Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 438

July 23-24, 2011 [Tribute post 19]: Amy Winehouse

Talented and deeply troubled British singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse was found dead at her London home earlier today. Posting a tribute to her on this blog might seem strange for at least two reasons: she's not American; and her life story is much more tragic than tribute-worthy. But for one thing, Winehouse exemplifies a very familiar and, in some ways, very American story (although it can be traced back at least to British Romantics like Keats and Byron), the tragic arc of a very talented and (often) troubled young artist who dies young—that arc describes many of the 20th century's most prominent American artists, from actors (such as James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, John Belushi, and Heath Ledger) to musicians (Buddy Holly, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix) to writers (Nathanael West, Sylvia Plath, John Kennedy Toole, and David Foster Wallace), and many others. And for another, I believe that Winehouse also illustrates one of our culture's most troubling communal qualities, our fascination with stories of celebrity (and often specifically young female celebrity) failure and self-destruction. I wrote a post on Winehouse and some related questions and issues way back in 2007 (on my long-defunct first blog), and I think it resonates even more fully in this moment (and not just because of today's tragic news), so here 'tis:No, No, NoThe history of rock and popular music is prominently littered with talented musicians lost before their time to substance abuse problems of one form or another--in fact, it sometimes seems that if you're only mildly talented (see: Aerosmith), you can get ridiculously deep into the drug scene and come out more successful than ever on the other side, whereas if you're a true genius (see: Hendrix and Joplin, to name only two), you just never make it back up that mountain. While some of those lost artists did record songs that, in hindsight, seem quite eerily telling about the attractiveness of their abusive behaviors--like Hendrix's "Purple Haze"--I Think it's pretty safe to say that we've never had a siren song of warning anywhere near as vivid as one that's still out there on the airwaves right now.

I'm Thinking, because I heard it on the radio this afternoon, about Amy Winehouse's "Rehab." My friend Jeff (he of the frequent comments on these Thoughts) has been following Winehouse's situation more closely than I, but it's been hard to miss her seemingly sudden (or at least suddenly visible) descent into hard-core addiction and co-dependent behavior (with her even more fucked-up and yet somehow alluring, at least to her, husband) and self-destruction on an epic scale. The latest reports place her and her husband in St. Lucia (site of my very happy and peaceful, even without this comparison, honeymoon), where apparently she's vomiting blood on the walls of her ritzy resort room; the trip is less a vacation and more an escape from those friends and family who have been begging both of them, and especially her, to, you guessed it, enter rehab and save not only her career (and with a voice like that she'd seem to be primed for a good one) but also, and more importantly, her life.

That story isn't a new one, of course, nor necessarily the most sympathetic one; there are plenty of other addicts dying out there every day, and the vast majority of them aren't able to jet down to the Caribbean when the going gets too tough. Plus, drug addiction, as tragic as it can be, has to be one of the least sympathetic of the world's great tragedies, at least for someone like Winehouse for whom it seems to have come about largely through self-destructive choices (rather than, say, a response to horrible pain or trauma). But nonetheless, it's very hard to watch anyone, and especially a talented young woman, kill him or herself in front of the world, and it sure doesn't make it very fun to listen to a song with the chorus of, "If you try to make me go to rehab/I say 'No, no, no.'"

Which begs the question--why the hell would a radio station still be playing that? I'll try not to be so cynical as to say because of the publicity, and just say that it's a lack of thought. Which, ironically, led to mine tonight. More next week,
Ben

PS. Three links to start with:1)      Winehouse's great "Back to Black": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1evzhSast82)      One of the best dissections of our culture's obsession with tearing down young female celebrities, courtesy of the guys at South Park: http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s12e02-britneys-new-look3)      OPEN: What do you think?

