Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 49

March 25, 2024: What is Game Show Studying?: 30s and 40s Origins

[On March30, 1964, the legendary game show Jeopardydebuted. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that classic and a handful of othergame show histories! Add your thoughts, obviously in the form of a question, incomments!]

On threestages in the genre’s experimental early decades.

1)     1938 Starting Points: Of course quizzes andtrivia questions and the like had been part of society in various forms forcenturies, but the first official “game shows” on both radio and televisionappeared in the same month and year, May 1938: the American radio show Information Please (whichdebuted on May 17th and would run for the next 13 years); and thevery early British TV show Spelling Bee (whichdebuted on May 31st and featured four live episodes). Both radio andTV have continued to feature quiz shows and game shows in prominent roles eversince, so this dual origin point isn’t surprising (although I’ll admit to notrealizing prior to research this series that TV existed in any meaningful formin 1938). Of course one factor was the evolution of these media andtechnologies, but I would also argue that the Depression-eratiming wasn’t a coincidence; audiences needed escapes from their difficultrealities, and as the name suggests, game shows offered a fun such respite.

2)     1941 Evolutions: Spelling Bee was a bit of a one-off, and it was a few years later thatTV game shows began to emerge and evolve more fully. That started with anadaptation of a popular radio show, Truth or Consequences,which had debuted on the radio in March 1940 but aired an experimental TVversion on July 1, 1941 (making it the first game show on broadcast TV,although it would only become a regularTV program in 1950). Just one day later, on July 2, saw the debut of the firstregularly scheduled TV game show, CBSTelevision Quiz, which aired weekly for about a year. Again this timingwas at least a bit coincidental and likely reflective of TV’s evolutions andnew possibilities in the period, but I would likewise connect these to their1941 moment, and the need for an audience to be temporarily and enjoyably distractedfrom a world at war.

3)     You BetYour Life: One of the most successful game shows of the 1940s appeared in bothmedia, not just as an adaptation from one to the other but as a program thatmoved back and forth between the two. That was YouBet Your Life, the Groucho Marx-hosted comedy quiz show which debutedon theradio in 1947, on TVin 1950, and continued in both media (again in a back-and-forth kind ofway) for another decade. You Bet YourLife was genuinely a quiz show, but a great deal of its marketing andappeal centered on its funny and famous host, making this in many ways thefirst game show that was more about personality and performance than the gamesor quizzes themselves. That would become a recurring element of the genre,exemplified of course by the legendary Jeopardyhost about whom I’ll have more to say on Friday.

Next gameshow histories tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other game shows you’d highlight?

March 23-24, 2024: American Magic: Harry Houdini

[Thisweekend marks HarryHoudini’s 150th birthday! So this week on the blog I’veperformed some AmericanStudying magic of my own, leading up to this specialpost on that legendary prestidigitator.]

On threelesser-known layers to perhaps our most famous magician.

1)     An Immigrant Family: Born Erik Weisz in Budapestin 1874, Houdini was literally part of such a family, as he, his parents, andhis six siblings immigrated to the United States in 1878 (part of that era’ssizeable wave of immigration from Eastern Europe among other places). But thatfamily was also an influential part of Houdini’s development as a performer,including his debut as a 9 year old trapeze artist “Ehrich,the Prince of the Air” in entertainer JackHoeffler’s traveling circus; and his first true performances in the early1890s, working alongside his brother Theodore (known as “Dash”) in an actcalled “TheBrothers Houdini.” As I wrote about in one of myearly posts, the late 19th century was the heyday of the conceptof the “self-made man,” but it takes a village to produce any successfulfigure, and Harry Houdini was no more self-made than anyone else in thatcategory.

2)     An Inspiring Partnership: There are likely variousreasons why Houdini and Dash stopped performing together, including Houdini’sown developing turn of the 20th century fame as an individual artist(especially when he began transitioning from card magic toescapes), but one factor was a bit less of a fraternal bond: Dash had aromantic interest in a fellow performer, WilhelminaBeatrice “Bess” Rahner; but Houdini was likewise interested, won her handin marriagein 1894, and made her his stage assistant in a new act known as “TheHoudinis.” Although that’s obviously a complicated story and one on which Dashwould undoubtedly have a different perspective, it did lead to a lifelongpartnership for Houdini on multiple levels, as Bess would remain both his wifeand his performing partner for the rest of his life.

