Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 429
November 9, 2011
November 9, 2011: Moments That Remain 3
[The 2011 New England American Studies Association conference has come and gone; but while I've come to the inspiring end of that more than year-long road, I can't quite let go. So each day this week I'll briefly highlight one powerful and affecting moment from the conference's full and diverse and profoundly perfect two days. This is the third post in that series.]One of the aspects of the conference that made me the happiest was the diversity of our attendees, including not only academic scholars from virtually every AmericanStudies discipline but also secondary educators, museum and institution directors, librarians and archivists, historical and cultural performers, freelance writers and journalists, and Native American tribal historians, elders, and storytellers. Yet while we might have had a few more such attendees than at past conferences, by far the most striking group of attendees comprised another, and even less common (in my past NEASA experiences, at least), category: undergraduate students. Thanks to the efforts of two main point people at their institutions (professors Laura D'Amore and Julia Lisella respectively), more than 30 students each from Roger Williams University and Regis College attended the Friday morning sessions, took part in Friday's plenary panel and luncheon, and went out onto the Plimoth grounds that afternoon.I can't say for sure what the experience meant to those undergrads, although I know I sensed some definite excitement, and heard the same from those great faculty point people. Certainly they were able to fit a great deal of diverse conference and AmericanStudies experience into their day: from those different possible panels (ones on recreating the Revolution, heroism, the visual arts, and secondary educators' perspectives in just the first time slot alone); to the five very distinct plenary voices (moving from a Wampanoag elder to a professor of New England Studies to a Wampanoag historian to a cultural archaeologist to an anthropologist who studies historic and heritage tourism); to all that Plimoth has to offer. At the very least, I have to believe that it was a day not like many others in their undergrad experiences—not least because I never had, or perhaps just never took advantage of, the opportunity to spend such a day during my college years.Yet whatever the experience meant to those attendees, what I can say for sure is that their presence meant a great deal for the conference's energy and atmosphere, particularly on its crucial first day. In the past few years, the Friday morning panels had tended to be extremely small, with most conference participants not having arrived yet; similarly, the past few plenary panels, which were scheduled on Friday evening, had likewise drawn far smaller audiences than their excellent speakers and topics deserved. The undergrads were far from the only attendees present at our Friday events—our four panel rooms sat 30-40 people each and were nearly full from the first time slots on; the plenary luncheon had at least 100 registrants in addition to the 65 or so undergrads—but they represented a huge and energetic part of those events, bringing energy and enthusiasm and, yeah, youth to the mix in really affecting ways. If NEASA is going to get more public, more a part of broad as well as academic conversations and communities, it can't just connect outside of universities—it also has to make clear to the people who comprise the bulk of every university why AmericanStudies matters to them. This weekend was a great start!More tomorrow, the last in this series of reflections,BenPS. Any undergrad experiences that were as unique and (I hope) interesting as this one?
November 8, 2011
November 8, 2011: Moments That Remain 2
[The 2011 New England American Studies Association conference has come and gone; but while I've come to the inspiring end of that more than year-long road, I can't quite let go. So each day this week I'll briefly highlight one powerful and affecting moment from the conference's full and diverse and profoundly perfect two days. This is the second post in that series.]If the Friday evening creative reading at Pilgrim Hall, about which I blogged yesterday, represents one way in which we 21st century Americans can engage with the multiple but interconnected communities and cross-cultural conversations that originated in and around Plymouth, Saturday evening's walking tour of the town represents a complementary but very different and even more visceral way. The tour was run by Native Plymouth Tours, an organization founded by two twin brothers (Tim and Tom Turner) who are also directors of the Wampanoag Homesite at Plimoth Plantation and who are as well-versed in the histories of both the Pilgrim and Native communities in Plymouth as anybody in the area. Yet while Tim's tour for us NEASA folks on Saturday evening certainly added some knowledge and perspectives to what I already knew or thought about Plymouth, its real effects were, again, more viscerally than intellectually affecting.The tour began at 5:30, with the sun already mostly set, and so by a few minutes into the 90-minute walk the town was dark. While at first we were walking near the waterfront and well-lit town streets, by about the halfway point we were back closer to woods and then the old burial ground, areas with no artificial lighting; we did have small flashlights, but they certainly didn't make much of a dent in the night. So as we made our way up the side of Town Brook, the waterway up which the Pilgrims had steered their shallop as they found the water sources that convinced them to build their town nearby, it was easy to imagine that we were there with them on an equally cold December day; as we stood at the bottom of the hill where Hobbamock, an emissary to the Pilgrim town (or possibly a spy) from the Wampanoag chief Massasoit, had made his home, it was equally possible to imagine that we were there with Hobbamock, returning to a small hut after a day of dealing carefully with these strange and potentially hostile new arrivals to the land.Historical work, whether done by scholars or museums or other AmericanStudiers, has many purposes, but certainly chief among them is a recapturing of the past, a connection of our present perspectives and identities to those of a distant but still relevant moment and world. It would be naïve to argue that those of us on the tour were transported in any genuine way back to the 1620s—our warm coats and flashlights, our waiting cars and restaurant dinners, to say nothing of our 21st century perspectives and experiences, would belie such an argument. But for a time the tour did help recreate some sense of that distant past, or at least make it possible for us to bridge those four centuries and imagine the Plymouth or Patuxet (as the Wampanoags knew it) that those first American communities had inhabited. And, at least for me, such recreations make it far more possible to likewise imagine both the reasons for hostility and division between those communities and yet the interconnection and interdependence that could be fostered in a New England winter.More tomorrow,BenPS. Any moments or ways in which you've felt closely connected to a distant past?