July 22, 2011 [Scholarly Review 3]: Caroline Rody

Obviously I have some very personal reasons for thinking that academic and scholarly voices have something meaningful to contribute to our broader national conversations and narratives; but while I do hope that my own voice and work (present and future) can do so, I have also come to this perspective through reading and engaging with lots of other scholars who seem to me to have at least as much to offer to the non-academic world as they do within it. It's certainly fair to say that some academic work is intended mostly for academic audiences and conversations, and I wouldn't do what I do for a living if I didn't find such work (which I would admit includes my first book pretty fully) valuable as well; but just as we AmericanStudiers can learn about our culture from a variety of sources, academic and otherwise, so too can our culture at large only gain from including scholarly voices in its conversations more frequently and meaningfully.As I see it, most if not all of the scholars and works I'll highlight in these scholarly review posts will fall into that category, and that's definitely true of Professor Caroline Rody, who teaches in the University of Virginia English Department alongside Railton pére. Rody first came to my attention with the publication of her first book, The Daughter's Return: African-American and Caribbean Women's Fictions of History (2001), a beautifully written and very engaging analysis of a number of contemporary historical novels and their themes of family and heritage, identity and community, past and future. Granted, that genre and those themes are among my most consistent scholarly and personal obsessions, but I would argue that they are also hugely significant for all 21st century Americans, and Rody's book made those stakes plain and compelling without losing sight of the complex details of her chosen authors and texts. As this blog hopefully attests, I think that there's great value in highlighting and analyzing works that we should all read as well as in framing and analyzing themes and questions of national and human importance; a scholarly work that does either of those things well is a success to me, and Rody's first book did both.Her second book, The Interethnic Imagination: Roots and Passages in Contemporary Asian American Fiction (2009), extends many of those same focal points and conversations to a third body of contemporary literature, and does so even more engagingly and readably. Yet in it Rody also does very successfully what I strove to do in my own second book—highlights the consistent and meaningful presence, not only in her chosen works but throughout our culture and identity, of interethnic encounters and exchanges, both in the intersections of individuals and communities with one another and in the interplays that constitute any and every individual identity and perspective within our culture. Rody's book is once again grounded very fully in her particular authors and texts, but never loses sight of the value of her ideas and insights for our culture—and thus for all interested and engaged American readers—more generally. In the Intro to my book I highlighted a group of scholarly projects that served as models for me, not only in their ideas but also in their execution; I hadn't had a chance to read Rody's book when I finalized my own, so consider this a very worthy addition to that list.One of the false dichotomies that can plague narratives about the academy is that there's the stuff we focus on within its walls and the stuff that happens outside of it (ie, in "the real world"); similarly, us literary scholars are sometimes seen as reading and analyzing works that wouldn't otherwise be read or engaged with. But as Rody's books entirely illustrate, the truth is quite the opposite—the work done by the best scholars and the books most worth our scholarly attention both represent voices we can and should include in our individual, communal, and national conversations. I can't wait to read her third book! More this weekend,Ben PS. Three links to start with:1)      Rody's website at UVa: http://www.engl.virginia.edu/faculty/rody_caroline.shtml2)      Info on The Interethnic Imagination: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/LiteratureEnglish/AmericanLiterature/20thC/?view=usa&ci=97801953773613)      OPEN: As usual with these posts, suggestions for scholars or works to be covered very welcome!

