Roth's American Pastoral (2011). Roth's novel is explicitly and centrally interested in core American histories and narratives, both specific to the end of the 20th century (reflecting on the 1960s, for example) and broadly defining (the American Dream, for another), and there's something truly inspiring about seeing a community of international scholars analyze those subjects and the novel, often in explicitly multi-national literary, historical, and cultural contexts.
In a moment when one of the most-frequent refrains from Republican presidential candidates is a critique of President Obama's supposed "European influences" and the like, let's celebrate instead the genuinely international community of American Studies scholars. Next models tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Any international American Studiers or work you'd highlight? Any ones within our borders?
1/12 Memory Day nominee: Ira Hayes, the Pima Native American (from the Gila River community) whose service with the Marines during World War II was immortalized in his role as one of the six Iwo Jima flag raisers, who played himself in a subsequent film about the battle, and whose complex and tragic yet also crucial American identity and life have been further immortalized by such artists as Tony Curtis, Johnny Cash, and Clint Eastwood.
American Studies work being done around the globe importantly complements, and often complicates and challenges, the work being done by those of us within the US.
Of the many inspiring things about the fall's New England American Studies Association conference, I was particularly excited that we had such a large international turnout—multiple scholars (at least half a dozen) from Great Britain, a couple each from Canada and Germany, and one from Denmark. Any scholarly conversation and community is of course enhanced by the addition of different, international perspectives and voices, but I think such additions are particularly key when it comes to American Studies; it can be difficult to separate our own American experiences and identities from our scholarly and analytical perspectives, and while there's value in acknowledging our own influences, there's potential limitation there as well. Which makes the work of exemplary international American Studiers like Maureen Mahoney and Velichka Ivanova that much more important.
Mahoney is working on her PhD in History at Ottawa's Carleton University, writing about European influences, American internationalism, and the late 19th century City Beautiful movement, but she's already making a major impact on American Studies scholarship and conversations through her work as a founder, editor, and contributor for NeoAmericanist , an Open Access (which means entirely free!), "interdisciplinary online journal for the study of America." Founded and run by American Studies students around the world, the journal consistently exemplifies not only the best of cutting-edge American Studies scholarship, but also the kinds of young voices and perspectives that can help the field move into the 21st century even more fully. Mahoney's own article in the journal's debut issue, on George Bush (the elder), masculinity, and the invasion of Panama, certainly embodies all those elements; but the full contents of the current issue, featuring articles on the Lost Cause and cultural performance, Woody Allen and kitsch, Boston's Civil War draft riot, political sermons as cultural texts, vampires in contemporary narratives, and 19th century novelist George Lippard, even more clearly demonstrates the range of American Studies work being done by these international students.
Ivanova, a literary scholar who teaches at the New Sorbonne University in Paris and the University of Strasbourg in Alsace, is further along in her American Studying, having published in 2010 her first book, a comparative study of themes of utopia and history in the novels of Philip Roth and Milan Kundera. That cross-cultural subject, one influenced by Ivanova's own multi-national heritage and experiences, already reflects the value of an international American Studies perspective. But Ivanova has exemplified that value even more overtly, assembling an impressive and impressively multi-national collection of scholars and writers (including, I'm honored to say, this AmericanStudier) for her recently published edited collection Reading Philip Roth's American Pastoral (2011). Roth's novel is explicitly and centrally interested in core American histories and narratives, both specific to the end of the 20th century (reflecting on the 1960s, for example) and broadly defining (the American Dream, for another), and there's something truly inspiring about seeing a community of international scholars analyze those subjects and the novel, often in explicitly multi-national literary, historical, and cultural contexts.
In a moment when one of the most-frequent refrains from Republican presidential candidates is a critique of President Obama's supposed "European influences" and the like, let's celebrate instead the genuinely international community of American Studies scholars. Next models tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Any international American Studiers or work you'd highlight? Any ones within our borders?
1/12 Memory Day nominee: Ira Hayes, the Pima Native American (from the Gila River community) whose service with the Marines during World War II was immortalized in his role as one of the six Iwo Jima flag raisers, who played himself in a subsequent film about the battle, and whose complex and tragic yet also crucial American identity and life have been further immortalized by such artists as Tony Curtis, Johnny Cash, and Clint Eastwood.
January 11, 2012
January 11, 2012: New England American Studiers
[This week I'll be blogging about fellow American Studiers, colleagues and friends who exemplify the best kinds of scholarly engagement with our national histories, stories, and identities. That's in addition to other folks about whom you've already heard in this space, a list which would include Caroline Rody, Karl Jacoby, Christopher Cappozzola, Mike Branch, Heidi Kim, Kevin Levin and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Rob Velella, Larry Rosenwald, Steve Railton, my web guru Graham Beckwith, and many more. This is the third in the series.]
How a couple of regional colleagues can reveal the incredible range of contemporary, exemplary American Studies scholarship.
Long-time readers of this blog know well how much I've been influenced and inspired by my work over the last few years with the New England American Studies Association; for new readers, the relevant posts are collected under the "New England ASA" category on the right. But even before I had the chance to serve as the organization's president and organize a conference and so on, just serving on the NEASA Council already helped me to recognize and appreciate two interconnected and impressive facts: New England is full of folks doing amazing American Studies work (in and out of the academy, to go back to yesterday's subject); and the different disciplines and approaches contained within the field of American Studies are even broader and richer than I had previously imagined. Many of my NEASA colleagues could be used to illustrate those facts, but I'm going to focus here on two: NEASA's current webmaster, Jonathan Silverman; and one of its most successful past presidents, J. Kēhaulani Kauanui.
