Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 436

August 16, 2011: Me Too!

I wanted to follow up yesterday's best-of-so-far post by making one thing very clear: I'm far from immune to the tendencies toward simplifying and mythologizing national narratives on which I often focus here, and so am just as much the audience for these posts as I am the author of them. To illustrate that point, here (in no particular order) are a few additional favorite posts to date, ones where my own narratives and perspective were explicitly part of what I was challenging:1)      Lee and Longstreet: Growing up in Virginia, I was not only a Civil War buff, but also admittedly more a fan of the Confederate generals than the Union ones. (Stonewall Jackson vs. McClellan? Not even a contest.) Even into adulthood, I've bought into much of the deification of Robert E. Lee. But as I wrote here, that deification is both problematic and has come at the expense of a much more fully inspiring Confederate general, James Longstreet.2)      Eisenhower: I've made no secret in this space of my progressive and liberal political perspective, and it can be tough not to bring that same perspective to my historical and AmericanStudies analyses. But it's very important not to do so, at least not in any overarching or limiting way, as I hope this post on things to admire and emulate in Eisenhower's policies and ideas makes clear.3)      Robert Penn Warren and Segregation: Robert Penn Warren is on my short list of favorite and most inspiring American authors, and so it's tempting to find ways to rationalize or excuse even his more troubling moments (such as his contribution to the polemical and conservative Southern collection I'll Take My Stand). But forcing myself to remember and engage with that moment is both important and, as I wrote here, ultimately even more inspiring.4)      Colonial Williamsburg and Historical Propaganda: I love reenactments of all kinds, including historic sites like Colonial Williamsburg that drop visitors directly into a reenacted past world. Learning about the 20th century and in many ways propagandistic purposes behind the creation and development of CW doesn't diminish that love, necessarily—but it does remind me that reenactments, like any other historical narratives, are not free of such complicating and challenging contexts.5)      The West Wing, the Rosenbergs, and the Head and Heart : One of my favorite West Wing episodes and one of my favorite Don Henley songs work together to help me think through how one's personal perspective and beliefs can influence what we understand about the past, and the necessity of admitting and working to move beyond those influences.In case it might ever seem as if I've got all the answers, these five posts, like many others and (I hope) the blog as a whole, illustrate just how fully my own understanding and analyses and perspective continue to develop and grow. We're in this together! More tomorrow,BenPS. Any simplifying narratives or perspectives of your own that you've had to confront or challenge?