3)     An Irritable Author: Those performances wouldof course define the remaining three decades of Houdini’s career, from that1894 marriage through his tragically early death in 1926 (officially fromappendicitis, but apocryphallyfrom a punch to the stomach). But another through-line in his career wasHoudini’s use of writing not only to market himself but also and especially toexpress his grievances with fellow performers and the profession. When hefounded a periodical, the Conjurers’ Monthly Magazine,in 1906, it only featured two editions before the preponderance of what magichistorian Jim Steinmeyer calls Houdini’s “own crusades” led to its failure.Undeterred by that failure, in 1908 Houdini published a book, The Unmaskingof Robert-Houdin, which attacked the French magician from whom Houdinihad drawn his stage name as a fraud (due at least in part to Houdini feelingslighted by Robert-Houdin’s family during a European tour). Houdini could escapemost anything, but clearly not the fraught chambers of his own psyche, no morethan any of us can.

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Magicians or magic histories or contexts you’d highlight?

March 22, 2024: American Magic: 21st Century Evolutions

[Thiscoming weekend marks HarryHoudini’s 150th birthday! So this week on the blog I’ll performsome AmericanStudying magic of my own, leading up to a special post on thatlegendary prestidigitator.]

On ahandful of contemporary talents who reflect how magic has continued to evolve.

1)     Ricky Jay: I honestlydon’t want to say too much here, as I’d rather you take the next hour and watchthat amazing special (directed by David Mamet!). The heart of magic shows arecard tricks, and no one—not in our own era, and not ever as far as I’mconcerned—has mastered them more than Ricky Jay did (he tragically passedaway in 2018 at the age of 72). Watch that video if you doubt my claim!

2)     LanceBurton: Burton has been performing magic since 1981 and continues to do a LasVegas show to this day, and as the images and details on that website indicateis very much in the vein of the classic stage magicians. The evolution of anart form doesn’t have to mean brand-new iterations, of course—it can also meanhow the traditional versions have extended into our own moment, what it meansto perform today in those longstanding ways. Burton seems to embody that formof magic, and has for many decades now.

3)     DavidBlaine: The next couple magicians I’ll highlight in this post do representmore dramatic evolutions and shifts in the art of magic, however. David Blainedoes perform card tricks, but in a close-up, intimate,audience-involving style that differs quite strikingly from Ricky Jay’smore traditional stage show. And he does perform illusions, but in a more extreme and death-defyingform than the likewise more traditional stage show of a performer likeLance Burton. For all those reasons, when I think magic for the internet age Ithink of David Blaine.

4)     Criss Angel:Criss Angel likewise made his reputation performing death-defying illusions andachieving viral internet fame, but I would say in comparison to Blaine thatAngel has been consistently best-known for his seriesof television shows and specials. In that way, Angel extends but alsoevolves the way that TV has played a significant role in the career ofyesterday’s subjects, Penn & Teller. Onecritique of Angel at times has been that his shows focus more on images andnarrative storytelling than on the magic itself, but that’s the fine line ofany televised entertainment, and a telling reflection of where and how Angel’scareer developed.

5)     Fay Presto:For most of its history magic has been a male-dominated industry (other thanthose scantily-clad female assistants about whom I wrote early in the week),but of course that’s never been absolute, and it has likewise evolved here inthe 21st century. English magician Fay Presto isn’t just an example ofa successful and famous female performer, she’s one who has been voted The Magic Circle’s“Magician of the Year” on multiple occasions. She’s not alone as a prominentfemale magician, past and present,but it’s equally important not to limit her through that category, and insteadto name her as another talented reflection of magic’s enduring presence here inthe 21st century.

Houdinipost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Magicians or magic histories or contexts you’d highlight?

March 21, 2024: American Magic: Penn & Teller

[Thiscoming weekend marks HarryHoudini’s 150th birthday! So this week on the blog I’ll performsome AmericanStudying magic of my own, leading up to a special post on thatlegendary prestidigitator.]

On threetelling influences on one of the most famousmagic acts of the last half-century.

1)     WierChrisemer: That enjoyable 1989 Calvin Trillin New Yorker profile of the duo makes clear the debt that Penn FraserJillette & Raymond Joseph Teller owed to WierChrisemer, a friend of Teller’s from his undergraduate days at AmherstCollege whose scholarly and professional interest in music was their first entréeinto the world of performance and whose talents as an amateur magician led thethree men to form a trio known as “TheAsparagus Valley Cultural Society.” A couple months back I wrote inthis post about how The Three Stooges were originally part of a comedytroupe led by Ted Healy, but ended up achieving their lasting fame without him;similarly, it was after Chrisemer retired from show business in the early 1980sthat Penn & Teller truly took off as a magical act. I don’t know exactlywhat to make of this pattern, but at the very least it’s a reminder that there’susually more to any artistic success story—including more individuals toremember—than meets the eye.