November 7, 2011
November 7, 2011: Moments That Remain 1
[The 2011 New England American Studies Association conference has come and gone; but while I've come to the inspiring end of that more than year-long road, I can't quite let go. So each day this week I'll briefly highlight one powerful and affecting moment from the conference's full and diverse and profoundly perfect two days.]
The walls of the main exhibition space in Pilgrim Hall are covered with huge paintings of key moments in the Pilgrim narrative: the arrival of the Mayflower, scenes from the devastating first winter, the "First Thanksgiving" in the following year, and so on. Given that the Hall's purpose is to serve as a collection of Pilgrim artifacts and a commemoration of Pilgrim history, those artistic images are hardly surprising, and perhaps not even striking (although their size and grandeur are certainly impressive no matter what). Yet in the early evening of Friday November 4th, as the first day of the NEASA conference ended with a fun and engaging set of creative readings and performances by four regional writers, the space and its walls and images felt without question striking, brought into the present and into conversation in visceral and powerful ways.You see, those four writers are all Native Americans, indigenous New England voices. The first, Larry Spotted Crown Mann, began his reading with a Nipmuc prayer and a welcoming song (both sung and performed on the drum); and while Mann and his fellow readers Mihku Paul, Melissa Zobel, and Joan Tavares Avant read pieces that utilized distinct literary genres and engaged with a wide and rich variety of themes and identities and experiences, they all consistently circled back to indigenous identities and perspectives. Given both the explicit and implicit images of Native identities represented on the walls—the lone Wampanoag virtually bowing before fearful Pilgrim arrivals in the room's largest picture, for example; the absence of Massasoit and his more than 60 warriors from the "Thanksgiving" picture, for another—the event could with a good deal of justice be said to have exemplified the third action in our conference subtitle: resisting national narratives.
Yet it will as no surprise to any readers of this blog that the moment resonated differently for me. After all, our national narratives are as much the Wampanoag's as the Pilgrims'—perhaps not the most prominent or mythologized such narratives, but the most accurate and genuine ones. And even more significantly, I would argue that as soon as those two communities encountered one another on the shores of Cape Cod in November 1620, the most genuine ensuing communal narratives were strikingly like those embodied by the readers and walls on Friday evening in Pilgrim Hall—conflicted but connected, challenging but conversational, incomplete but inspiring. Mann also talked in his performance about how much the land under us, like the histories and stories he shared, belongs to, and indeed defines, all of us, of every American community and culture; and of the central national community and culture that exists only through and between all of ours.I felt that on Friday evening, as powerfully as I ever have. More tomorrow,
BenPS. If you were at the conference, please feel very free to add your thoughts or responses here!
The walls of the main exhibition space in Pilgrim Hall are covered with huge paintings of key moments in the Pilgrim narrative: the arrival of the Mayflower, scenes from the devastating first winter, the "First Thanksgiving" in the following year, and so on. Given that the Hall's purpose is to serve as a collection of Pilgrim artifacts and a commemoration of Pilgrim history, those artistic images are hardly surprising, and perhaps not even striking (although their size and grandeur are certainly impressive no matter what). Yet in the early evening of Friday November 4th, as the first day of the NEASA conference ended with a fun and engaging set of creative readings and performances by four regional writers, the space and its walls and images felt without question striking, brought into the present and into conversation in visceral and powerful ways.You see, those four writers are all Native Americans, indigenous New England voices. The first, Larry Spotted Crown Mann, began his reading with a Nipmuc prayer and a welcoming song (both sung and performed on the drum); and while Mann and his fellow readers Mihku Paul, Melissa Zobel, and Joan Tavares Avant read pieces that utilized distinct literary genres and engaged with a wide and rich variety of themes and identities and experiences, they all consistently circled back to indigenous identities and perspectives. Given both the explicit and implicit images of Native identities represented on the walls—the lone Wampanoag virtually bowing before fearful Pilgrim arrivals in the room's largest picture, for example; the absence of Massasoit and his more than 60 warriors from the "Thanksgiving" picture, for another—the event could with a good deal of justice be said to have exemplified the third action in our conference subtitle: resisting national narratives.