August 15, 2011: Birthday Best

In honor of this AmericanStudier's 34th birthday, here (from oldest to most recent) are 34 of my favorite posts from the first year for this newest addition to the Railton family (forgive the self-indulgence, but it is my birthday, and for newer readers to this blog this might be a good reminder of some of my work over these last 9 months or so):1)      The Wilmington Massacre and The Marrow of Tradition: My first full post, but also my first stab at two of this blog's central purposes: narrating largely forgotten histories; and recommending texts we should all read.2)      Pine Ridge, the American Indian Movement, and Apted's Films: Ditto to those purposes, but also a post in which I interwove history, politics, identity, and different media in, I hope, a pretty exemplary American Studies way.3)      The Shaw Memorial: I'll freely admit that my first handful of posts were also just dedicated to texts and figures and moments and histories that I love—but the Memorial, like Chesnutt's novel and Thunderheart in those first two links, is also a deeply inspiring work of American art.4)      The Chinese Exclusion Act and the Most Amazing Baseball Game Ever: Probably my favorite post to date, maybe because it tells my favorite American story.5)      Ely Parker: The post in which I came up with my idea for Ben's American Hall of Inspiration; I know many of my posts can be pretty depressing, but hopefully the Hall can be a way for me to keep coming back to Americans whose stories and legacies are anything but.6)      My Colleague Ian Williams' Work with Incarcerated Americans: The first post where I made clear that we don't need to look into our national history to find truly inspiring Americans and efforts. 7)      Rush Limbaugh's Thanksgiving Nonsense: My first request, and the first post to engage directly with the kinds of false American histories being advanced by the contemporary right.8)      The Pledge of Allegiance: Another central purpose for this blog is to complicate, and at times directly challenge and seek to change, some of our most accepted national and historical narratives. This is one of the most important such challenges.9)      Public Enemy, N.W.A., and Rap: If you're going to be an AmericanStudier, you have to be willing to analyze even those media and genres on which you're far from an expert, and hopefully find interesting and valuable things to say in the process. 10)   Chinatown and the History of LA : At the same time, the best AmericanStudiers likewise have to be able to analyze their very favorite things (like this 1974 film, for me), and find ways to link them to broader American narratives and histories.11)   The Statue of Liberty: Our national narratives about Lady Liberty are at least as ingrained as those about the Pledge of Allegiance—and just about as inaccurate.12)   Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing" and Parenting: Maybe the first post in which I really admitted my personal and intimate stakes in the topics I'm discussing here, and another of those texts everybody should read to boot.13)   Dorothea Dix and Mental Health Reform: When it comes to a number of the people on whom I've focused here, I didn't know nearly enough myself at the start of my research—making the posts as valuable for me as I could hope them to be for any other reader. This is one of those.14)   Ben Franklin and Anti-Immigrant Sentiments: As with many dominant narratives, those Americans who argue most loudy in favor of limiting immigration usually do so in large part through false, or at best greatly oversimplified and partial, versions of our past.  15)   Divorce in American History: Some of our narratives about the past and present seem so obvious as to be beyond dispute: such as the idea that divorce has become more common and more accepted in our contemporary society. Maybe, but as with every topic I've discussed here, the reality is a good bit more complicated.16)   My Mom's Guest Post on Margaret Wise Brown: The first of the many great guest posts I've been fortunate enough to feature here; I won't link to the others, as you can and should find them by clicking the "Guest Posts" category on the right. And please—whether I've asked you specifically or not—feel free to contribute your own guest post down the road!17)   JFK, Tucson, and the Rhetoric and Reality of Political Violence: The first post in which I deviated from my planned schedule to respond directly to a current event—something I've incorporated very fully into this blog in the months since.18)   Tribute Post to Professor Alan Heimert: I'd say the same about the tribute posts that I did for the guest posts—both that they exemplify how fortunate I've been (in this case in the many amazing people and influences I've known) and that you should read them all (at the "Tribute Posts" category on the right). 19)   Martin Luther King: How do we remember the real, hugely complicated, and to my mind even more inspiring man, rather than the mythic ideal we've created of him? A pretty key AmericanStudies question, one worth asking of every truly inspiring American.20)   Angel Island and Sui Sin Far's "In the Land of the Free": Immigration has been, I believe, my first frequent theme here, perhaps because, as this post illustrates, it can connect us so fully to so many of the darkest, richest, most powerful and significant national places and events, texts and histories.21)   Dresden and Slaughterhouse Five: One of the events we Americans have worked most hard to forget, and one of the novels that most beautifully and compelling argues for the need to remember and retell every story.22)   Valentine's Day Lessons: Maybe my least analytical post, and also one of my favorites. It ain't all academic, y'know.23)   Tori Amos, Lara Logan, and Stories of Rape: One of the greatest songs I've ever heard helps me respond to one of the year's most horrific stories.24)   Peter Gomes and Faith: A tribute to one of the most inspiring Americans I've ever met, and some thoughts on the particularly complicated and important American theme he embodies for me.25)   The Treaty of Tripoli and the Founders on Church and State: Sometimes our historical narratives are a lot more complicated than we think. And sometimes they're just a lot simpler. Sorry, David Barton and Glenn Beck, but there's literally no doubt of what the Founders felt about the separation of church and state the idea of America as a "Christian nation."26)   Newt Gingrich, Definitions of America, and Why We're Here: The first of many posts (such as all those included in the "Book Posts" category on the right) in which I bring the ideas at the heart of my second book into my responses to AmericanStudies narratives and myths.27)   Du Bois, Affirmative Action, and Obama: Donald Trump quickly and thoroughly revealed himself to be a racist jackass, but the core reasons for much of the opposition to affirmative action are both more widespread and more worth responding to than Trump's buffoonery. 28)   Illegal Immigrants, Our Current Deportation Policies, and Empathy: What does deportation really mean and entail, who is affected, and at what human cost? 29)   Tribute to My Grandfather Art Railton: The saddest Railton event of the year leads me to reflect on the many inspiring qualities of my grandfather's life, identity, and especially perspective.30)   My Clearest Immigration Post: Cutting through some of the complexities and stating things as plainly as possible, in response to Sarah Palin's historical falsehoods. Repeated and renamed with even more force here. 31)   Paul Revere, Longfellow, and Wikipedia: Another Sarah Palin-inspired post, this time on her revisions to the Paul Revere story and the question of what is "common knowledge" and what purposes it serves in our communal conversations.32)   "Us vs. them" narratives, Muslim Americans, and Illegal Immigrants: The first of a couple posts to consider these particularly frustrating and divisive national narratives. The second, which also followed up my Norwegian terrorism response (linked below), is here. 33)   Abraham Cahan: The many impressive genres and writings of this turn of the century Jewish American, and why AmericanStudiers should work to push down boundaries between disciplines as much as possible.34)   Terrorism, Norway, and Rhetoric: One of the latest and most important iterations of my using a current event to drive some American analyses—and likewise an illustration of just how fully interconnected international and American events and histories are.
That's it for now! Thanks for all the readings and responses, and more tomorrow,BenPS. As I've asked before, any topics or figures or texts or issues you'd like me to feature here?