July 21, 2011: Impoverished Arguments

One of my most overt goals for this blog has been that it pivot from day to day from one type of topic to a pretty distinct second type (and so on), both to highlight the many methodologies and approaches within AmericanStudies and to keep the themes and focal points and ideas and texts fresh and (hopefully) engaging. That's still a central goal, but I have over time decided to allow myself to follow a particular day's or issue's lead if and when it feels appropriate. That was the impetus for the prior two posts, both of which were written in response to the debt ceiling debate and the many issues of taxation, wealth, spending, and the like that it has amplified; and it's the impetus for today's post, which can and should be read as a third in that series.I read today of a new report on poverty in America from the conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation; the report, available at the first link below, is long and detailed, but it's most fundamental conclusion and argument is that the concept of "poverty," as defined by governmental/official measures such as the poverty line, no longer jibes with our narratives about that situation. More exactly, as the title's report suggests, the Heritage researchers argue that because many of the 30 million Americans currently defined as living under the poverty line own things like air-conditioning units and cable television sets, these Americans are not as poor as we might think. As would be expected, the report comes to a number of preliminary conclusions about the necessity (or lack thereof) of various social programs as a result of this argument, which ties it closely to the ongoing debates over what our priorities and emphases should be when it comes to the debt and deficit, government spending and taxation, and the like. The report also connects to many broader and more ongoing national narratives and debates, and most especially to narratives like Ronald Reagan's infamous (and inaccurate/falsified) oft-repeated anecdotes of the "welfare queen driving a Cadillac" or the "young buck" using his food stamps to buy "T-bone steaks." Sure, it's important to work to alleviate genuine poverty (and hunger, and other related problems), these arguments go, but many of those being helped by these social programs aren't genuinely impoverished, and thus are taking advantage of our help and society.  There are plenty of ways to counter such arguments, whether with facts and statistics (for example, enterprising reporters in the early 1980s dug into the story of Reagan's "welfare queen" and found that she had received something like $8000 in benefits over more than a decade, rather than the hundreds of thousands that Reagan's story described), anecdotes and personal experiences (pretty much every family with whom my Mom works receives government aid of one kind or another, and they all most definitely meet and exceed any images of poverty we might have), or counter-arguments (the wealthiest Americans have for many decades received, in tax breaks and corporate welfare and government subsidies and much else, at least as much support as the poorest, and with far less need). We can also point to the desire of all Americans to own certain items (such as television), even if it means (as it often does) living beyond our means (whatever they may be) in order to do so; while other items included in the Heritage report, such as cars, are in fact in many cases necessities for work. But the larger and to my mind more pertinent problem is the very existence of these narratives in the first place. I don't believe that anyone would dispute the existence of poverty and hunger in our society, nor the variety of corollary problems (from a lack of medical coverage and a lack of preparation for education to homelessness and crime) that come with them. Yet rather than debate the methods or means of countering and alleviating those problems, it seems to me that far too often we debate instead whether the most disadvantaged among us—which would for example also include illegal immigrants—are genuinely worthy of our support at all; a perspective, I would add, that mirrors our tendency to idolize the super-rich, even when (as with Donald Trump, to cite one prominent example) their wealth derives mostly from inheritance.American history certainly reveals both the continuing presence of poverty and its accompanying problems and the lack of any set or easy methods for alleviating it and them; it would be just as simplifying and inaccurate of me to claim that our history argues entirely for the benefits of government programs as it would to claim that it does not. Yet what our history and our contemporary society alike make clear is that far too many of our countrymen (to say nothing of others around the world) live in real and desperate poverty; disputing that reality seems to me a deeply impoverished position indeed. More tomorrow,BenPS. Three links to start with:1)      The Heritage report: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/07/what-is-poverty2)      A very different take on poverty (and especially on hunger) in America, at least in 2008 (although of course the likelihood of improvement in any of these areas is very slim): http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/us_hunger_facts.htm3)      OPEN: What do you think?