Jonathan Silverman teaches in the English and American Studies Departments at UMass Lowell, and so might on the surface seem to share an American Studies approach with this American Studier. But as I have discovered through my work with him, Jonathan's American Studies lens is just as significantly, and very uniquely, informed by a combination of four other elements: analytical tools drawn from the worlds of popular and visual culture, as illustrated by his great book on Johnny Cash; a connection of those skills to the kinds of arguments and work at the heart of composition studies, as illustrated by his co-edited reader; an interest in international experiences and perspectives, as illustrated by his work as a Fulbright Roving Scholar in American Studies in Norway; and all of it viewed and written through the lenses of a long-time journalist and media scholar. Jonathan's newest project, on the international and national meanings of horse racing, demonstrates anew how much this combinatory American Studies perspective can tell us about the societies and worlds in which we live.
J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, who teaches in Anthropology and American Studies Departments at Wesleyan University, has a much more unified, if still impressively deep and multi-faceted, lens through which she has done and continues to do her exemplary American Studies work. She is one of New England's and America's most prominent and influential scholars of indigenous cultures and histories: her most central interest is in the indigenous Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) cultures, as illustrated by her first book on colonialism, sovereignty, and indigeneity in Hawaii and by her two scholarly projects in progress; but she has linked that specific scholarly pursuit to comparative analyses of and activism with Maori groups and other Pacific Islanders, to a radio program that explores indigenous political and social issues across the US and beyond, to the founding of the national Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, and to important work on a number of related American Studies issues of ethnicity, gender and sexuality, democracy and activism, and more (all of which were exemplified by the NEASA conference she organized in her year as president).
I'm not saying other regions don't have equally diverse and impressive American Studiers, but I'm pretty proud to call these two (and many others) regional and NEASA colleagues. Next models tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Any exemplary American Studiers you'd highlight?
1/11 Memory day nominee: William James, the pioneering psychological, philosopher, spiritual thinker, and renaissance American who not only significantly advanced human knowledge and ideas in a number of disciplines but also played a hugely influential role in the careers and lives of both one of our greatest creative writers (his brother Henry) and (to me) the most inspiring single American (W.E.B. Du Bois).
How a couple of regional colleagues can reveal the incredible range of contemporary, exemplary American Studies scholarship.
Long-time readers of this blog know well how much I've been influenced and inspired by my work over the last few years with the New England American Studies Association; for new readers, the relevant posts are collected under the "New England ASA" category on the right. But even before I had the chance to serve as the organization's president and organize a conference and so on, just serving on the NEASA Council already helped me to recognize and appreciate two interconnected and impressive facts: New England is full of folks doing amazing American Studies work (in and out of the academy, to go back to yesterday's subject); and the different disciplines and approaches contained within the field of American Studies are even broader and richer than I had previously imagined. Many of my NEASA colleagues could be used to illustrate those facts, but I'm going to focus here on two: NEASA's current webmaster, Jonathan Silverman; and one of its most successful past presidents, J. Kēhaulani Kauanui.
Jonathan Silverman teaches in the English and American Studies Departments at UMass Lowell, and so might on the surface seem to share an American Studies approach with this American Studier. But as I have discovered through my work with him, Jonathan's American Studies lens is just as significantly, and very uniquely, informed by a combination of four other elements: analytical tools drawn from the worlds of popular and visual culture, as illustrated by his great book on Johnny Cash; a connection of those skills to the kinds of arguments and work at the heart of composition studies, as illustrated by his co-edited reader; an interest in international experiences and perspectives, as illustrated by his work as a Fulbright Roving Scholar in American Studies in Norway; and all of it viewed and written through the lenses of a long-time journalist and media scholar. Jonathan's newest project, on the international and national meanings of horse racing, demonstrates anew how much this combinatory American Studies perspective can tell us about the societies and worlds in which we live.
J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, who teaches in Anthropology and American Studies Departments at Wesleyan University, has a much more unified, if still impressively deep and multi-faceted, lens through which she has done and continues to do her exemplary American Studies work. She is one of New England's and America's most prominent and influential scholars of indigenous cultures and histories: her most central interest is in the indigenous Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) cultures, as illustrated by her first book on colonialism, sovereignty, and indigeneity in Hawaii and by her two scholarly projects in progress; but she has linked that specific scholarly pursuit to comparative analyses of and activism with Maori groups and other Pacific Islanders, to a radio program that explores indigenous political and social issues across the US and beyond, to the founding of the national Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, and to important work on a number of related American Studies issues of ethnicity, gender and sexuality, democracy and activism, and more (all of which were exemplified by the NEASA conference she organized in her year as president).
I'm not saying other regions don't have equally diverse and impressive American Studiers, but I'm pretty proud to call these two (and many others) regional and NEASA colleagues. Next models tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Any exemplary American Studiers you'd highlight?
1/11 Memory day nominee: William James, the pioneering psychological, philosopher, spiritual thinker, and renaissance American who not only significantly advanced human knowledge and ideas in a number of disciplines but also played a hugely influential role in the careers and lives of both one of our greatest creative writers (his brother Henry) and (to me) the most inspiring single American (W.E.B. Du Bois).
January 10, 2012
January 10, 2012: Outside the Box
[This week I'll be blogging about fellow American Studiers, colleagues and friends who exemplify the best kinds of scholarly engagement with our national histories, stories, and identities. That's in addition to other folks about whom you've already heard in this space, a list which would include Caroline Rody, Karl Jacoby, Christopher Cappozzola, Mike Branch, Heidi Kim, Kevin Levin and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Rob Velella, Larry Rosenwald, Steve Railton, my web guru Graham Beckwith, and many more. This is the second in the series.]
Exemplary American Studies scholarship and work happens outside the academy just as frequently, and just as significantly, as it does inside it.