August 13-14, 2011 [Tribute Post 21]: Ezra Jack Keats

Given how significant a percentage of my daily life—and an even higher percentage of my reading time, over the last five years at least—is dedicated to children's books, it feels overdue for me to dedicate a full post here to them as well. My Mom Ilene Railton did so way back in the first Guest Post, on Margaret Wise Brown and Goodnight Moon (1947); I also spent a paragraph analyzing the family dynamics of The Cat in the Hat here, and discussed one of my all-time favorite chapter books, David and the Phoenix, as part of the Valentine's post here. Each of those books and their authors would certainly qualify for a tribute post; my Mom's post in fact focused on Brown's hugely innovative theories and styles, and the same could of course be said of Dr. Seuss's literary creations, as well as those of numerous other children's authors (my short list would include Maurice Sendak, Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad books, and Marjorie Weinmann Sharmat's Nate the Great series). But I'm not sure any American children's author is more tribute-worthy than Ezra Jack Keats (1916-1983). Keats' early life and career read like a newsreel of American culture and identity in the early 20th century: born in Brooklyn to Polish American immigrants, he won a nationwide artistic contest in high school with a Depression-era painting of the unemployed; after graduation he went to work for Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA) as a mural painter, then turned to providing illustrations for the exploding new comic books industry; he served in the army during World War II, designing camouflage; spent a year in Paris, where he produced many paintings that were later exhibited there and in the States; and then returned to America to illustrate many of the era's most prominent magazines, including Reader's Digest and Playboy. His first jobs as a children's book illustrator were just another facet of this expanding career—in fact he was offered the first such job after a publisher saw another illustration of his—and as of the end of the 1950s, despite the clear facts of his artistic talent and resume, there was no apparent evidence that Keats had anything especially unique to offer the world of American children's literature.Keats' first authored as well as illustrated children's book, My Dog is Lost (1960), instantly proved that perception false. The book featured as its protagonist a young Puerto Rican boy, a recent immigrant who speaks only Spanish, as he travels New York City in search of his lost dog; during his journey he meets numerous other city dwellers and communities. My Dog's introduction of a multicultural and multiethnic urban world, without sacrificing a bit of story or beauty or audience appeal, set the stage for a long career in which Keats continued to strike that balance, most especially in the many books featuring the African American protagonist Peter; introduced in 1963's Caldecott Winning The Snowy Day, Peter would reappear in many more books and grow from a young boy to a teenager on New York's streets. His world and experiences and stories were recognizably specific to his race and urban setting and time period, but were also always universal and human and full of the wonder and mystery and humor that defines the best children's books. More than, I believe, any other single American author (in any genre), Keats helped bring the nation's burgeoning post-1960 multicultural identity into the mainstream, not with polemics or arguments, but with beautiful illustrations and engaging stories of city life and childhood. My boys don't like The Snowy Day any more than they like many other favorites, but that's precisely my point—it's one great children's book among many, yet one that stands out (in its own era and to an extent even in ours) for the community and world it creates. Well worth a tribute, I'd say. More next week, including my first-ever Ben's Birthday Post on Monday,BenPS. Three links to start with:1)      The official website of both Keats and the great Ezra Jack Keats Foundation: http://www.ezra-jack-keats.org/2)      Interesting YouTube fan video about Keats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ytUze3SMIE3)      OPEN: Any children's authors or books you'd highlight?

August 12, 2011: Click Through

We're concluding week two at the New England American Studies Association's Pre-Conference blog (http://neasaconference.blogspot.com) today, and we've already had a ton of interesting posts and ideas from conference presenters and participants. One thing we could use more of, though, are views, comments, and thoughts from other interested AmericanStudiers. So, in lieu of reading a post of mine, can I ask you to click over there (http://neasaconference.blogspot.com), read at least one of the really interesting posts, and, if you have anything to add, please do so in the comments! Thanks very much, and more this weekend,BenPS. That link one more time: http://neasaconference.blogspot.com.