July 20, 2011: That's Rich

Just to follow up on one particular aspect of yesterday's Eisenhower post: I read an article about the capital gains tax which included the delightful fact that hedge fund manager John Paulson made $4.9 billion in income last year. Even more delightful (and relevant to yesterday's points about Eisenhower and tax rates) is that a substantial portion of those earnings were deemed capital gains and thus taxed at only 15%; even the parts considered "income" were taxed only at 35%, a far cry from the Eisenhower era's over-90% rate, but at least that's proportional to other rates in our contemporary moment. The 15%, on the other hand, means that much of this richest American's income from last year was taxed at about half the rate of mine.Class and wealth are as complicated as any of the other issues I've considered in this space, and as with any of them the easiest and least productive way to over-simplify is to focus on extreme and maddening examples. So I'll resist singling out Paulson too fully, wondering for example what on earth any individual can do with billions of dollars in annual income, hoping against hope that he has plans to donate substantial percentages of it to worthy causes, etc. Asking him not to take the money would be as silly as those pundits (such as Gregg Easterbrook) who have argued that if Obama believes the top tax rate should be higher, he should just voluntarily pay more in taxes himself; such issues are not and should not be left up to individuals to decide, but have to be determined on a communal level, not least so that there's fairness across the board in how they're applied and how they affect families and futures. Moreover, as the Gilded Age's Gospel of Wealth proves, the question of philanthropy—its value and effects, its social meanings, its legitimacy—is itself a complicated one, and deserves its own extended AmericanStudies analysis to be sure.Besides, the real problems here go well beyond the individual, whether he's Ebenezer Scrooge or, y'know, Ebenezer Scrooge at the end of the story. First, there's the problem of a society in which an individual can make $5 billion in income while millions live below the poverty line; inequality might be a necessary side effect of capitalism, but we are quickly reaching levels of inequality that are, in a word, obscene. And second, and most relevantly to these two posts of mine, there's the problem of our continued insistence on protecting this wealth with government policies (including but certainly not limited to very low tax rates); if Mr. Paulson is able to make that kind of money while living in our society, it seems to me that the least our government can do is see to it that the society as a whole benefits as much from Paulson as he clearly has from it. At the end of that road, I know, lies socialism; but a higher tax rate is not the end of the road, nor should it be such anathema that we're willing to further destroy the lives of millions at the other end of the spectrum (such as by cutting profoundly important and relatively inexpensive social programs) rather than achieve such a rate. Am I saying that Paulson's income goes against core American ideals and identities? No. But our willingness to protect that income above and beyond our communal health and well being most definitely does—and is, as Eisenhower's era reminds us, a relatively new and distinctly unhappy turn in our national conversation. More tomorrow,BenPS. Three links to start with:1)      The piece about capital gains: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jul/19/grover-norquist/grover-norquist-said-economy-has-grown-or-been-dam/2)      A piece on wealth inequality in the very thorough and important Who Rules America? project: http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html3)      OPEN: What do you think?

July 19, 2011: Be Like Ike

One of the central focal points of this blog, to a degree from its origins but even more fully as it has developed over these first 230 posts, has been on the numerous and complicated interconnections of and intersections between our national history and identity and our contemporary moments and politics. I obviously believe that there's a lot to recommend that focus, both in terms of coming to a more accurate understanding of our past and identity and in terms of helping us see our current situation's contexts and origins and meanings more fully. But there are also potential pitfalls that must be avoided with this—as with any—approach and methodology, and one of the most central is a tendency to view the past through the lens of the present, to perceive particular historical events or figures or issues in relationship to aspects of our own moment.That tendency is probably particularly hard to avoid when it comes to politicians, especially presidents and especially from the last century or so; of course most people have a sense that the Republican and Democratic parties of (for example) the 1880s were markedly different from those of the 21st century, but the 1950s feel close enough to our own moment that it seems as if the similarities should be stronger. Yet whatever the connections, a closer and more objective examination of the administration of a president like Dwight Eisenhower makes clear that the label "Republican" is far from sufficient to define this figure, his policies, and his legacy. For one thing, Eisenhower was perhaps the textbook definition of a taxer and spender: the top marginal tax rate (the income tax percentage paid by Americans in the top tax bracket) stood at 91% during his administration, and despite efforts by the Republican-led Congress (both Houses) to lower those rates, Eisenhower maintained them; and he did so at least in part to fund a huge spending program, one which most famously included the construction of the interstate highway system and other infrastructure projects, and which overall increased domestic spending from 31% of the budget in 1953 to 49% in 1961. There is of course much more that could be said about both taxes and spending during the era, but certainly neither of those trends match our 21st-century narratives about a Republican presidency.Even more contrary to many of our political narratives, and perhaps even more salient in its complex way to our current moment and debates, is Eisenhower's striking and sustained critique of the military-industrial complex (a phrase he coined). He began articulating that critique (at least as President) in 1953's "Chance for Peace" speech, delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors just after Stalin's death; in that speech he most famously (although perhaps not famously enough) argued that "every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone." And he concluded his presidency by focusing even more fully on this problem, as it was a central topic of his brief 1961 "Farewell Address"; by this time, as he noted, the US "annually spen[t] on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations," and Eisenhower expressed the very explicit worry that this military-industrial "combination" could "endanger our liberties or democratic processes." One could of course argue that Eisenhower could have done more during his two terms as President to counter that trend, but the fundamental reality was, as it remains, that this military-industrial spending already far outstretched any individual or even governmental ability to reign it in.At this moment, as our national political leaders continue to debate if and how the debt ceiling should be raised, acknowledging and engaging with these Eisenhower-era details helps us see more clearly on at least three levels. First, despite the Republican's incessant insistence on drastically cutting spending without raising taxes in the slightest, there is significant and recent precedent for much higher taxes to offset needed federal needing. Second, the one area of the budget that has been consistently ignored by all parties, our military/defense spending, remains an area of deep concern, and one that at least should be included in the conversations. And third, we can and should seek such historical lessons outside of our contemporary visions of politics or party—in at least these particular areas, that is, we on the left can and should strive to be like Ike. More tomorrow,BenPS. Four links to start with:1)      A graph charting the top marginal tax rate from the 1920s to the present: http://politics.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=2814749776234492)      The "Chance for Peace" speech: http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/33573)      The "Farewell Address": http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm4)      OPEN: What do you think?