One of the most overt strengths of an interdisciplinary and (relatively) new field like American Studies is that there are few if any traditional, limiting academic definitions of or boundaries around the field. While there's no question that older fields like English and History have undergone significant shifts and broadenings in the last few decades, as reflected by the diversity and breadth of attendees and presenters at the recently completed MLA and AHA conventions, I would still say that traditional, academic versions of those fields dominate many scholarly conversations in and around them (and I'm far from immune to that in my own English work, just to be clear). But since American Studies has from its origins crossed disciplinary and traditional boundaries, it has likewise consistently included in central and influential roles non-academic scholarly voices and perspectives as well—voices and perspectives embodied by my colleagues and friends Mark Rennella and Maggi Smith-Dalton.
Mark's training and background is within the academy—I met him when he was completing his PhD in History at Brandeis University and working as a tutor in Harvard's History and Literature program, and I was fortunate enough to work with him on my senior thesis in that program—and he's done important and inspiring American Studies work therein: his first book, The Boston Cosmopolitans: International Travel and American Arts and Letters (2008), analyzes turn of the 20th century American writers and artists through a complex and compelling set of interdisciplinary lenses, including new technologies of travel, economics and questions of finance and patronage, and material and urban cultures. Yet while he was finalizing that book Mark was also transitioning into new and seemingly very different institutions and roles, including the Harvard Business School, where he co-wrote a history of the airline industry and ideas of leadership that is a model for linking American Studies questions to seemingly distinct yet ultimately interconnected conversations and settings. As Mark continues to move forward in his academic and non-academic—and always scholarly—American Studies roles, he constantly reminds me that such professional boundaries can be just as inspiringly porous as disciplinary ones.
While I've only known Maggi for the last couple of years—we met through the 2010 New England American Studies Association conference in Boston, and I'm very excited that Maggi has joined the NEASA Council this year—it didn't take long for me to recognize the ways she (and her husband and partner Jim Dalton) embodies the kind of renaissance American Studies identity that I've often written about in this space. She's a talented musician and singer who uses those skills to educate her fellow Americans about history and literature; a regional historian who founded and directs the Salem History Society; and an author and journalist who edits (and usually also writes) the weekly "Salem History Time" column for the Boston Globe online and who has published (among other books) Stories and Shadows from Salem's Past: Naumkeag Notations . To say that all of these activities exist outside of the traditional academy is only a partial and relatively minor truth—instead, it's more accurate to say that Maggi's (and Maggi and Jim's) work has greatly expanded the scholarly conversations and communities centered on Salem, on New England, on music and history, and other significant American Studies topics.
I've got nothing against academic scholarship (duh), but it's infinitely richer and stronger when it engages with the many parallel and interconnected American Studies conversations happening in other scholarly communities—as exemplified by Mark and Maggi. Next models tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Any non-academic American Studiers, conversations, or communities you'd highlight?
1/10 Memory Day nominee: Robinson Jeffers, the iconoclastic poet whose works compare favorably to modernists like T.S. Eliot, American Studiers like William Carlos Williams, and natural/spiritual poets like Robert Frost, and whose biting and bracing views of human nature offer important correctives to some of our more blithely sunny ideals.
Exemplary American Studies scholarship and work happens outside the academy just as frequently, and just as significantly, as it does inside it.
One of the most overt strengths of an interdisciplinary and (relatively) new field like American Studies is that there are few if any traditional, limiting academic definitions of or boundaries around the field. While there's no question that older fields like English and History have undergone significant shifts and broadenings in the last few decades, as reflected by the diversity and breadth of attendees and presenters at the recently completed MLA and AHA conventions, I would still say that traditional, academic versions of those fields dominate many scholarly conversations in and around them (and I'm far from immune to that in my own English work, just to be clear). But since American Studies has from its origins crossed disciplinary and traditional boundaries, it has likewise consistently included in central and influential roles non-academic scholarly voices and perspectives as well—voices and perspectives embodied by my colleagues and friends Mark Rennella and Maggi Smith-Dalton.
Mark's training and background is within the academy—I met him when he was completing his PhD in History at Brandeis University and working as a tutor in Harvard's History and Literature program, and I was fortunate enough to work with him on my senior thesis in that program—and he's done important and inspiring American Studies work therein: his first book, The Boston Cosmopolitans: International Travel and American Arts and Letters (2008), analyzes turn of the 20th century American writers and artists through a complex and compelling set of interdisciplinary lenses, including new technologies of travel, economics and questions of finance and patronage, and material and urban cultures. Yet while he was finalizing that book Mark was also transitioning into new and seemingly very different institutions and roles, including the Harvard Business School, where he co-wrote a history of the airline industry and ideas of leadership that is a model for linking American Studies questions to seemingly distinct yet ultimately interconnected conversations and settings. As Mark continues to move forward in his academic and non-academic—and always scholarly—American Studies roles, he constantly reminds me that such professional boundaries can be just as inspiringly porous as disciplinary ones.
While I've only known Maggi for the last couple of years—we met through the 2010 New England American Studies Association conference in Boston, and I'm very excited that Maggi has joined the NEASA Council this year—it didn't take long for me to recognize the ways she (and her husband and partner Jim Dalton) embodies the kind of renaissance American Studies identity that I've often written about in this space. She's a talented musician and singer who uses those skills to educate her fellow Americans about history and literature; a regional historian who founded and directs the Salem History Society; and an author and journalist who edits (and usually also writes) the weekly "Salem History Time" column for the Boston Globe online and who has published (among other books) Stories and Shadows from Salem's Past: Naumkeag Notations . To say that all of these activities exist outside of the traditional academy is only a partial and relatively minor truth—instead, it's more accurate to say that Maggi's (and Maggi and Jim's) work has greatly expanded the scholarly conversations and communities centered on Salem, on New England, on music and history, and other significant American Studies topics.
I've got nothing against academic scholarship (duh), but it's infinitely richer and stronger when it engages with the many parallel and interconnected American Studies conversations happening in other scholarly communities—as exemplified by Mark and Maggi. Next models tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Any non-academic American Studiers, conversations, or communities you'd highlight?