August 11, 2011: Born This Day

On August 11th, 1833, Robert Ingersoll was born in upstate New York, the son of a prominent local Abolitionist preacher. Like many of the inspiring 19th century Americans about whom I've written here, Ingersoll certainly qualifies as a Renaissance American: a practicing lawyer for his whole adult life, Ingersoll also raised and commanded his own Union Army regiment (the 11th Illinois Volunteer Cavalry) which saw action at Shiloh, served as the Republican Attorney General of Illinois after the war, became one of the era's most famous orators (his "Plumed Knight" speech, advocating for the 1876 presidential nomination of James Blaine, remains well-known today), and befriended Walt Whitman. But Ingersoll was perhaps best known, and is most inspiring to this AmericanStudier, as a vocal and eloquent defender of religious agnosticism (he came to be known as "The Great Agnostic") in a period when such views (at least when made overt) usually spelled political disaster. As he often did, Whitman put Ingersoll's inspiring qualities best (in an interview with journalist Horace Traubel): "He lives, embodies, the individuality I preach. I see in Bob the noblest specimen—American-flavored—pure out of the soil, spreading, giving, demanding light."On August 11th, 1921, Alex Haley was born in Ithaca, New York (not far from Ingersoll's birthplace of Dresden), the son of an Alabama A&M professor of agriculture (in an era when African American college professors were still pretty rare). Haley enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1939 and served not only throughout World War II but for the next twenty years, and only began writing professionally after his retirement at the end of the 1950s. That writing career can be divided into three distinct stages, with each both contributing significantly to our national narratives and in its own way controversial. He conducted the first interviews for Playboy in the early 1960s, and over the course of the decade interviewed such luminaries as Miles Davis (the first subject), Martin Luther King, Jr., and Muhammad Ali. A series of conversations with Malcolm X led to Haley's first book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), which remains to this day both one of America's most important texts and one of its most ambiguously authored ones (it was published after Malcolm's assassination and has always been dogged by questions of how much was truly Malcolm's voice and how much Haley's authorly license). For the next decade Haley researched his family's and American history, culminating in the publication of Roots (1976), which even before the groundbreaking TV miniseries represented one of the century's most successful books. It too has been dogged by controversy, particularly about the authenticity and accuracy of Haley's family details and discoveries; but even if the book's stories were proven literally fictional, it would remain no less compelling and powerful as an autobiographical and historical novel of slavery and race in America.On August 11th, 1933, Jerry Falwell was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, the son of a local businessman and bootlegger (and agnostic!). Although he founded and began serving as pastor of Lynchburg's Thomas Road Baptist Church at the age of 22, it was really in the 1970s that Falwell helped originate and greatly influenced three of the most significant religious, political, and cultural shifts of late 20th century America: gradually turning that local church into one of the nation's first mega-churches; founding Liberty University (in 1971), perhaps the first Christian institution of higher learning to gain national prominence (and certainly one at the forefront of the rise in Christian education as part of a pushback against multiculturalism); and founding the Moral Majority (in 1979), one of the organizations that most fully contributed to the shift in evangelical and fundamentalist Christian Americans' perspectives and goals toward explicit political activism and power. There's no question that many of the most significant American political developments of the last three decades were heavily influenced by Falwell and his cohort, from the election of Ronald Reagan to the many-faceted campaign to destroy Bill Clinton, and certainly to the presidency and policies of George W. Bush. It's fair to say that Falwell might be best known, however, for controversies of his own: his unsuccessful lawsuits against Hustler magazine and Larry Flynt, his "outing" of the "gay" Teletubby Tinky Winky, his horrific post-9/11 attempts to blame the tragedy on gay and other culturally liberal Americans. Given how divisive and heated the cultural wars have become, thanks in no small measure to Falwell's own efforts, it would be perfectly appropriate if heated controversies did indeed constitute his truest legacy.On August 11th, 1948, Stephen Railton was born in Elgin, Illinois, the son of a World War II veteran and Popular Mechanics automotive journalist (about whom more here and here) and an equally impressive college-educated homemaker. Like Ingersoll, Steve Railton can give a great lecture (as generations of University of Virginia students will attest); like Haley, he can research and write a great book (see here and here); unlike Falwell, he's a deeply accepting and progressive-in-the-best-sense thinker and person. And I wouldn't be here, literally and in every other way, without him. Happy birthday, Dad! More tomorrow,BenPS. Four links to start with:1)      Online version of one of Ingersoll's collections of lectures: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30208/30208-h/30208-h.htm2)      Info on the 30th anniversary edition of Roots: http://www.rootsthebook.com/3)      Falwell obituary and timeline from NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101884274)      OPEN: Any birthday wishes you want me to send along?