Yet it will as no surprise to any readers of this blog that the moment resonated differently for me. After all, our national narratives are as much the Wampanoag's as the Pilgrims'—perhaps not the most prominent or mythologized such narratives, but the most accurate and genuine ones. And even more significantly, I would argue that as soon as those two communities encountered one another on the shores of Cape Cod in November 1620, the most genuine ensuing communal narratives were strikingly like those embodied by the readers and walls on Friday evening in Pilgrim Hall—conflicted but connected, challenging but conversational, incomplete but inspiring. Mann also talked in his performance about how much the land under us, like the histories and stories he shared, belongs to, and indeed defines, all of us, of every American community and culture; and of the central national community and culture that exists only through and between all of ours.I felt that on Friday evening, as powerfully as I ever have. More tomorrow,
BenPS. If you were at the conference, please feel very free to add your thoughts or responses here!
November 3, 2011
November 4-6, 2011: It's Here!
Early Friday I morning I drive down to Plymouth, and Plimoth Plantation, where the New England American Studies Association conference will unfold over the next two days. I've blogged about the conference many times over the past half-year or so, and if you can't join us at Plimoth you can catch up on those posts under the "New England ASA" category on the right. There are many, many specific moments which I'm looking forward to, but I suppose what I'm most excited about is just the opportunity to finally meet and talk to the literally hundreds (well, 167 current registrants, plus 65 undergraduates from two universities) of fellow AmericanStudies I've met through this process. AmericanStudies is nothing if it's not a community, as I hope this blog has expressed in a variety of ways throughout its existence—and I've never felt more connected to any scholarly community than I already do to the one that's about to gather at Plimoth Plantation.
There's one other main thing that I'd say AmericanStudies is, though, and that's an interdiscipline, an interconnected web of texts and medias, methodologies and approaches, ideas and interests. And of the many things about the conference that make me very proud to be connected to it, certainly at the top of that list is our diversity and range of conversations—from historical and literary panels to ones on the visual arts and pop culture and film and archaeology and anthropology; a plenary panel featuring a scholar of New England Studies, an archaeologist, a scholar of cultural tourism and heritage sites, a Native American historian and museum director, and a Native American tribal elder and storyteller; a creative event featuring readings by four Native American writers who work in four different genres; a keynote address by James Loewen, one of the most prominent and successful public scholars and historians of the last few decades; a post-conference tour of Plymouth with the award-winning Native Plymouth Tours; special sessions geared toward and even featuring presentations by Massachusetts secondary educators; special sessions led by members of the Plimoth Plantation Education, Interpretation, and Library/Collections Departments; and more. I could go on—obviously—but I'll stop there. If you're not able to come down to Plimoth, and want to hear more voices than just mine (which I would understand), remember that all the pre-conference blog posts remain up, and represent a significant and impressive collection of AmericanStudies ideas and conversations in their own right. A NEASA colleague of mine might live-blog some of the conference there, but no matter what I am committed to maintaining an online and evolving NEASA presence, and will of course keep you posted on that in this space as well. If you're here, the odds are good that you'll find plenty to interest you there as well—and the odds are even better that your voice will be entirely and gladly welcomed there if and when you want to add it into the mix.
Off to Plimoth! More next week,Ben
PS. That means you've got three days to make suggestions for future posts or focal points here! Have at it!
There's one other main thing that I'd say AmericanStudies is, though, and that's an interdiscipline, an interconnected web of texts and medias, methodologies and approaches, ideas and interests. And of the many things about the conference that make me very proud to be connected to it, certainly at the top of that list is our diversity and range of conversations—from historical and literary panels to ones on the visual arts and pop culture and film and archaeology and anthropology; a plenary panel featuring a scholar of New England Studies, an archaeologist, a scholar of cultural tourism and heritage sites, a Native American historian and museum director, and a Native American tribal elder and storyteller; a creative event featuring readings by four Native American writers who work in four different genres; a keynote address by James Loewen, one of the most prominent and successful public scholars and historians of the last few decades; a post-conference tour of Plymouth with the award-winning Native Plymouth Tours; special sessions geared toward and even featuring presentations by Massachusetts secondary educators; special sessions led by members of the Plimoth Plantation Education, Interpretation, and Library/Collections Departments; and more. I could go on—obviously—but I'll stop there. If you're not able to come down to Plimoth, and want to hear more voices than just mine (which I would understand), remember that all the pre-conference blog posts remain up, and represent a significant and impressive collection of AmericanStudies ideas and conversations in their own right. A NEASA colleague of mine might live-blog some of the conference there, but no matter what I am committed to maintaining an online and evolving NEASA presence, and will of course keep you posted on that in this space as well. If you're here, the odds are good that you'll find plenty to interest you there as well—and the odds are even better that your voice will be entirely and gladly welcomed there if and when you want to add it into the mix.