July 18, 2011: If You Like This Blog…

… I've got one you'll love! Starting next Monday, July 25th, and continuing for the next three months and a bit, the New England American Studies Association will be running a pre-conference blog at http://neasaconference.blogspot.com. As you'll see from the schedule below, each week one or two of our panels will be the focus, and panelists will be blogging about their prospective papers, parallel or related interests and ideas, general American Studies questions, and/or whatever else they want to share. As with any Blogspot blog, there will be comment sections for each post, and they're entirely open—the goal of this blogging is not only to get conference participants talking to each other and thus get the conference off to an early and good start, but also to involve as many interested folks as possible (whether you'd be able to attend the conference or not, although of course you're very welcome; see www.neasa.org for lots more info about it).So starting next Monday, please check out that blog regularly (or check it out right now too, as there's a great sample/starting point post up from a NEASA Council colleague of mine, Jonathan Silverman of UMass Lowell). The more interested AmericanStudiers we get reading and responding to those posts, the better and richer and more meaningful the conversation will be!More tomorrow,BenPS. Those links again:1)      The blog: http://neasaconference.blogspot.com2)      NEASA: http://www.neasa.org3)      OPEN: Any conference or blog questions or ideas to share?

July 15, 2011: On the Other Hand

I feel as if yesterday's post was a bit harsh on the world of sports, especially since that world has given me a huge amount of happiness, both as a fan (particularly of the Atlanta Braves, but also of the University of Virginia men's soccer and women's basketball teams, among many others) and as a player (particularly on my own many soccer teams, but also tennis, cross country, and others). Of course I was focused on a very specific subset of experiences and perspectives within that world, and I hold to my take on them (and will, I must admit, be rooting hard for Japan in the Women's World Cup final on Sunday—the combination of underdog status and what that nation has recently experienced makes it impossible for me to do otherwise). But I feel it important to highlight here one example of many of how sports can also provide moments that are truly inspiring, not only on but also and more significantly off the field.This particular example is not only deeply inspiring, but also very surprising: former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin has been known since his playing days as one of the most extreme members of a Cowboys team full of extremes, a man whose love for drugs and women and fast cars and etc. always threatened to dwarf even his prodigious athletic gifts. In this stunningly honest and impressive Out magazine cover story, http://www.out.com/slideshows/index.asp?slideshow_title=Michael-Irvin-The-Playmaker-Preaches&theID=1#TopIrvin fully owns up to that legacy, and makes it a compelling part of his narrative about how and why he came to support marriage equality (the story's explicit focus). But even more compelling and impressive than that, and even more moving and powerful than his love and respect for his late brother, is Irvin's worry about a conversation he might have at the pearly gates: "The last thing I want is to go to God and have him ask, 'What did you do?' And I talk about winning Super Bowls and national titles. … I didn't do anything to make it a better world before I left? All I got is Super Bowls? That would be scary."At times it can indeed feel that the world of sports boils down to winning, and thus, to parallel yesterday's thoughts, to winners and losers, us and them. But as Irvin recognizes here, there's more to it than that—and while his perspective might be said to be transcending sports, it is also coming very directly out of it, building on his successes and fame within it to make this amazing case for social and legal and human equality. As a kid growing up rooting for the Washington Redskins, I was supposed to hate Michael Irvin and the Cowboys; now? Definitely a fan.More tomorrow,BenPS. Any inspiring sports figures or stories you'd highlight?