1/10 Memory Day nominee: Robinson Jeffers, the iconoclastic poet whose works compare favorably to modernists like T.S. Eliot, American Studiers like William Carlos Williams, and natural/spiritual poets like Robert Frost, and whose biting and bracing views of human nature offer important correctives to some of our more blithely sunny ideals.
January 9, 2012
January 9, 2012: Mentors
[This week I'll be blogging about fellow American Studiers, colleagues and friends who exemplify the best kinds of scholarly engagement with our national histories, stories, and identities. That's in addition to other folks about whom you've already heard in this space, a list which would include Caroline Rody, Karl Jacoby, Christopher Cappozzola, Mike Branch, Heidi Kim, Kevin Levin and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Rob Velella, Steve Railton, my web guru Graham Beckwith, and many more. This is the first in the series.]
My two central graduate school advisors and mentors model two very distinct but equally important and inspiring American Studies approaches.While my graduate work and PhD were in English (as is my principal faculty position at Fitchburg State University), I nonetheless likewise received extensive training in American Studies scholarship throughout that time, thanks to the two Temple University English professors with whom I was fortunate enough to work most fully: Carolyn Karcher (pronounced "car-share") and Miles Orvell. It's difficult for me to write about either or both of them without turning the piece into a pure and very heartfelt tribute, but I'll try here to stay focused on what I learned about American Studies from these two great scholars (and will note that I tried to highlight, briefly but I hope clearly, everything else I learned from them in the Acknowledgments to my first book). Karcher's American Studies scholarship has consistently been grounded in close and text-based analyses of the literary works and careers of 19th-century American writers: Herman Melville, Lydia Maria Child, Catherine Maria Sedgwick, and Albion Tourgée, to name only the four on whom she has focused at the greatest length. Yet what Karcher has succeeded in doing, without simplifying her close readings of those authors and texts in the slightest, is to situate her analyses in fully realized and in fact equally complex historical, cultural, and interdisciplinary contexts, revealing in the process as much about America itself as about her specific focal points. Perhaps the clearest (if far from the only) illustration of such American Studies revelations is her The First Woman in the Republic , which entirely lives up to both parts of its self-description as A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child; the book's portrait of Child's life and writings is exhaustive and always specific, yet by the time a reader reaches its conclusion he or she has learned a great deal about literally dozens of significant historical and cultural moments, issues, questions, and narratives from across much of the 19th century.
Orvell's American Studies scholarship has consistently sought to engage with some of the broadest and most defining American ideas and questions: concepts of reality, authenticity, and imitation in American culture and life; the history and practice of American photography; technology and its impacts on the visual arts and culture; popular images and narratives of Main Street. Yet what Orvell has succeeded in doing, without eliding or missing the broad and communal meanings of his subjects in the slightest, is to connect his analyses to nuanced and compelling close readings of individual artists and texts, making clear in the process the specific valences and stakes of his central ideas. A particularly clear illustration of that multi-level American Stuff methodology is the Encyclopedia of American Studies , which Orvell helped create and for which he served as general editor for many years; the EAS is amazingly comprehensive in its range of subjects and disciplines (I helped find pictures for articles on skateboarding, temperance, and the Revolutionary War and wrote ones on Poe, Thoreau, Wright, and Ellison, for example), yet each individual article pays close and convincing analytical attention to specific texts, figures, and details.
Two very distinct scholars and careers, each plenty influential and inspiring, together exemplifying the breadth and depth of what American Studies can be. Next models tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Any American Studiers you'd like to nominate? Remember, Guest Posts always welcome!
1/9 Memory Day nominee: Joan Baez, the folk singer-songwriter who has been an iconic presence on the American cultural landscape since Woodstock, who has done important activist work on behalf of civil and gay rights, anti-war and anti-poverty efforts, and the environment (among many other issues), and who continues to release powerful new music in the 21st century.
My two central graduate school advisors and mentors model two very distinct but equally important and inspiring American Studies approaches.While my graduate work and PhD were in English (as is my principal faculty position at Fitchburg State University), I nonetheless likewise received extensive training in American Studies scholarship throughout that time, thanks to the two Temple University English professors with whom I was fortunate enough to work most fully: Carolyn Karcher (pronounced "car-share") and Miles Orvell. It's difficult for me to write about either or both of them without turning the piece into a pure and very heartfelt tribute, but I'll try here to stay focused on what I learned about American Studies from these two great scholars (and will note that I tried to highlight, briefly but I hope clearly, everything else I learned from them in the Acknowledgments to my first book). Karcher's American Studies scholarship has consistently been grounded in close and text-based analyses of the literary works and careers of 19th-century American writers: Herman Melville, Lydia Maria Child, Catherine Maria Sedgwick, and Albion Tourgée, to name only the four on whom she has focused at the greatest length. Yet what Karcher has succeeded in doing, without simplifying her close readings of those authors and texts in the slightest, is to situate her analyses in fully realized and in fact equally complex historical, cultural, and interdisciplinary contexts, revealing in the process as much about America itself as about her specific focal points. Perhaps the clearest (if far from the only) illustration of such American Studies revelations is her The First Woman in the Republic , which entirely lives up to both parts of its self-description as A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child; the book's portrait of Child's life and writings is exhaustive and always specific, yet by the time a reader reaches its conclusion he or she has learned a great deal about literally dozens of significant historical and cultural moments, issues, questions, and narratives from across much of the 19th century.
Orvell's American Studies scholarship has consistently sought to engage with some of the broadest and most defining American ideas and questions: concepts of reality, authenticity, and imitation in American culture and life; the history and practice of American photography; technology and its impacts on the visual arts and culture; popular images and narratives of Main Street. Yet what Orvell has succeeded in doing, without eliding or missing the broad and communal meanings of his subjects in the slightest, is to connect his analyses to nuanced and compelling close readings of individual artists and texts, making clear in the process the specific valences and stakes of his central ideas. A particularly clear illustration of that multi-level American Stuff methodology is the Encyclopedia of American Studies , which Orvell helped create and for which he served as general editor for many years; the EAS is amazingly comprehensive in its range of subjects and disciplines (I helped find pictures for articles on skateboarding, temperance, and the Revolutionary War and wrote ones on Poe, Thoreau, Wright, and Ellison, for example), yet each individual article pays close and convincing analytical attention to specific texts, figures, and details.