Off to Plimoth! More next week,Ben
PS. That means you've got three days to make suggestions for future posts or focal points here! Have at it!
November 3, 2011: Happily Ever After
For the third and final entry in this wife-inspired series of posts, I wanted to highlight four examples of strong, even exemplary, marriages in American texts. Tolstoy was certainly not wrong about the relative audience interest levels in happy and unhappy families, but these four couples prove that you a happy family can contribute to great art too:
1) The Carterets from Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901): Philip and Olivia Carteret are not good people—he's a proud white supremacist who helps orchestrate a racial massacre; she's spent her whole life denying the existence and rights of her mixed race half-sister (that hottie Janet Miller from yesterday's post). But Chesnutt's novel is nothing if not complex and nuanced, particularly in its creation of multiple perspectives; and what the Carterets are very good at is caring deeply and powerfully about each other and then fragile young son. Hard to argue with those emotions, or any actions that are influenced by them.
2) Ántonia Shimerda and Anton Cuzak from Willa Cather's My Ántonia (1918): It's difficult to read Cather's novel and not root for Jim Burden to end up with Ántonia. He doesn't (spoiler alert), but it's equally difficult not to be very happy when we meet Ántonia's husband Anton in the novel's closing Book. He complements Ántonia perfectly, and helps her create a family and home that finally do justice to her own strengths and character.
3) Sybil and Kelly Stone from The Family Stone (2005): There's a lot to like about this zany family comedy, including great performances from a ton of impressive actors and actresses, but ultimately the movie works because at the heart of the chaos and conflict is a genuinely loving and committed couple, played to perfection by Diane Keaton and (surprisingly, at least to me) Craig T. Nelson. We have to believe that all their kids would want to come back to their home for Christmas every year, chaos notwithstanding—and we most definitely do.
4) Jin and Sun Kwon from Lost (2004-2010; that linked scene is a serious mini-spoiler for the show's final episode): Unlike the other couples listed here, Jin and Sun had plenty of relationship problems—when we first met them she had been learning English behind his back in order to facilitate her leaving him, at least in part because he had been (without her knowledge) working as a hired killer for her gangster father. But over the course of the show's six seasons, their bond and mutual dependence only deepened—ultimately bridging time and space in multiple, genuinely inspiring ways.
Some strong models to live up to, fictional as they may be! More tomorrow, a special post as the NEASA conference finally gets under way,
BenPS. Links in the entries again—so any fictional couples you'd add to this list?
1) The Carterets from Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901): Philip and Olivia Carteret are not good people—he's a proud white supremacist who helps orchestrate a racial massacre; she's spent her whole life denying the existence and rights of her mixed race half-sister (that hottie Janet Miller from yesterday's post). But Chesnutt's novel is nothing if not complex and nuanced, particularly in its creation of multiple perspectives; and what the Carterets are very good at is caring deeply and powerfully about each other and then fragile young son. Hard to argue with those emotions, or any actions that are influenced by them.
2) Ántonia Shimerda and Anton Cuzak from Willa Cather's My Ántonia (1918): It's difficult to read Cather's novel and not root for Jim Burden to end up with Ántonia. He doesn't (spoiler alert), but it's equally difficult not to be very happy when we meet Ántonia's husband Anton in the novel's closing Book. He complements Ántonia perfectly, and helps her create a family and home that finally do justice to her own strengths and character.
3) Sybil and Kelly Stone from The Family Stone (2005): There's a lot to like about this zany family comedy, including great performances from a ton of impressive actors and actresses, but ultimately the movie works because at the heart of the chaos and conflict is a genuinely loving and committed couple, played to perfection by Diane Keaton and (surprisingly, at least to me) Craig T. Nelson. We have to believe that all their kids would want to come back to their home for Christmas every year, chaos notwithstanding—and we most definitely do.
4) Jin and Sun Kwon from Lost (2004-2010; that linked scene is a serious mini-spoiler for the show's final episode): Unlike the other couples listed here, Jin and Sun had plenty of relationship problems—when we first met them she had been learning English behind his back in order to facilitate her leaving him, at least in part because he had been (without her knowledge) working as a hired killer for her gangster father. But over the course of the show's six seasons, their bond and mutual dependence only deepened—ultimately bridging time and space in multiple, genuinely inspiring ways.
Some strong models to live up to, fictional as they may be! More tomorrow, a special post as the NEASA conference finally gets under way,
BenPS. Links in the entries again—so any fictional couples you'd add to this list?