July 14, 2011: Not a Fan

There are lots of reasons why I love The English Patient (1996; the film, that is—I'll admit to having only read a bit of the novel after seeing the movie and being left cold), but at the top of the list is its honest and compelling portrayal of something I wrote about in my post on Dresden: the ways in which even the most noble or "good" of wars comes with so much inevitable and horrific badness, and most especially the way every war necessitates the creation of an "us vs. them" narrative in which anybody from within the wrong set of borders becomes an inhuman and unimportant enemy. Many if not all of the movie's central storylines and character arcs drive home that point, but it's made most succinctly in an exchange between the titular patient (Count Laszlo Almásy) and his Canadian nurse Hana. She has expressed happiness to have found by surprise a fellow Canadian in their Italian setting, and when Almásy wonders "why people are always so happy when they collide with one from the same place," she replies, "There's a war. Where you come from becomes important." "Why?" Almásy counters. "I hate that idea."Almásy has his own very personal and very understandable reasons for hating that idea, but even without having gone through the kinds of traumas he has by this time in his tragic life experienced, I share his passion on the subject. It is perhaps human nature to identify with those with whom we share a home land in this way, and of course such communal connections have the potential for great benefit (at least if we can use them as a starting point for, y'know, actually caring about the well-being of all of our fellow community members); but those connections come, again, almost inevitably and much more dangerously with the need first to contrast ourselves with communities outside of our own and then, more often than not, to hate the individuals within those communities simply because of where they come from. It's obvious how and why that happens during wartime, although I would still argue that too often we take it for granted or refuse to acknowledge that it's happening, and certainly that we don't push back nearly hard enough against it. Much less obvious and certainly much less extreme, but also less understandable and to my mind even more frustrating and ridiculous, is the way in which this happens in the world of sports.The most overt and broadly communal example of that trend would have to be the concept of soccer hooligans (particularly in Europe), about which I know as much as you'd expect from an AmericanStudier. But here in the States we have our share of horror stories that confirm this trend—the San Francisco Giants fan who was beaten savagely outside of Dodger Stadium earlier this season, the New York Giants fan who got on the wrong bus after a game against the Jets and was likewise beaten within an inch of his life, and so on. And even if we dismiss those kinds of incidents as outliers or as caused by deranged individuals whose issues ultimately have nothing to do with sports—and I don't necessarily do so—the fact remains that rooting passionately for a sports team seems in almost every instance to require rooting with equal passion against another, and more exactly hating not only that opposing team but its hard-core fans with the same passion. Up here in New England I hear exhibit A for that case every time the conversation on sports radio turns to the New York Yankees, but I imagine every American has a go-to example of this trend in his or her own neck of the woods.I'm thinking of this today because of the thrilling run by the US women's soccer team, which has brought them to the upcoming World Cup final. I've watched bits and pieces of their matches, and certainly have enjoyed their inspired play, particularly at the goaltending and forward positions. But I will freely admit that the constant cheers of "USA! USA!," both among fans who have traveled to Germany to attend their matches and among many of my fellow Americans watching back here, have made me root a bit less fervently. It just seems like those chants are inevitably accompanied by boos and insults, and perhaps worse, directed at the other team, and by extension the other nation; and when it comes to that I am indeed not a fan. More tomorrow,BenPS. Three links to start with:1)      A hugely powerful moment from the film's conclusion (spoiler alert!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KwuHH2mDnI&feature=related2)      An interesting scientific take on violence and sports fans: http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2006/07/violence_in_sports_fans_1.php3)      OPEN: What do you think?