August 10, 2011: Not Yet E-raced

It's difficult to overstate my frustration with how frequently and consistently our last few years of national political and cultural conversations have been driven by images or narratives of reverse racism, and specifically of African American racism against whites. Vying for the most famous (and probably most stupid) examples would have to be Glenn Beck's description of President Obama as a "racist" who has "a deep-seated hatred of white people" (don't tell his Mom and grandparents!) and Rush Limbaugh's responding to a video of black teens beating up a white peer on a school bus by arguing that this is what happens in "Barack Obama's America." But while those particular instances could be dismissed as outliers or extremes, the fact is that many of the most ongoing contemporary narratives (especially from the right, although they have all permeated broader conversations as well) likewise depend on images of reverse racism that are just as ridiculous and fabricated as they are divisive and damaging: these would include Eric Holder's Justice department giving preferential treatment to African Americans, the NAACP and Shirley Sherrod and others discriminating against whites, ACORN and similar organizations conspiring to steal elections, Sonia Sotomayor and other governmental appointees (and even Obama himself) as "affirmative action picks," and many other narratives along these same lines.A basic knowledge of and engagement with many of the histories with which I've engaged in this space—from 19th century histories of slavery, the rise of the KKK and Jim Crow, and lynching to 20th century ones of ongoing segregation and violence, the resistance to the Civil Rights movement, institutionalized racism in the housing and educational systems, and much else besides—would go a long way toward revealing the silliness in any description of American racism as targeting whites. But that historical knowledge would not necessarily counter a somewhat more complicated but ultimately just as nonsensical and damaging narratives that I have encountered frequently among those advancing these claimants of reverse racism: this narrative begins by admitting and lamenting the long history of racism in America but notes that now things have changed, partly for the better (for the prior victims of racism) but also unfortunately for the worse (for those who have now become the victims). This narrative would thus seem to diffuse any appeal to history (although I have found that it tends to locate the racist histories much further back in time than would be appropriate, and to tend similarly to minimize any blame for the racism through general ideas about "the way things were"), and thus require a response that at least does not rely solely on history in order to offer a different perspective on racism and racial hierarchies here in 21st century America.There are, I believe, plenty of contemporary realities and details that would help with such a response, including some of the broadest facts about our society; this would include a recent Pew study(at the first link) that details the ever-widening wealth gap between white and non-white communities in the United States (a gap that is at its largest in over 25 years). Yet while such economic realities and their usually concomitant institutional policies are often the most telling markers of a society's communal identity, they don't necessarily work (to go back to yesterday's Mailer post) as effective stories. Luckily, or rather helpfully for this argument, there have been numerous overt and horrifying recent stories that make clear the lingering and destructive presence of anti-black racism in America. At the second link, for example, is the story of a late June hate crime in Mississippi, the brutal murder of a black man by a group of local teens who were simply looking to "mess with" any and all African Americans they encountered; at the third is the much less violent but just as fucked-up story of an Arkansas (Little Rock, in a particularly tragic irony) high school that refused to allow an African American girl to serve as its valedictorian, despite her clear status as the graduating senior with the highest GPA. These are, I hope it goes without saying, only two of many such stories I have seen in recent months; like them, each has had its specific contexts and complexities, but all have illustrated that 21st century American victims of racism (whether individual or institutional) still don't look much like Beck or Limbaugh.How we—as individuals, as communities, as a nation—should respond to that reality remains an ongoing and difficult question, although I would certainly connect it to need for the kinds of social programs I wrote about in this post. But as with so many of our most pressing national questions, before we can even begin to address it seriously we need to dispense with the over-simplified and often simply false narratives that obscure our perspective on it. Which is to say, in this case and as bluntly as possible (and echoing a bit what Mike Parker wrote in his guest post here): fellow white people, get over yourselves. More tomorrow,BenPS. Four links to start with:1)      A story on the wealth gap: http://newsone.com/nation/associatedpress2/wealth-gap-between-blacks-whites-widens/2)      New York Times story on the hate crime: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/us/09hate.html?_r=13)      A local story on the valedictorian controversy: http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/07/25/38410.htm4)      OPEN: What do you think?