Two very distinct scholars and careers, each plenty influential and inspiring, together exemplifying the breadth and depth of what American Studies can be. Next models tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Any American Studiers you'd like to nominate? Remember, Guest Posts always welcome!
1/9 Memory Day nominee: Joan Baez, the folk singer-songwriter who has been an iconic presence on the American cultural landscape since Woodstock, who has done important activist work on behalf of civil and gay rights, anti-war and anti-poverty efforts, and the environment (among many other issues), and who continues to release powerful new music in the 21st century.
January 7, 2012
January 7-8, 2012: Honoring A Great American
Earlier this week, one of the 20th Century's (and history's) most courageous and inspiring Americans passed away at the age of 93. Gordon Hirabayashi is likely best-known for the Supreme Court case that bore his name, and which resulted in a decision that rivals Dred Scott and Plessy as a tragically misguided application of the law to buttress un-American discrimination and bigotry. But that case, and its converse four decades later by which Hirabayashi was finally vindicated, represent only a portion of the heroism and ideals which Hirabayashi and his co-resisters embodied.
I have plenty I could say about the Japanese internment, about Hirabayashi's stand, and about the worst and best of American identity that they collectively reflect. But for today I'll let actor, playwright, and activist George Takei's brief but moving words about Hirabayashi and the internment speak for themselves:
http://www.allegiancemusical.com/blog-entry/hero-our-democracy
and will supplement them with the extended biography provided in the New York Times obituary:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/us/gordon-hirabayashi-wwii-internment-opponent-dies-at-93.html?_r=1
The full story of the Japanese internment has yet to be included in our national narratives and conversations, although I'm heartened to see that Takei is working on a musical that will engage with this dark and divisive and yet, as Hirabayashi demonstrates, also deeply moving and inspiring part of our American history and story. As we mourn the loss of this inspiring man, we can and must also honor his courageous and vitally American actions and life.
More next week,
Ben
PS. Any thoughts on Hirabayashi, the internment, or any related histories or issues to add?
1/7 Memory Day nominee: Zora Neale Hurston, the Harlem Renaissance novelist, anthropologist and folklorist, and essayist whose works consistently depict the complexity and richness, the pain and promise, the horrors and hopes, of African American and American communities and lives.
1/8 Memory Day nominee: Emily Green Balch, the Nobel Prize-winning anti-war activist whose near-century of inspiring American life included professing economics and sociology at Wellesley, writing pioneering books on Slavic Americans and international women's organizing and activism (among others), and defending human rights around the globe.
I have plenty I could say about the Japanese internment, about Hirabayashi's stand, and about the worst and best of American identity that they collectively reflect. But for today I'll let actor, playwright, and activist George Takei's brief but moving words about Hirabayashi and the internment speak for themselves:
http://www.allegiancemusical.com/blog-entry/hero-our-democracy
and will supplement them with the extended biography provided in the New York Times obituary:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/us/gordon-hirabayashi-wwii-internment-opponent-dies-at-93.html?_r=1
The full story of the Japanese internment has yet to be included in our national narratives and conversations, although I'm heartened to see that Takei is working on a musical that will engage with this dark and divisive and yet, as Hirabayashi demonstrates, also deeply moving and inspiring part of our American history and story. As we mourn the loss of this inspiring man, we can and must also honor his courageous and vitally American actions and life.
More next week,
Ben
PS. Any thoughts on Hirabayashi, the internment, or any related histories or issues to add?
1/7 Memory Day nominee: Zora Neale Hurston, the Harlem Renaissance novelist, anthropologist and folklorist, and essayist whose works consistently depict the complexity and richness, the pain and promise, the horrors and hopes, of African American and American communities and lives.
1/8 Memory Day nominee: Emily Green Balch, the Nobel Prize-winning anti-war activist whose near-century of inspiring American life included professing economics and sociology at Wellesley, writing pioneering books on Slavic Americans and international women's organizing and activism (among others), and defending human rights around the globe.
January 6, 2012
January 6, 2012: American Studiers Needed
[This week I've been highlighting some of the benefits of an American Studies methodology. This is the fifth and final entry in that series.]
How an American Studies approach works best when it's as diverse, multivocal, and communally interconnected and inspiring as America itself.
I could provide another American Studies analytical example here, and will of course continue to do so in this space in the days and weeks to come. But I know I speak for both myself and Graham Beckwith when I say that this new site's most profound goal is to be driven not by my voice (that's what this blog is for) nor by his (although his designs and vision are creating the space where this will all happen) but by the voices and perspectives, the ideas and needs, of as many American Studiers as possible. And so on this last day of my first week blogging at the new site, I have a request for you.
The short version is this: I want to hear what American thing—a text (in any genre and media), a event, a figure, an issue or debate, an idea, a period, a question, whatever you've got—you've got an American Studies analytical take on. Maybe you've already articulated that take pretty fully somewhere, and we can link to it or otherwise include it here. Maybe you'd like the chance to articulate it more fully, and you can contribute a guest post to the blog or a thread to the Forum or share it in some other form that works for you. Or maybe it's more something that could become part of our pages or content here in an overarching and evolving way.
Whatever the case may be—and I'd love to have starting points and suggestions of all those types, and plenty of them—all I'm asking for right now is that you let me know that you're interested. A comment on this post works fine for that, as would an email (brailton@fitchburgstate.edu) or tweet (@AmericanStudier) if you prefer. This site will grow and succeed in direct proportion to how much it becomes a community of voices, so let's get started building that conversation!