November 2, 2011
November 2, 2011: Storybook Weddings
Perhaps these posts reveal more about my psyche than you'd like to know, but I had to follow up yesterday's with five more American women to whom I'd say "I do"—this time, five particularly impressive fictional characters:
1) Phoebe Pyncheon, from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables (1851): Country cousin Phoebe has a bit of the "too good to be true" thing going on, but not entirely—she does grow darker and more complex as the novel progresses, and becomes in the process a heroine who can both embody and yet transcend some her family's and the novel's most powerful histories and identities.
2) Janet Miller, from Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901): A mixed-race beauty whose understanding and forgiveness are linchpins of this amazing novel's plot and themes, Janet is also a great mother and can deliver a devastating verbal takedown when the situation calls for it.
3) Ántonia Shimerda, from Willa Cather's My Ántonia (1918): Jim Burden, Cather's novelist-narrator, admits that what he writes is his version of Ántonia, and later adds that she's pretty much his ideal woman. So sure, he's biased. But if you can read through this text and not fall in love with Ántonia in your own right, well, to quote Monica Geller (a somewhat less impressive but funny fictional character), you're dead inside.
4) Anne Stanton, from Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men (1946): Jack Burden (no relation to Jim) does just about everything a man can do to escape Anne, and the histories and truths she might force him to recognize, confront, and incorporate into his own identity. That he fails so completely, and ends up (spoiler alert) married both to Anne and to "the awful responsibility of time," makes for one of American literature's hardest-earnest and most genuinely happy endings.
5) Ts'eh, from Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony (1977): It's possible that this woman is just a dream, or a mythological apparition, or a spirit guide. She's also married to a hunter who is himself either such a spiritual figure or, y'know, is her husband. Doesn't matter at all—I love her just as much as Silko's Tayo does. And since that love is a profoundly cleansing and healing one, that's fine by me.
More tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Once again, links within those entries. So any fictional characters you'd commit to for life?
1) Phoebe Pyncheon, from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables (1851): Country cousin Phoebe has a bit of the "too good to be true" thing going on, but not entirely—she does grow darker and more complex as the novel progresses, and becomes in the process a heroine who can both embody and yet transcend some her family's and the novel's most powerful histories and identities.
2) Janet Miller, from Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901): A mixed-race beauty whose understanding and forgiveness are linchpins of this amazing novel's plot and themes, Janet is also a great mother and can deliver a devastating verbal takedown when the situation calls for it.
3) Ántonia Shimerda, from Willa Cather's My Ántonia (1918): Jim Burden, Cather's novelist-narrator, admits that what he writes is his version of Ántonia, and later adds that she's pretty much his ideal woman. So sure, he's biased. But if you can read through this text and not fall in love with Ántonia in your own right, well, to quote Monica Geller (a somewhat less impressive but funny fictional character), you're dead inside.
4) Anne Stanton, from Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men (1946): Jack Burden (no relation to Jim) does just about everything a man can do to escape Anne, and the histories and truths she might force him to recognize, confront, and incorporate into his own identity. That he fails so completely, and ends up (spoiler alert) married both to Anne and to "the awful responsibility of time," makes for one of American literature's hardest-earnest and most genuinely happy endings.
5) Ts'eh, from Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony (1977): It's possible that this woman is just a dream, or a mythological apparition, or a spirit guide. She's also married to a hunter who is himself either such a spiritual figure or, y'know, is her husband. Doesn't matter at all—I love her just as much as Silko's Tayo does. And since that love is a profoundly cleansing and healing one, that's fine by me.
More tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Once again, links within those entries. So any fictional characters you'd commit to for life?
November 1, 2011
November 1, 2011: AmericanStudier, I Married Her
Today is my wife's birthday, and in honor of that special occasion and more special woman, here, in chronological order, are five other American women about whom I've blogged in this space and whom I'd have been happy (and very fortunate) to marry if a) I hadn't met my wife and b) I had lived in a different time period (among other obstacles, sure):
1) Phillis Wheatley: Poetic genius who transcended slavery (yes, a relatively benign version of it, but still, slavery) to write some of the Revolutionary era's most defining literary works. All, by the way, before she was 20. If that's not AmericanStudies hot, I don't know what is.
2) Fanny Fern: Funny, sarcastic, self-deprecating, smart as a whip, willing and able to wear the pants in a relationship (literally, as in her hilarious and biting article in response to the criminal charges faced by a woman who had dressed in men's clothing), and, yes, the highest-paid newspaper columnist of her era. I know, I would have stood no shot. But an AmericanStudier can dream.
3) Sarah Piatt: Equally adept at capturing the first moments of courtship or the trials and triumphs of parenting, able to write deceptively simple verses for kids and wide audiences or hugely complex works that demand extended readings, married to a fellow poet with whom I guarantee she shared some powerful and passionate works that the rest of us AmericanStudiers can only imagine … yup, works for me.