August 9, 2011: Narrating Our Battles

The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History (1968) isn't just (as I wrote yesterday) the best book from Normal Mailer's crazy prolific and diverse decade, nor even Mailer's best book period; I think it's one of the great works of 20th century American literature, full stop. There are lots of elements that make it so great, from those that I'll admit might be somewhat particular to this AmericanStudier's obsessions (such as the book's structural division, as stated in the title, into two parts that mirror two different emphases of the phrase "historical novel") to those that are more universally effective (it's extremely funny, for example). It's at once an incredibly detailed and grounded depiction of a particular historical event and moment (a 1967 anti-Vietnam march in which Mailer participated) and a broad engagement with many of the most significant themes and questions at the hearts of America and the 1960s. There's no question that it's a Norman Mailer book—the writer's trademark ego is prominently on display throughout—but to my mind likewise no question of its greatness.There are also, however, very specific, contemporary reasons to read Armies in August 2011. The book's occasion is a protest, or more exactly two distinct protests: the first a reading and lecture by Mailer, based on his 1967 pamphlet Why Are We In Vietnam?; the second the following day's anti-war march. In part the inclusion of the former protest reflects that famous Mailer ego, as it allows Mailer to feature himself and his exploits far more than would be possible in an account solely of the march (during which he was arrested, but which nonetheless featured some 200,000 protesters rather than just one drunken and belligerent writer). But in part the two protests mirror the book's two structural sections and their interconnected yet distinct categories of history and novel: the march being, from its origins and purposes on, very much a self-consciously historical event, a grappling with the era's biggest issues on America's most mythologizing stage; while the lecture, on the other hand, represents a likewise purposeful and complex act of story-telling, a fictionalization of self and of history in equal measure. That doesn't mean that Mailer necessarily privileges the lecture over the march, but it does, in my reading, allow the former to influence the latter, set the stage for the march through the lecture's emphasis on story-telling and narratives.It would be crazy to suggest that Mailer's semi-coherent lecture had as much historical or national meaning as, or even influenced its own moment or audience as much as, the following day's march. But it would not be nearly as crazy to note that protests, like any other events, are often and mostly meaningful in direct correlation to how they're narrated, to the representations they receive in the media (it's no coincidence that Mailer begins the book with a quote from Time), to the stories that are told of them. In fact, such questions of narration are particularly salient for protests and other similar social and political events—since these events will always be judged through the lens of their effects, of the impacts and changes they produced, it becomes that much more crucial how they're represented, by whom, and from what perspective. Moreover, as Mailer's book makes clear, such narrations have at their best an ability to humanize everyone involved in and impacted by events far more than might otherwise be the case—in Mailer's hands, not only the many different communities of protesters but also the policeman and national guardsmen become fully-realized American characters, participants in this event who not only retain their humanity, but through it become the heart of an event that illustrates the nation's divisions but also reflects the larger community to which all Americans still belong (whether they like it or not). I'm not a postmodernist about the past—I know that historical events happened, independent of (and more significantly than) any subsequent narration of them—and I don't think Mailer is either; he took part in the march, was arrested in the course of it and spent a weekend in jail as a result, and in those and other ways recognizes its tangible and meaningful realities. Yet as this blog has hopefully illustrated, I believe that no political or cultural or ideological battles are more important than those over narratives, over which stories we tell and how we tell them. Mailer's book not only exemplifies that idea, but likewise models the kinds of complex and human stories that can comprise a richer and more genuinely communal American history and identity, making it an essential American text for sure. More tomorrow,BenPS. Three links to start with:1)      Great review of Armies by literary critic Alfred Kazin: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/04/reviews/mailer-armies.html2)      Other accounts from and photos of the 1967 march: http://www.jofreeman.com/photos/Pentagon67.html3)      OPEN: What do you think?