More this weekend,
Ben
PS. You know what to do!
1/6 Memory Day nominee: Carl Sandburg, the son of Swedish American immigrants and a Spanish American War vet who became one of the 20th century's most multi-talented and prolific writers: of poems that define a city and era, of a Pulitzer-winning multi-volume biography of Lincoln, and of a huge and very underrated historical novel.
How an American Studies approach works best when it's as diverse, multivocal, and communally interconnected and inspiring as America itself.
I could provide another American Studies analytical example here, and will of course continue to do so in this space in the days and weeks to come. But I know I speak for both myself and Graham Beckwith when I say that this new site's most profound goal is to be driven not by my voice (that's what this blog is for) nor by his (although his designs and vision are creating the space where this will all happen) but by the voices and perspectives, the ideas and needs, of as many American Studiers as possible. And so on this last day of my first week blogging at the new site, I have a request for you.
The short version is this: I want to hear what American thing—a text (in any genre and media), a event, a figure, an issue or debate, an idea, a period, a question, whatever you've got—you've got an American Studies analytical take on. Maybe you've already articulated that take pretty fully somewhere, and we can link to it or otherwise include it here. Maybe you'd like the chance to articulate it more fully, and you can contribute a guest post to the blog or a thread to the Forum or share it in some other form that works for you. Or maybe it's more something that could become part of our pages or content here in an overarching and evolving way.
Whatever the case may be—and I'd love to have starting points and suggestions of all those types, and plenty of them—all I'm asking for right now is that you let me know that you're interested. A comment on this post works fine for that, as would an email (brailton@fitchburgstate.edu) or tweet (@AmericanStudier) if you prefer. This site will grow and succeed in direct proportion to how much it becomes a community of voices, so let's get started building that conversation!
More this weekend,
Ben
PS. You know what to do!
1/6 Memory Day nominee: Carl Sandburg, the son of Swedish American immigrants and a Spanish American War vet who became one of the 20th century's most multi-talented and prolific writers: of poems that define a city and era, of a Pulitzer-winning multi-volume biography of Lincoln, and of a huge and very underrated historical novel.
January 5, 2012
January 5, 2012: Mike Mulligan and His America
[This week I'll be highlighting some of the benefits of an American Studies methodology. This is the fourth in that series.]
How an American Studies approach can help us dig into the many layers of one of our most enduring children's books.When you have two young AmericanStudiers like I do, you spend a lot of time reading children's books. Often the same books over and over again, in fact. While there are few things I would rather do, it's nonetheless fair to say that an adult AmericanStudier's mind occasionally wanders during the 234th reading of a particular book; hence my thoughts on The Cat in the Hat and single motherhood in this post, for example. One of the boys' favorites, for its construction-vehicle-focus, for its beautiful illustrations, and for its pitch-perfect narrative voice and storytelling, is Virginia Lee Burton's Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (1939). And luckily for the American Studier who gets to read Mike at least once a week, it also reveals, reflects, and carries forward a number of complex and significant American narratives and histories.Burton's book was written and published during the Great Depression, and it certainly engages with that central historical context in interesting if somewhat conflicted ways. The nation-building work on public/infrastructure projects that Mike and Mary Ann do in the opening pages echoes the Works Progress Administration's and other New Deal-era efforts, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Hoover Dam, and makes a case for the importance of labor and work more broadly; yet in Burton's book those projects are apparently quickly forgotten, and Mike and Mary Ann find themselves unemployed, their own depression (in every sense, as they cry together over a landfill of discarded steam shovels) the text's real starting point. Similarly, when they journey to the small town of Poppersville to bid on its city hall project, they encounter some of the worst as well as the best of communal relationships during an economic downturn—the penny-pinching, dog-eat-dog mentality of councilman Henry B. Swap is what gets Mike and Mary Ann the job in the first place and motivates at least some of the intense interest in their efforts, even if the community members do seem eventually to bond together in support of those (successful) efforts.Those conflicted themes are not only relevant to the Depression, however—they also reflect a couple of distinct but interconnected dualities out of which much of American populism, at least since the late 19th century Populist movement and party, has arisen. For one, American populism has vacillated significantly between a nostalgic embrace of idealized, seemingly lost historical communities and identities and a progressive push for future change; Burton's book, with both the villain's role played by new technologies and Mike and Mary Ann's Popperville endpoint, seems to side with nostalgia and the past, although I might argue that Mike and Mary Ann have helped moved Popperville a bit more fully into the future in the process. Even if they have, though, they have done so in an explicitly rural, or at least small-town, setting, a world which has likewise been in complicated and often conflicted relationship with the urban throughout the history of America populism. But Mike and Mary Ann's early identities and works certainly resonate with the urban contexts of the labor movement, and perhaps their arc in the book suggests that the worlds of urban and rural America could no longer afford, in the depression or in the 20th century more broadly, to remain separate in perspective or reality.Just some things to think about the next time you read a children's book—no thanks necessary, it's what we AmericanStudiers do. Last entry in this series tomorrow,Ben
PS. Any children's books you'd AmericanStudy?
1/5 Memory Day nominee: Hosea Williams, the Civil Rights leader and hugely inspiring American whose exemplary 20th century life included surviving a near-lynching, serving in World War II, working closely with Martin Luther King, and founding a still-thriving organization dedicated to feeding hungry and homeless Americans.