4) Eleanor Roosevelt: I tend to think that political marriages provide Hollywood marriages with some serious competition in the "these two should not be getting married" sweepstakes. But FDR and Eleanor, whatever their personal struggles and conflicts, have to be the exception to that rule, 'cause they so clearly allowed each other to do more and better and more impressive work for their country than would have been possible solo. But while Franklin's positions and power might well have given Eleanor more exposure and opportunity, I also think she'd have spent her life doing exactly that work no matter what. Gotta love that.
5) Gloria Anzaldúa: Ay caramba, que bella escritura! Me gusta sus palabras. Me gusta mucho. That's some seriously mediocre Spanish, but I know she'd appreciate the effort. A woman and writer of corazón and cranium in equal and equally impressive measure.
Fortunately for me—and, you might add, for those amazing American women as well—I've already found the perfect partner in that AmericanStudies project pictured above. Happy birthday! More tomorrow,Ben
PS. Links in those posts, so here I'll just ask: any amazing Americans (of either gender) to whom you'd gladly say "I do"?
1) Phillis Wheatley: Poetic genius who transcended slavery (yes, a relatively benign version of it, but still, slavery) to write some of the Revolutionary era's most defining literary works. All, by the way, before she was 20. If that's not AmericanStudies hot, I don't know what is.
2) Fanny Fern: Funny, sarcastic, self-deprecating, smart as a whip, willing and able to wear the pants in a relationship (literally, as in her hilarious and biting article in response to the criminal charges faced by a woman who had dressed in men's clothing), and, yes, the highest-paid newspaper columnist of her era. I know, I would have stood no shot. But an AmericanStudier can dream.
3) Sarah Piatt: Equally adept at capturing the first moments of courtship or the trials and triumphs of parenting, able to write deceptively simple verses for kids and wide audiences or hugely complex works that demand extended readings, married to a fellow poet with whom I guarantee she shared some powerful and passionate works that the rest of us AmericanStudiers can only imagine … yup, works for me.
4) Eleanor Roosevelt: I tend to think that political marriages provide Hollywood marriages with some serious competition in the "these two should not be getting married" sweepstakes. But FDR and Eleanor, whatever their personal struggles and conflicts, have to be the exception to that rule, 'cause they so clearly allowed each other to do more and better and more impressive work for their country than would have been possible solo. But while Franklin's positions and power might well have given Eleanor more exposure and opportunity, I also think she'd have spent her life doing exactly that work no matter what. Gotta love that.
5) Gloria Anzaldúa: Ay caramba, que bella escritura! Me gusta sus palabras. Me gusta mucho. That's some seriously mediocre Spanish, but I know she'd appreciate the effort. A woman and writer of corazón and cranium in equal and equally impressive measure.
Fortunately for me—and, you might add, for those amazing American women as well—I've already found the perfect partner in that AmericanStudies project pictured above. Happy birthday! More tomorrow,Ben
PS. Links in those posts, so here I'll just ask: any amazing Americans (of either gender) to whom you'd gladly say "I do"?
October 31, 2011
October 31, 2011: October Recap
October 1-2: American Wedding: My sister's wedding inspires some thoughts, both personal and AmericanStudies.
October 3: Join Us, Pleas: The first of a week's worth of posts on or around the upcoming (now just four days away!) New England American Studies Association conference—this one just extends a couple invitations.October 4: NEASA Follow Ups: The second of the week's NEASA-inspired posts, this one with additional information and links on the conference and its speakers and participants.
October 5: Of Plimoth Plantation: The third of the week's NEASA-inspired posts, on three AmericanStudies goals and elements of the living history museum at Plimoth Plantation.October 6: Native Voices: The fourth of the week's NEASA-inspired posts, on some of the complex and crucial AmericanStudies questions surrounding Native American writing and scholarship.
October 7-9 [Link-Tastic Post 3]: NEASA Conference: The fifth and final NEASA-inspired post brings together some key conference-related links.October 10: Columbus Days: A Columbus Day special, highlighting six prior posts in which I tried to capture some of the complexities of the exploration and settlement era.
October 11: Remembering an Iconoclastic Genius: While thinking about Steve Jobs in order to write a couple posts inspired by his passing, I came across the story of the death of another, even more unquestionably impressive and inspiring American, Professor Derrick Bell.October 12: The Messy, Troubling, Democratizing Machine: The first Jobs-inspired post, on the duality of the machine and the garden in American history, culture, and identity.
October 13: Gospel Musings: The second Jobs-inspired post, on the Gilded Age's robber barons and their Gospel of Wealth narrative. October 14: Gilded Age Addendum: A follow up to the Gilded Age post, focused on the self-made man narrative and its continuing contemporary presence and salience.
October 15-16: Information, Please: As part of my ongoing work on a proposal (for an American Writers Musuem traveling exhibition) focused on contemporary immigrant American authors, a request (which still stands!) for suggestions for interesting such writers.October 17: Finding the Right Plath: A week of posts on authors for whom our dominant narratives are over-simplified or even inaccurate begins with a case for re-reading Sylvia Plath.