August 8, 2011: Multi-talented

When it comes to our culture's (and maybe every culture's) evaluation of artistic genius, I think we tend to prefer those artists who do, within their chosen medium, one thing exceptionally well over those who do many things successfully but perhaps less exceptionally. So in film, for example, few critics would dispute the claim that Martin Scorsese is one of the greatest filmmakers of the last few decades, even though (or perhaps, again, because) the majority of his best-known films are very similar in many ways: Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino, Gangs of New York, and The Departed all (despite distinctions of course) mine a core, shared vein of crime and violence, honor and loyalty, and the darker sides of the American Dream. On the other hand, I doubt you could find a critic (outside of those who give 5-star reviews to the latest direct to DVD features in order to get their names on the box) willing to call Ron Howard a genius filmmaker, even though (or perhaps, again, because) his resume includes a stunningly long list of movies that feel quite distinct from each other: Cocoon, Willow, Parenthood, Backdraft, Far and Away, The Paper, Apollo 13, Random, EdTV, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Beautiful Mind, The Missing, Cinderella Man, The Da Vinci Code, and Frost/Nixon all appeared within one twenty-year period of Howard's career, and I don't know that any two can be connected in any particularly significant ways.I'm not trying to make the case that Howard is a more talented (much less more important) filmmaker than Scorsese; that's the kind of thing that gets your AmericanStudier license taken away. While tastes can of course vary, you'd be hard-pressed to argue that any of Howard's films have changed the landscape of American cinema or culture, while certainly Scorsese's early works fit that description. Along those same lines, neither would I claim that Norman Mailer is as talented a novelist or writer as William Faulkner, whose prose style and use of stream of consciousness helped revolutionary the novel and writing and justifiably earned him a Nobel Prize. But just as the range and diversity of Howard's career bespeaks an artist willing and able to delve into virtually every genre, so too would I make a case that the diversity of Mailer's literary output, particularly within a fifteen-year period in the middle of his career (between An American Dream [1965] and The Executioner's Song [1979]), at least demands acknowledgment and at best represents an artist who can vary his talents and results much more fully than a largely static (if again hugely talented) writer like Faulkner. The Mailer novels that I used to bookend that fifteen-year period, An American Dream and The Executioner's Song, might seem in a description of their plots to have a great deal in common: the fictional protagonist of Dream, Stephen Rojack, murders his wife and becomes, along with a femme fatale of a nightclub singer, an adversary to virtually every prominent force in 1960s American society; while the real-life protagonist of Song, Gary Gilmore, falls in love with a young woman whose influence contributes to his eventual breakdown into a mass murderer who is caught and sentenced to death. Yet the two could not be more formally or stylistically different: with Dream published serially in a highly metaphorical and (appropriately) dream-like style, with characters who feel like archetypes of national life existing in an invented Manhattan underworld; and Song written as an intimate, extremely realistic representation of the perspectives and lives of its real characters, set against precisely captured middle American settings. The two were also very different in the responses they produced—Dream was considered anti-war and even treasonous, and was banned from publication in America for years; while Song was a huge best-seller and won Mailer the Pulitzer Prize. Both are also, like all of Mailer's works, flawed and difficult, possibly misogynistic, frustratingly hard to pin down, and, like all of his publications within (and beyond) this wide-ranging fifteen-year period, well worth your time.I haven't even mentioned the best book from within these years: The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History (1968). That's because tomorrow's post will be a follow-up to this one that will focus on that novel and the questions of protest and activism to which it connects. It's just as distinct from the two aforementioned novels as they are from each other, illustrating even more fully the diversity of Mailer's talents and output. There's not much value in trying to prioritize kinds of artistic success, but I think it's high time we added such multi-talented artistry to our list of truly impressive, even genius, achievements. More tomorrow on Armies,Ben PS. Three links to start with:1)      An interesting piece on Gilmore and Mailer: http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-March-1997/petch.html2)      A review of Dream by the great literary critic Richard Poirier: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/an-american-dream-by-norman-mailer/3)      OPEN: Any multi-talented folks you'd highlight?

August 6-7, 2011 [Link-Tastic Post 2]: Blogroll

For this second set of Links, here (as ever in no particular order) are some of the blogs I read regularly, when I'm not, y'know, blogging, working on book three, hanging with the boys, or trying to juggle those other couple dozen balls floating up there:1)      American Literary Blog: It's true that Rob Velella graciously both guest-posted here and allowed me to do the same on his blog. But it's also true that I would need no quid pro quo to recommend this diverse, engaging, always informative (almost-) daily blog on 19th century American literature and culture. 2)      No Category: Yes, fine, Mike Parker is another of my guest posters and my most frequent commenter here. But if you're once again insinuating that these links have somehow been bought and paid for, well, you're once again mistaken. Mike's blog has only been around for a few months, but with its uniformly thoughtful and provocative takes on the complexities of 21st century adult life, it's already one of my go-to reads.3)      Ta-Nehisi Coates:  TNC (as the blogosphere calls him) is one of the most talented writers and most nuanced thinkers I've read in a good while. That he's also a pitch-perfect AmericanStudier, equally adept at analyzing the Civil War and hip hop, Jane Austen and contemporary politics, makes him an even more ideal link for this blog.4)      Joe Posnanski:  To say that Joe is just a sportswriter would be the equivalent of calling Hendrix just a guitarist; not only not accurate to the range and depth of talent, but also failing to see how much power and passion and perfection each man can achieve within his chosen vocation. The posts on Joe's two daughters are the most moving, but most everything the man writes is guaranteed to hit you on some level.5)      Paul Krugman and Robert Reich: Say what you will about the perils of the internet (and I'm likely to agree with much of what you say), but in what other moment would we Americans and citizens of the world have near-daily access to two of the most accomplished and impressive economic thinkers and writers of our era, one a Nobel Prize winner, the other a long-time Cabinet official, both vital voices in assessing the state of our nation and world? I'm not saying I necessarily would have enjoyed reading Alexander Hamilton's blog, but it would have been cool to have the chance—and with these guys, we do!6)      (Pre-)Conference Conversations: This blog has only been around for a week, but already I can tell that … ah, who am I kidding? This is the one link here that has indeed been bought and paid for, but only by my effort and the efforts of my fellow NEASA Council-mate Jonathan Silverman. Our first four pre-conference posts are up, as is my first week's recap and open thread—all offer chances to share your own AmericanStudies voice and ideas, perspective and interests. Check it out, and if you don't like it, you'll get every cent of your money back!If and when you feel as if you need more to read than just AmericanStudies—and I'll understand, I suppose—all six of these are well worth your time. Enjoy, and, y'know, feel free to pimp this blog while you're there! More next week,BenPS. Any favorite blogs or other websites you'd share?