2)     JamesRandi: Most successful artists have both personal mentors and influencesand other professionals on whom they model aspects of their career, and for Penn& Teller theAmazing Randi was an example of the latter. Randi made his fame as both a magicianand a skeptic, performing his own tricks but debunking those of paranormal conartists and the like (all of which he discussed in his 1980 book Flim-Flam!Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions). Not long after theirmagic career began to take off Penn & Teller crossed over into the realm ofprofessional skeptics as well, as illustrated for example by their long-runningtelevision show Penn & Teller: Bullshit!(I like to think the exclamation point was at least in part a nod to Randi’sbook title). It’s a complicated lane to occupy, making a main living performingtricks that require folks to suspend their disbelief (or at least refuse to beexplained) yet turning a disbelieving eye toward many other cultural forms andnarratives. But Penn & Teller have successfully occupied it for decades,inspired to be sure by prior figures like the Amazing Randi.

3)     Television: Bullshit! is one of a few shows of their own that Penn & Tellerhave had over the years, but it was their countless appearances on othertelevision shows in the 1980s and 1990s that really established the pair’s reputationand prominence. That included not only performances on late-night shows like Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show, but also and even moretellingly both acting roles and cameos as themselves on a huge range of othershows, from Miami Vice to Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, The Drew Carey Show to Babylon 5, and manymany more. The trend has even continued in recent years, with a 2022 appearancefor example on the reality performance show The Masked Singer. Penn& Teller were far from the first magicians for whom TV was instrumental totheir success, but none have better utilized that defining late 20thand early 21st century medium than did this pair.

LastMagicStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Magicians or magic histories or contexts you’d highlight?

March 20, 2024: American Magic: Orson Welles

[Thiscoming weekend marks HarryHoudini’s 150th birthday! So this week on the blog I’ll performsome AmericanStudying magic of my own, leading up to a special post on thatlegendary prestidigitator.]

On twoways to AmericanStudy Orson Welles’ MagicShow.

I’m notparticularly proud of the fact that the only post to date in which I’ve thoughtat length about the iconic artist and American Orson Welles (1915-1985) was my non-favoritesexamination of Citizen Kane (1941). Istand by the critiques in that post, but I don’t want to suggest for a secondthat I don’t recognize Welles’ towering talent, nor the countless aspects ofAmerican culture and society which he impacted in the course of his influentialcareer and life: from his early work with the Depression-eraFederal Theatre Project in New York through his groundbreaking radioshows (especially the infamous1938 War of the Worldsadaptation) and up to a hugely important career as a film actor and director for whichKane was just the tip of the iceberg.I could dedicate an entire week’s series to Welles, and maybe will have thechance at some point; but for today, I’m writing about a project of his thatwas never completed in his lifetime, his unfinished television special OrsonWelles’ Magic Show (filmed between 1976 and 1985 but as thosehyperlinked clips indicate never finalized in his lifetime and only editedtogether and partially shared, both by his romanticpartner Oja Kodar, after his death in 1985).

It’s prettystriking that Welles spent so much of his last decade working on this seeminglyquixotic project, and I think there are a couple ways we can make broader analyticalmeaning of that quest. Clearly magic was something personally important toWelles, as he details in the posthumously published autobiographical book Thisis Orson Welles (1992; it’s really a series of conversations between Wellesand filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich) where he describes being taught magic tricksat a young age by none other than this week’s inspiration Harry Houdini. I’m notsaying that magic tricks are Welles’ “Rosebud,” exactly, but at least thatthere’s something telling and moving in seeking in the final stage of life toconnect back to and recapture a part of our childhood that we’ve moved awayfrom. And, in this case, that element is also a skillset that Welles had notbeen able to master or make central to his success, compared to the manyaforementioned artistic and cultural arenas in which he had already leftlasting legacies by that time.

Speakingof those many other cultural arenas, I also think it’s worth considering waysin which magic might be more parallel to and interconnected with them than wegenerally acknowledge. ThisSaturday Evening Post ConsideringHistory column on blackface entertainment led me to think more than I everhad before about just how much Vaudeville is a part of (and was an influenceon) other defining 20th century media like radio, film, andtelevision. Magic tricks were a part ofcountless Vaudeville routines and performers’ acts, so there’s a directintersection here; but more broadly, I’d say that both are examples of earlyand foundational forms of mass entertainment, late 19th and early 20thcentury cultural forms that foreshadowed and helped shape the way that othermultimedia genres developed and evolved. So it stands to reason that one of theAmerican artists who most fully mastered those multimedia worlds of radio,film, and the like was also greatly influenced by, and apparently spent hislife and career trying to recapture, the world of magic.

NextMagicStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Magicians or magic histories or contexts you’d highlight?

March 19, 2024: American Magic: Thurston and Kellar

[Thiscoming weekend marks HarryHoudini’s 150th birthday! So this week on the blog I’ll performsome AmericanStudying magic of my own, leading up to a special post on thatlegendary prestidigitator.]

On a pairof magicians who help us think about both competition and collaboration.

I’m one ofthose film buffs who think that Christopher Nolan has gotten a little overexposedin recent years, but I’ll stand by many of his early films as trulygroundbreaking and great in equal measure. That’s especially trueof Memento (2000), which as Iwrote in that post occupies a spot very high on my list. But not too far belowit is The Prestige (2006), avery intricate and clever historical drama that also happens to be for my moneythe best film about magic ever made (as well as very much a magic trick in itsown right, and if you haven’t seen it I won’t spoil the trick!). And while The Prestige is about many things withinand around the world of 19th century magic (including electricity asits own magic trick, courtesy of David Bowie’s performance asNikola Tesla [some SPOILERS in those clips]), at its heart it is a story ofa lifelong conflict and competition between two equally talented magicians andshowman and equally bitter rivals, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden(Christian Bale).

Late 19thcentury America was home to its own famous pair of rival magicians, HowardThurston (1869-1936) and HarryKellar (1849-1922). As I highlighted in yesterday’s post, both Thurston andKellar claimed to be the true heir to the origin point for 19thcentury American magic, the Fakir of Ava; Kellar literally worked for years asthe Fakir’s apprentice starting at the age of 12, so he might well have thebetter claim, but as with all things magic the question is at least a bit shroudedin mystery, natch. And in any case, the competition between the two men wentbeyond their relationship to this professional progenitor, with both forexample claiming to be the true master of a very famous specific illusion knownas the “Levitationof Princess Karnac” (neither man seems to have originated the trick, asthat honor apparently goes to English magician and inventor John Nevil Maskelyne). AsNolan’s film nicely explores, the world of magic is often defined by thesequestions over what performer truly “owns” a particular illusion, both in theliteral sense of proprietary concerns but even more in terms of mastery, andThurston and Kellar embodied that competitive conflict in spades.

Or was itall just an act? (Not in Nolan’s film, to be clear—again, no spoilers, butthose two characters really, really don’t like each other.) After all, Kellarwas a generation older than Thurston, served in at least some ways as anothermentor to the younger performer, and the two men toured together for many yearswith their Thurston-KellarShow (which as that advertisement reflects billed the act as “Thurston,Kellar’s Successor). While any performer faces genuine questions about theirlegacies after they’re gone, questions which would certainly be connected towho “owns” a famous illusion, every performer also and perhaps especially wantsan audience while they’re alive. Both of these magicians unquestionably learnedfrom the Fakir about how to generate publicity, not only in one moment butacross a long career, and presenting themselves as rivals (even, if not particularly,when they shared a stage) was quite possibly an elaborate way to do just that. Aswith any great magic trick, we’ll never know the answer for sure!

NextMagicStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Magicians or magic histories or contexts you’d highlight?

March 18, 2024: American Magic: Fakir of Ava

[Thiscoming weekend marks HarryHoudini’s 150th birthday! So this week on the blog I’ll performsome AmericanStudying magic of my own, leading up to a special post on thatlegendary prestidigitator.]

On threeways that the firstfamous American magician paved the way for the profession.

1)     Persona: Isaiah HarrisHughes (1813-1891) was born in England and immigrated to the U.S., but theFakir of Ava, Chief of Staff of Conjurers to His Sublime Greatness the Nanka ofAristaphae, was born sometime later. I don’t think too many future magicianshave gone to quite the lengths that Hughes did to imagine and inhabit theirconstructed persona, as besides creating an entire fictional backstory(although not the character’s geographic origin, as Ava was the Anglicized name of areal city in Burma [now Myanmar]), he also put on blackface, wore elaboratecostumes, and claimed that his tricks were “Oriental feats.” But at the same time,it seems clear to me that Hughes expected his audience to be in on the act, orat least to recognize it as a performance—“Fakir” is a pretty telling name foran invented role, after all. And once Hughes got successful enough, he apparentlyditched most of the costume, but not the name—a persona is a persona.