October 18: Uncle Re-read: The week continues with a post on Song of the South (to which we shouldn't necessarily return) and Joel Chandler Harris (to whose works we should).October 19: The Importance of Reading Ernest: As the week rolls on, I admit that Ernest Hemingway wasn't the nicest of guys but make the case for reading his fiction nonetheless.
October 20: The Wright Readings: The week's final new post argues that Richard Wright's two best books remain as resonant and vital for AmericanStudiers as any American works.October 21: Out of His Hands [Repeat]: A repeated post rounds out the week by noting that Jonathan Edwards was a lot more than just a fire-and-brimstone preacher.
October 22-23 [Tribute Post 24]: A New Favorite Songwriter: Civil War historian and blogger Kevin Levin points me to an amazing song about African American Union troops and its (anonymous but impressive) songwriter.October 24: Every Day I Write the Book? (or the Website?): Pondering my next options for this blog and its work, and asking for your input as I continue to do so.
October 25 [Scholarly Review 6]: An Exemplary Voice: First of four posts on exemplary digital AmericanStudies scholarship, this one on the "Voice of the Shuttle" digital archive.October 26 [Scholarly Review 7]: How Great is This Valley?: Second digital scholarship post, on the "Valley of the Shadow" Civil War history site.
October 27 [Scholarly Review 8]: Cross Purposes: Third digital scholarship post, on the Virginia AmericanStudies program's "Xroads" site.October 28 [Link-Tastic Post 4]: Literary Links: Fourth digital scholarship post, on Donna Campbell's thorough and helpful collection of American literary links.
October 29-30: Boo(ks)!: Halloween special, on five of the scariest works in American literary history.More tomorrow,
BenPS. Any topics, themes, events, figures, texts, or other subjects you'd love to see here as we move into November? Just let me know!
October 3: Join Us, Pleas: The first of a week's worth of posts on or around the upcoming (now just four days away!) New England American Studies Association conference—this one just extends a couple invitations.October 4: NEASA Follow Ups: The second of the week's NEASA-inspired posts, this one with additional information and links on the conference and its speakers and participants.
October 5: Of Plimoth Plantation: The third of the week's NEASA-inspired posts, on three AmericanStudies goals and elements of the living history museum at Plimoth Plantation.October 6: Native Voices: The fourth of the week's NEASA-inspired posts, on some of the complex and crucial AmericanStudies questions surrounding Native American writing and scholarship.
October 7-9 [Link-Tastic Post 3]: NEASA Conference: The fifth and final NEASA-inspired post brings together some key conference-related links.October 10: Columbus Days: A Columbus Day special, highlighting six prior posts in which I tried to capture some of the complexities of the exploration and settlement era.
October 11: Remembering an Iconoclastic Genius: While thinking about Steve Jobs in order to write a couple posts inspired by his passing, I came across the story of the death of another, even more unquestionably impressive and inspiring American, Professor Derrick Bell.October 12: The Messy, Troubling, Democratizing Machine: The first Jobs-inspired post, on the duality of the machine and the garden in American history, culture, and identity.
October 13: Gospel Musings: The second Jobs-inspired post, on the Gilded Age's robber barons and their Gospel of Wealth narrative. October 14: Gilded Age Addendum: A follow up to the Gilded Age post, focused on the self-made man narrative and its continuing contemporary presence and salience.
October 15-16: Information, Please: As part of my ongoing work on a proposal (for an American Writers Musuem traveling exhibition) focused on contemporary immigrant American authors, a request (which still stands!) for suggestions for interesting such writers.October 17: Finding the Right Plath: A week of posts on authors for whom our dominant narratives are over-simplified or even inaccurate begins with a case for re-reading Sylvia Plath.
October 18: Uncle Re-read: The week continues with a post on Song of the South (to which we shouldn't necessarily return) and Joel Chandler Harris (to whose works we should).October 19: The Importance of Reading Ernest: As the week rolls on, I admit that Ernest Hemingway wasn't the nicest of guys but make the case for reading his fiction nonetheless.
October 20: The Wright Readings: The week's final new post argues that Richard Wright's two best books remain as resonant and vital for AmericanStudiers as any American works.October 21: Out of His Hands [Repeat]: A repeated post rounds out the week by noting that Jonathan Edwards was a lot more than just a fire-and-brimstone preacher.
October 22-23 [Tribute Post 24]: A New Favorite Songwriter: Civil War historian and blogger Kevin Levin points me to an amazing song about African American Union troops and its (anonymous but impressive) songwriter.October 24: Every Day I Write the Book? (or the Website?): Pondering my next options for this blog and its work, and asking for your input as I continue to do so.