July 13, 2011 [Scholarly Review 2]: Encyclopedic

Maybe this is just me, but I think we scholars (and perhaps we adult Americans more broadly) tend to overlook hard-copy encyclopedias as a serious and valuable scholarly resource for analytical work; certainly we recognize them as useful for younger students, and certainly many of us visit Wikipedia for quick (if somewhat suspect) information about a variety of topics, but when it comes to serious scholarly or analytical engagement with complicated issues, I'd be willing to bet that many of us would consider encyclopedias far too summative and basic to be of much use. Yet the reality is that we (or I'll just change that to me—I could be entirely on an island here, and don't want to project my own myopia onto everybody else) have developed that perspective in large part because our youthful experiences were with a particular, indeed basic and summative kind of encyclopedia—the Britannica type, featuring a couple of very general pages each on pretty much every topic under the sun (and on the sun, and on pretty much every nighttime topic too).I spend most of my summer writing time at a table in the Needham (MA) Public Library that's located right next to the reference section, and I can indeed attest that such ginormous encyclopedias do still exist in hard-copy form, and do seem most often to be consulted by those few local high schoolers who haven't abandoned all on-hand research for the lure of the web. But the truth is that such encyclopedias have been complemented very thoroughly in recent decades by much more specialized, focused, in-depth, and scholarly works, references that offer valuable information and/or scholarly perspectives that could be of use for any meaningful work. In terms of the former, I recently wandered through the reference stacks while waiting for my computer to start and discovered the two-volume Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America: Primary Documents collection; the main EMA seems to be slightly more Britannica-like, but the Primary Documents collection is really unique and interesting, providing everything from memoir and fiction to photographs and news reports, all representing a pretty comprehensive, alphabetized list of ethnic American communities (from Afghan Americans to Vietnamese Americans, and with 88 more in between). The selections of course comprise only a handful of the literally millions of texts that could be chosen for each topic, so they are not, in that sense, encyclopedic at all; but they nonetheless provide (on first glance, at least) an exemplary snapshot of both the many genres and media that constitute American Studies and the diverse community that is 21st century America. When it comes to the collecting scholarly perspectives kind of encyclopedia, I don't have to wander anywhere to find one of the most impressive (and certainly the most relevant to this blog) specimens: the Encyclopedia of American Studies was largely the brainchild of, and is still edited by, my graduate school and dissertation advisor, Temple University Professor Miles Orvell; and because of that connection I've been fortunate enough to contribute a bit to the EAS, both in writing four articles and in various behind-the-scenes work on the still-expanding (though, understandably, subscription-only) online version. Not to plagiarize from myself, but I can't highlight the EAS's strengths any better than I did in a recommendation I wrote for Professor Orvell: "I would just stress here how much both the project and his perspective on it truly modeled for an American Studies approach: by that I mean partly the interdisciplinarity, as I spent a couple hours seeking photos for consecutive entries on 'Southern Writers,' 'Space Program,' 'Benjamin Spock,' and 'Sports'; and partly the genuine openness to every element of American culture, exemplified by the gap and yet connection between my first biographical entries (Thoreau and Poe) and the last entry for which I found photos (Skateboarding). The project is not only a wonderful resource for American Studies teachers and scholars, it serves as a set of always timely reminders of the breadth and value of what we do."The articles in the EAS, like the selections in the Gale volumes, are of course circumscribed by space and other limitations, and none serves as a substitute for more in-depth research into and analyses of their topics and focal points. But neither are these encyclopedias to be left to the high school students of the world (although they'd be great for them too!)—they have far too much to add to our conversations and perspectives at every level. More tomorrow,BenPS. Three links to start with:1)      The EAS: http://eas-ref.press.jhu.edu/2)      Info about the Gale Multicultural America books: http://www.gale.cengage.com/pdf/facts/gemapd.pdf3)      OPEN: Any great resources you'd highlight?