2)     Publicity: The Fakir achieved that level ofsuccess not only because of his impressive bag of tricks, but also because hewas equally adept at making people aware of them and him. He did so through avariety of techniques beyond hisown elaborate advertising (although that was impressive as well, as thathyperlinked broadside illustrates), including befriending reporters to gainfavorable newspaper coverage, joining popular existing shows likeP.T. Barnum’s to tap into their audiences, and coming up with new promotionalideas like the “giftshow” (offering lucky audience members prizes in the course of the act). Magicisn’t much without the show that accompanies it, and those shows aren’t much withoutan audience to trick and misdirect and amaze. Hughes’ mastery over connectingto and amplifying his audience certainly modeled that skill for futuremagicians.

3)     Passing it on: Some of those future magicianslearned from Hughes quite literally, as his apprentices. I’ll write more aboutthe two most famous, Howard Thurston and Harry Kellar, in tomorrow’s post, butwill note here that both overtly claimed to be Hughes’ heirs: Thurston by arguing“The historian of magic can trace an unbroken line of succession from the Fakirof Ava in 1830 to my own entertainment”; and Kellar by performing under theFakir of Ava name when Hughes became too old to travel and retired to hisBuffalo home. It’s easy to think of magicians’ helpers as the stereotypicalpretty girls in spandex—and maybe they too should be seen as apprenticesinstead—but the truth is that both persona and publicity are often intended tolive on beyond the performer’s career, and heirs are a vital part of that goal.One more way that the Fakir set the standard!  

NextMagicStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Magicians or magic histories or contexts you’d highlight?

March 16-17, 2024: NeMLA Reflections: A Special Organization

[This pastweekend I attended the one scholarly conference I never miss: the Northeast MLA. Itwas a great time as it always is, so this week I’ve featured aseries of reflections on some of the great work I heard, saw, and sharedthere! Leading up to these additional reflections on NeMLA as an organization!]

Much ofwhat I’d want to say about NeMLA is summed up in two posts that I’ll ask you tocheck out if you would and then come on back here:

Thisone from 2017 when I left the NeMLA Board for the first time (only becausemy service time was up, as I’d happily and stayed on forever);

And thisone from 2018 when, proving my above point, I rejoined the Board.

Welcomeback! As of a couple years ago I am once again done with my service on theBoard, and while I’ll never say never when it comes to anything and all thingsNeMLA, I think it’s likely that I will only be a conference attendee and participantfrom now on. (Or, putting this out into the Universe, maybe one day a keynotespeaker?!) But on that note alone, my annual attendance at most if not allof the conference (which has been the case since 2013 and I hope will be in thefuture as well) is a very telling thing—I’m not so much of a conference person(I enjoy them whenever I get to go, but I just mean I’m not someone who seeksout and attends a ton of them), and as any reader of this blog likely knows ittakes a lot to take me away from my sons for any length of time. So thishistory of annual and thorough NeMLA attendance, and a pledge to do the samemoving forward, is high praise indeed.

If I hadto sum up why that’s the case, I would use two words that appear in those priorNeMLA posts and other places I’ve written about the organization: community andsolidarity. Community is the more obvious one, and the focus of much of what I’vesaid previously about this particular community and all that it means to me. Soto say a little more about what I mean by solidarity: at worst, academia canfeel quite competitive, like others are our rivals for jobs or publishing slotsor attention or etc.; and even at best, it can feel quite isolated, like we’rein those things on our own. Of course individual colleagues and friends andloved ones can be company for the journey, as with everything in life. But tofind a whole scholarly community that feels very consistently like it’s gotyour back rather than is either turning its back or stabbing you in yours? That’sa very very rare thing in my experience, and that’s what I feel with and atNeMLA. Makes me want to keep coming back for sure!

Next seriesstarts Monday,

Ben

PS. If youwere at NeMLA, what would you share? If not or in any case, other organizationsyou’d highlight?

March 15, 2024: NeMLA Reflections: Community Connections

[This pastweekend I attended the one scholarly conference I never miss: the Northeast MLA. It was agreat time as it always is, so as usual here’s a seriesof reflections on some of the great work I heard, saw, and shared there! Leadingup to a few more reflections on NeMLA as an organization!]

On three waysthe NeMLA conference connected to local communities and its host city.