August 5, 2011 [Scholarly Review 4]: Lawrence Rosenwald

When I've written about scholarship and political activism in this space, I have tended to treat the two things, as I did in Monday's post, as distinct and even (to my mind) opposed options for any AmericanStudier (or other academic). I certainly believe that to be the case when it comes to classroom teaching; espousing a particular political party or candidate in the classroom (which, as I wrote way back on May 11th, I believe that very few of us teachers do, despite the cultural stereotypes of indoctrinating liberal professors and the like) is for me anathema to complex, contextual, historical and cultural and literary and analytical and above all student-centered course work. Yet in a scholar's work and career outside of the classroom, it's entirely possible to be both a committed political activist and (what I have defined as) the best kind of scholar, a fact that's exemplified by my friend and English and AmericanStudies colleague, Wellesley College Professor Lawrence (Larry) Rosenwald. Larry's particular kind of political activism has brought him a (relatively) good deal of attention, both because it's unusual and because it's at least potentially illegal: he is a tax resister, and specifically a war tax resister, an American citizen who refuses each year (at least those years when the US is fighting a war) to pay the portion of his taxes that he has calculated go to support our defense and military spending. Yet while these actions and choices are certainly individual, political, and in response to contemporary issues and realities, they are also, as Larry argues with great nuance and impressiveness in the essay at the first link, deeply scholarly and analytical, connected to a line of American philosophy and writing that extends back at least to Henry David Thoreau and his practice and ideas of civil disobedience. That essay of Larry's is in fact a model for me of public AmericanStudies scholarship, a piece that does full justice to an American literary figure and historical moment and philosophical and political narrative, while at the same time foregrounding and engaging directly with Larry's own and our national contemporary connections to all of those focal points. That activism and essay would be more than enough to merit Larry a place in my Scholarly Review series, but they're far from the only, nor even necessarily the central, impressive scholarly works of his. Larry has also made at least as valuable and critical a contribution to our national identity and conversations with his book Multilingual America: Language and the Making of American Literature (2008): that text acts as a very thorough and comprehensive survey and analysis of the multilingual canons and traditions that have been part of our national literature and identity from their origins; and at the same time makes a compelling case for redefining both that literature and our identity precisely through multilingualism. In other words, the book has a great deal to offer to students, literary critics, cultural historians, interested AmericanStudiers outside of the academy, and educators who work with multilingual student populations, among many other potential audiences; public scholarship, as I have tried to articulate in this space on multiple occasions (including this June 12th post), entails not only certain kinds of focal points and methodologies but also and at least as importantly broad and deep connections to a variety of audience members and communities, and Larry's book, like his work in general, fits that definition perfectly.I suppose my main takeaway here, and (I have realized) one of my main purposes for this blog, is that public scholarship is on a core level inherently political activism. That's true when it aligns directly with overt activism, as with Larry's performance and analysis of civil disobedience; and is true when it comprises instead a sustained illustration of and argument for a distinct and crucial vision of our national and cultural identity, as with Larry's book. But even if you disagree entirely with those points of mine, Larry's multifaceted AmericanStudies work is exemplary and well worth our communal awareness and response. More tomorrow,BenPS. Three links to start with:1)      An essay of Larry's on Thoreau, civil disobedience, and tax resistance: http://thoreau.eserver.org/theory.html2)      Info on Multilingual America: http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO97805114856573)      OPEN: Any scholarly nominees for this series?