How an American Studies approach can help us dig into the many layers of one of our most enduring children's books.When you have two young AmericanStudiers like I do, you spend a lot of time reading children's books. Often the same books over and over again, in fact. While there are few things I would rather do, it's nonetheless fair to say that an adult AmericanStudier's mind occasionally wanders during the 234th reading of a particular book; hence my thoughts on The Cat in the Hat and single motherhood in this post, for example. One of the boys' favorites, for its construction-vehicle-focus, for its beautiful illustrations, and for its pitch-perfect narrative voice and storytelling, is Virginia Lee Burton's Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (1939). And luckily for the American Studier who gets to read Mike at least once a week, it also reveals, reflects, and carries forward a number of complex and significant American narratives and histories.Burton's book was written and published during the Great Depression, and it certainly engages with that central historical context in interesting if somewhat conflicted ways. The nation-building work on public/infrastructure projects that Mike and Mary Ann do in the opening pages echoes the Works Progress Administration's and other New Deal-era efforts, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Hoover Dam, and makes a case for the importance of labor and work more broadly; yet in Burton's book those projects are apparently quickly forgotten, and Mike and Mary Ann find themselves unemployed, their own depression (in every sense, as they cry together over a landfill of discarded steam shovels) the text's real starting point. Similarly, when they journey to the small town of Poppersville to bid on its city hall project, they encounter some of the worst as well as the best of communal relationships during an economic downturn—the penny-pinching, dog-eat-dog mentality of councilman Henry B. Swap is what gets Mike and Mary Ann the job in the first place and motivates at least some of the intense interest in their efforts, even if the community members do seem eventually to bond together in support of those (successful) efforts.Those conflicted themes are not only relevant to the Depression, however—they also reflect a couple of distinct but interconnected dualities out of which much of American populism, at least since the late 19th century Populist movement and party, has arisen. For one, American populism has vacillated significantly between a nostalgic embrace of idealized, seemingly lost historical communities and identities and a progressive push for future change; Burton's book, with both the villain's role played by new technologies and Mike and Mary Ann's Popperville endpoint, seems to side with nostalgia and the past, although I might argue that Mike and Mary Ann have helped moved Popperville a bit more fully into the future in the process. Even if they have, though, they have done so in an explicitly rural, or at least small-town, setting, a world which has likewise been in complicated and often conflicted relationship with the urban throughout the history of America populism. But Mike and Mary Ann's early identities and works certainly resonate with the urban contexts of the labor movement, and perhaps their arc in the book suggests that the worlds of urban and rural America could no longer afford, in the depression or in the 20th century more broadly, to remain separate in perspective or reality.Just some things to think about the next time you read a children's book—no thanks necessary, it's what we AmericanStudiers do. Last entry in this series tomorrow,Ben
PS. Any children's books you'd AmericanStudy?
1/5 Memory Day nominee: Hosea Williams, the Civil Rights leader and hugely inspiring American whose exemplary 20th century life included surviving a near-lynching, serving in World War II, working closely with Martin Luther King, and founding a still-thriving organization dedicated to feeding hungry and homeless Americans.
January 4, 2012
January 4, 2012: Gaga for American Studies
[This week I'll be highlighting some of the benefits of an American Studies methodology. This is the third in that series.]
How an American Studies approach can reveal the threads of contemporary and historical connections that weave together around one of our most unique pop culture forces.Whether you're a card-carrying member of her Little Monsters or think that she's a sign of the imminent apocalypse—and full disclosure, my wife's a big fan so I've gotten to hear pretty much all of her music to date and certainly lean more toward the former category—you're not likely to disagree with the sentiment that Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga, is a strikingly original popular musician, artist, and presence. That's perhaps especially true of her performance artist-like qualities—the meat dress, the giant egg on the red carpet, the 10-minute movies instead of conventional music videos, and so on—but even her songs, while often clearly influenced and inspired by earlier artists (such as Madonna), have a sound and feel that is very much her own and unlike anything else on the contemporary pop music scene.Yet an American Studies approach to a figure like Gaga would stress the significance of connecting her to different cultural and historical narratives—not to minimize her individual and unique qualities, but to make clear how they exist in those broader contexts and conversations. Of the many aspects of our contemporary society and world to which I might connect Gaga—our digital and socially networked communities, transnational influences and identities, the role of ITunes and YouTube in 21st century pop music—perhaps the most complex and interesting is her relationship to what we might call post-gendered America. As with narratives of Obama and "post-racial America," I fully understand that any argument about the ways in which America has moved past traditional gender identities and roles is going to be immediately and importantly complicated by lots of other ongoing realities; but nonetheless, I think a comparison of Lady Gaga to Madonna is illuminating here: Madonna rose to prominence and kept herself relevant by embodying and even selling a strong female sexuality, whereas to my mind Gaga has done so by embodying and even publicly advocating for multiple sexualities, cross- and trans-gendered identities, and generally an complication of any and all such boundaries.At the same time that we American Studiers seek to understand the contemporary and concurrent conversations to which any individual artist and American connects, however, we also work to put every individual moment in its broader cultural and historical contexts. Some of the most obvious, and certainly relevant and illuminating, such contexts for Lady Gaga are to postmodern and avant-garde American artists, and most especially to their defining representative Andy Warhol; like Gaga, Warhol utilized and profited greatly from (and so could be seen as "selling out" to) popular and consumer culture, while at the same time offering counter-culture critiques that complicated dominant narratives of fame, success, and identity. Yet Gaga's career to date, persona, and voice also interestingly echo those of one of the 19th century's most famous and success women: Fanny Fern. As her era's highest-paid newspaper columnist, Fern could certainly be described (in comparison to contemporaries like Margaret Fuller and Lydia Maria Child) as more commercialized and less genuinely counter-cultural; but at the same time Fern used her invented persona and tremendous media success both to advocate for controversial and critical social causes and to develop a voice and style unlike any other writer of her day.You might make entirely different contemporary and American, cultural and historical connections for Gaga, of course, and that's precisely (or at least a large part of) the point. It's the American Studies approach and perspective that's important, to help us realize how much any artist, even and especially the most unique, can tell us about our culture and society. More tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? How would you analyze Lady Gaga? Or are there other contemporary cultural figures you'd think about in these ways?1/4 Memory Day nominee: Max Eastman, the poet, journalist, and political activist whose complex and always interesting and inspiring writings and life can help us trace many of the 20th century's most prominent communities, from the Harlem Renaissance (for which he was a patron) to 1930s Communism, his modernist literary efforts to post-World War II conservative turns in his political and philosophy ideas.