October 25 [Scholarly Review 6]: An Exemplary Voice: First of four posts on exemplary digital AmericanStudies scholarship, this one on the "Voice of the Shuttle" digital archive.October 26 [Scholarly Review 7]: How Great is This Valley?: Second digital scholarship post, on the "Valley of the Shadow" Civil War history site.
October 27 [Scholarly Review 8]: Cross Purposes: Third digital scholarship post, on the Virginia AmericanStudies program's "Xroads" site.October 28 [Link-Tastic Post 4]: Literary Links: Fourth digital scholarship post, on Donna Campbell's thorough and helpful collection of American literary links.
October 29-30: Boo(ks)!: Halloween special, on five of the scariest works in American literary history.More tomorrow,
BenPS. Any topics, themes, events, figures, texts, or other subjects you'd love to see here as we move into November? Just let me know!
October 29, 2011
October 29-30, 2011: Boo(ks)!
Since Monday will be the October Recap, this weekend's the time for a holiday post, on five of the scariest works of or moments in American literature (in chronological order):
1) Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland, or the Transformation (1798): Brown's novel suffers from some seriously over-wrought prose, and it can be hard to take its narrator seriously as a result; the pseudo-scientific resolution of its central mystery also leaves a good bit to be desired. But since that central mystery involves a husband and father who turns into a murderous psychopath bent on destroying his own idyllic home and family, well, none of those flaws can entirely take away the spookiness.
2) Edgar Allan Poe, "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839): Just about any Poe story would fit in this space. But given how fully this story's scares depend precisely on the idea of what reading and art can do to the human imagination and psyche of their susceptible audiences, it seems like a good choice.
3) Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery" (1948): I don't think there's anything scarier, in the world or in the imagination, than what people are capable of doing to each other. And Jackson's story is probably the most concise and perfect exemplification of that idea in American literary history. I've read arguments that connect it to the Holocaust, which makes sense timing-wise; but I'd say the story is purposefully, and terrifyingly, more universal than that.
4) Ray Bradbury, "The Veldt" (1950; don't know why the font is so small in that online version, but you can always copy and paste and then enlarge—it's worth it!): The less I give away about Bradbury's story, the better. Suffice it to say it's a pretty good argument for not having kids, or at least for only letting them play with very basic and non-technological toys. Ah well, that ship has sailed for me.
5) Mark Danielewksi, House of Leaves (2000; not an online version, but my prior blog post): As I wrote in that earlier post, Danielewksi's novel is thoroughly post-modern and yet entirely terrifying at the same time. Don't believe it's possible? Read the book—but try to keep some lights on, or maybe just read outside, while you do.
More Monday, that October recap,
Ben
PS. Any scary stories you'd highlight?
1) Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland, or the Transformation (1798): Brown's novel suffers from some seriously over-wrought prose, and it can be hard to take its narrator seriously as a result; the pseudo-scientific resolution of its central mystery also leaves a good bit to be desired. But since that central mystery involves a husband and father who turns into a murderous psychopath bent on destroying his own idyllic home and family, well, none of those flaws can entirely take away the spookiness.
2) Edgar Allan Poe, "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839): Just about any Poe story would fit in this space. But given how fully this story's scares depend precisely on the idea of what reading and art can do to the human imagination and psyche of their susceptible audiences, it seems like a good choice.
3) Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery" (1948): I don't think there's anything scarier, in the world or in the imagination, than what people are capable of doing to each other. And Jackson's story is probably the most concise and perfect exemplification of that idea in American literary history. I've read arguments that connect it to the Holocaust, which makes sense timing-wise; but I'd say the story is purposefully, and terrifyingly, more universal than that.
4) Ray Bradbury, "The Veldt" (1950; don't know why the font is so small in that online version, but you can always copy and paste and then enlarge—it's worth it!): The less I give away about Bradbury's story, the better. Suffice it to say it's a pretty good argument for not having kids, or at least for only letting them play with very basic and non-technological toys. Ah well, that ship has sailed for me.
5) Mark Danielewksi, House of Leaves (2000; not an online version, but my prior blog post): As I wrote in that earlier post, Danielewksi's novel is thoroughly post-modern and yet entirely terrifying at the same time. Don't believe it's possible? Read the book—but try to keep some lights on, or maybe just read outside, while you do.
More Monday, that October recap,
Ben
PS. Any scary stories you'd highlight?
October 28, 2011
October 28, 2011 [Link-tastic Post 4]: Literary Links
Ceding the authority in this last digital-scholarship-focused day to a very impressive page of American literary links, maintained by Professor Donna Campbell of Washington State University:
http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/sites.htmThanks for the great work, Dr. Campbell! More this weekend,
BenPS. Any scholarly websites you'd add into this week's mix?
http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/sites.htmThanks for the great work, Dr. Campbell! More this weekend,
BenPS. Any scholarly websites you'd add into this week's mix?
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