July 12, 2011: What's the Fantastic For?

If you've read any science fiction, you probably have a sense that one of the genre's fundamental purposes is to critique aspects of our own society from the safe distances of the future and/or outer space; as Robert Silverberg puts it, "in reading them we look backward by the brilliant light of those distant epochs to see our own era." As far back as a work like Edward Bellamy's time travel utopian novel Looking Backward (1888), through 20th century titans like Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles (1950), Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), and Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 (1968), and into our contemporary moment, science fiction has often served precisely to create a space in which present issues and trends can be extrapolated forward and outward, and so viewed and analyzed with more clarity than might otherwise be possible. At times the resulting lens has been hopeful or humorous, at times satirical, at times bleak or cynical, but in any case it would be easy enough, I believe, to argue convincingly for the value of science fiction from an AmericanStudies lens; Bradbury's novel, to take one example, can tell us a great deal about American society in the middle of the 20th century, and particularly that society's perspectives and debates on exploration, science, religion, the environment, race, and many other crucial themes.Fantasy, on the other hand, can seem much less connected to specific national or social moments or themes, and much more broad and universal in its meanings and significance. Readers and scholars have long tried to tie J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings to the unfolding events of World War II against which he wrote much of the series (between 1937 and 1949), but Tolkien resisted that connection unceasingly, and certainly his series' engagements with good and evil, heroism and cowardice, war and peace, and other such themes likewise resist any easy historical analogies or concordances. Even when a fantasy series does seem to intend its analogies more overtly—as is certainly the case with the Christian symbolism in C.S. Lewis's Narnia books—those analogies are similarly broad in scope; Lewis's Aslan the lion is without question intended to represent Jesus, but he and the books are not to my mind a commentary on the state of Christianity (or anything else) in mid-20th century England, but rather on the religion's abiding principles and beliefs. By its very nature, the genre of fantasy seems to rely on such universalizing connections, on the creation and inhabiting of worlds that are either defined by clear differences from our own or, if they seem to echo ours at all, tend to portray time periods that feel centuries earlier than our own contemporary moment.Today marks the release of A Dance with Dragons, the fifth novel in a saga that seems very much in the latter category (and is, not coincidentally to my writing about it here, my favorite series of all time): George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Martin's world does indeed feel deeply rooted in medieval history (and is relatively light on fantastic elements, at least compared to many fantasy series), so much so that his series has sometimes been called a fantahistorical; but that history is of course entirely distant from our 21st century American moment, especially when compared to an earlier work of Martin's such as Fevre Dream (1982), a vampire novel set on the Mississippi River during the final years of the steamboat age. Yet as I've written elsewhere in this space, I plan to start my third book with a quotation from the series' first chapter, the conversation between young Bran Stark and his father Ned about bravery and fear. Their subject there is, as Tolkien's and Lewis's were, broad and universal, applicable to any society and moment; but it's also, both in its specific and counter-intuitive image of bravery and in its general goal of revising our clichéd narratives in favor of something more challenging, genuine, and meaningful, hugely relevant to American identity and studies. Martin's books are not in any way targeted at America or our particular historical moment—there's a reason they've been translated into dozens of languages, and I can imagine them ringing just as true 100 years from now—but that doesn't mean that they don't have a great deal to say to them and us.There doesn't have to be an AmericanStudies reason to read Martin, or fantasy fiction, or anything else as great and powerful as these books are—as with all the best works of art, these give you their own reasons in spades. But if something can entertain us, move us, thrill us, affect us deeply, and make us better and stronger as a national community at the same time? That'd be pretty fantastic. More tomorrow,BenPS. Three links to start with:1)      Google book of The Martian Chronicles: http://books.google.com/books?id=340yCIudlMwC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false2)      Martin's own website, which includes in the Not a Blog some very interesting recent reflections on the writing of the fifth book and his series: www.georgerrmartin.com3)      OPEN: Any science fiction or fantasy that you'd say can tell us a lot about us? Or works in other genres?