How an American Studies approach can reveal the threads of contemporary and historical connections that weave together around one of our most unique pop culture forces.Whether you're a card-carrying member of her Little Monsters or think that she's a sign of the imminent apocalypse—and full disclosure, my wife's a big fan so I've gotten to hear pretty much all of her music to date and certainly lean more toward the former category—you're not likely to disagree with the sentiment that Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga, is a strikingly original popular musician, artist, and presence. That's perhaps especially true of her performance artist-like qualities—the meat dress, the giant egg on the red carpet, the 10-minute movies instead of conventional music videos, and so on—but even her songs, while often clearly influenced and inspired by earlier artists (such as Madonna), have a sound and feel that is very much her own and unlike anything else on the contemporary pop music scene.Yet an American Studies approach to a figure like Gaga would stress the significance of connecting her to different cultural and historical narratives—not to minimize her individual and unique qualities, but to make clear how they exist in those broader contexts and conversations. Of the many aspects of our contemporary society and world to which I might connect Gaga—our digital and socially networked communities, transnational influences and identities, the role of ITunes and YouTube in 21st century pop music—perhaps the most complex and interesting is her relationship to what we might call post-gendered America. As with narratives of Obama and "post-racial America," I fully understand that any argument about the ways in which America has moved past traditional gender identities and roles is going to be immediately and importantly complicated by lots of other ongoing realities; but nonetheless, I think a comparison of Lady Gaga to Madonna is illuminating here: Madonna rose to prominence and kept herself relevant by embodying and even selling a strong female sexuality, whereas to my mind Gaga has done so by embodying and even publicly advocating for multiple sexualities, cross- and trans-gendered identities, and generally an complication of any and all such boundaries.At the same time that we American Studiers seek to understand the contemporary and concurrent conversations to which any individual artist and American connects, however, we also work to put every individual moment in its broader cultural and historical contexts. Some of the most obvious, and certainly relevant and illuminating, such contexts for Lady Gaga are to postmodern and avant-garde American artists, and most especially to their defining representative Andy Warhol; like Gaga, Warhol utilized and profited greatly from (and so could be seen as "selling out" to) popular and consumer culture, while at the same time offering counter-culture critiques that complicated dominant narratives of fame, success, and identity. Yet Gaga's career to date, persona, and voice also interestingly echo those of one of the 19th century's most famous and success women: Fanny Fern. As her era's highest-paid newspaper columnist, Fern could certainly be described (in comparison to contemporaries like Margaret Fuller and Lydia Maria Child) as more commercialized and less genuinely counter-cultural; but at the same time Fern used her invented persona and tremendous media success both to advocate for controversial and critical social causes and to develop a voice and style unlike any other writer of her day.You might make entirely different contemporary and American, cultural and historical connections for Gaga, of course, and that's precisely (or at least a large part of) the point. It's the American Studies approach and perspective that's important, to help us realize how much any artist, even and especially the most unique, can tell us about our culture and society. More tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? How would you analyze Lady Gaga? Or are there other contemporary cultural figures you'd think about in these ways?1/4 Memory Day nominee: Max Eastman, the poet, journalist, and political activist whose complex and always interesting and inspiring writings and life can help us trace many of the 20th century's most prominent communities, from the Harlem Renaissance (for which he was a patron) to 1930s Communism, his modernist literary efforts to post-World War II conservative turns in his political and philosophy ideas.
January 3, 2012
January 3, 2012: Ron Paul and Race
[This week I'll be highlighting some of the benefits of an American Studies methodology. This is the second in that series.]How an American Studies approach can deepen and strengthen our analyses of one of the most controversial current debates.Perhaps no story is dominating more American headlines at the start of this new year than Ron Paul's surge to the top of the Iowa Republican Caucus, and so perhaps no current debate rages more heatedly than the arguments about whether and to what extent the extremist, often bigoted newsletters that were published for decades under Paul's name (and from the sales of which Paul has made millions of dollars over that time) can and should be used to critique Paul directly. As with any political debate, there's no question that one's own perspective and starting point will have a lot to do with where one comes down on these questions, although it seems clear to me that even in the best-case interpretation Paul allowed his name to be associated with, and the profited from, revolting sentiments and ideas (or was unaware that those things were happening, which isn't necessarily better). An American Studies approach and analysis is not the same as—if never entirely distinct from—a political argument, however, and in this case such an approach would allow us to link Paul's newsletters and history significantly to other prominent late 20th century trends and narratives. When it comes to race in America, some of the most complex but meaningful trends could be described as the unforeseen aftermath of Civil Rights, and more exactly of where and how white supremacist communities and ideas have persisted after that era and its changes. The Southern Poverty Law Center has been monitoring and responding to such communities since its 1971 founding, and its pages on still active KKK groups and more recent offshoots like Stormfront are relevant not only to a general sense of these American trends, but also very specifically to the question of Paul's newsletters and supporters: both KKK leader David Duke and Stormfront founder Don Black have recently, publicly stated that they subscribed to Paul's newsletters and are endorsing him for president.Even more nationally central over the last few decades, of course, have been our debates over multiculturalism and its alternatives—in my second book I define the "culture wars" as driven first and foremost by the competing multicultural and traditional historical narratives—and an American Studies approach could likewise link the Paul issues to those debates. Because while Ayn Rand critiqued racism and white/Southern racists in her 1963 essay "Racism", the libertarian movement that has followed her philosophies has often focused instead on critiquing movements such as multiculturalism or policies such as affirmative action as themselves racist (particularly toward now disadvantaged white Americans), as illustrated by an Ayn Rand Institute-sponsored essay entitled
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