1)     BostonPoetry Slam: In my experiences NeMLA conferences tend to find good ways toget attendees out into the local community, but this year the conference broughtlocal communities to the conference space itself in two compelling ways. Onewas these three performances by local poets connected to Boston Poetry Slam, a weekly performancethat features some of the most talented voices in the city’s poetry andcultural scenes. I don’t know who in particular was behind getting this verycool group connected to and present at the conference, but I definitely givethem a standing ovation!

2)     Choreopoems/Choreotexts:The conference’s other unique poetic performance was a bit more scholarly, andthus perhaps more familiar for a conference and organization like NeMLA. Butnonetheless, this trio of performances inspired by NtozakeShange’s choreopoem For Colored Girlsbridged the seeming (but far from genuine) gaps between scholarship, poetry andart, and performance, featuring five local scholars whose own work, voices, andcareers likewise challenge our sense of these areas as distinct or separatesilos. As someone who worked hard in my time as NeMLA President to diversifythe conference’s program in every sense, I love this excellent example of thatongoing goal!

3)     Archival Spaces: While NeMLA 2024 thus did a particularlygood job bringing local voices and communities to the conference, it still alsofeatured its share of communal connections in the other direction. As someonewho’s had the opportunity to give multiple book talks at both the BostonAthenaeum and the MassachusettsHistorical Society, I was especially excited that NeMLA made sure to connect anyinterested attendees to those phenomenal local archives and spaces. Both ofthese kinds of communities, local archives and scholarly organizations, dependon support and solidarity from one another, and I’ve always loved the ways inwhich NeMLA models those interconnections.

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. If youwere at NeMLA, what would you share? If not or in any case, other organizationsyou’d highlight?

March 14, 2024: NeMLA Reflections: Guilty Pleasures Panels

[This pastweekend I attended the one scholarly conference I never miss: the Northeast MLA. It was agreat time as it always is, so as usual here’s a seriesof reflections on some of the great work I heard, saw, and shared there! Leadingup to a few more reflections on NeMLA as an organization!]

On twointeresting throughlines I took away from a pair of provocative panels.

Before theSaturday morning panel of my own about which I wrote in yesterday’s post, I hadthe chance to attend a pair of interconnected sessions organized by literaryscholar MelodieRoschman around the same topic: Guilty Pleasures: Sexy Stories, FemaleDesire, and Resistance. A number of the talks understandably focused on aspectsof the Romance genre (and related subgenres like Paranormal Romance, Romantasy,etc.), which is not a topic about which I know a great deal (although I didwrite a Grad school paper analyzing audience expectations and experiencesthrough the lens of Janice Radway’s influential 1984 book Reading the Romance) and so Iwas happy to learn more from these scholars of it and the particular authorsand works they discussed. But as with all of the NeMLA panels I’ve attended inmy multi-decade association with the conference and organization, I also foundways to connect these conversations to my own work and ideas, and wanted tomention two of those thought-provoking throughlines from these sessions here.

One debatewhich came up in a number of the talks across both sessions, as you mightexpect with this overarching topic, was whether it’s a good/productive orbad/destructive thing to use literary/cultural works as escapism (or relatedframes like enchantment). To be clear, none of the presenters bought into the longstandingnarratives that novels and other cultural works are themselves “bad,” notfor women and not overall; but there was a great deal of thoughtful analysis ofthe potentially limiting but also potentially liberating effects of gettinglost in such works. In particular, the chair of the second session, BabsonCollege ProfessorSamantha Wallace, provocatively used a J.R.R. Tolkien essay toframe these questions in her talk on Romantasy novelist Sarah Maas and thedangers and benefits of becoming enchanted by such books and their worlds. Whichwas especially thought-provoking for this audience member as I’ve been havingvery similar conversations throughout my current section of Introductionto Science Fiction and Fantasy, beginning with our first reading,Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring.I always love when a NeMLA panel can inform my current semester and teaching,and this was an excellent example of that effect.

Ifrequently glean such lessons for my teaching at NeMLA, but I always learn agreat deal about American literature, culture, and history—there’s a reason whyI decided to serve a three-year term as the organization’s AmericanArea Director, after all. And in this case, it was an excellent paper fromthe chair of my own panel (about which and whom I wrote yesterday), VaughnJoy, that offered the most fascinating lessons about American history andculture. Vaughn’s paper discussed theHays Code, the multi-code policy (first created as a set ofrecommendations, but shortly thereafter and for many years an enforced set of restrictions)through which Hollywood authorities sought to control and censor filmproductions. I had long seen reference to the Code as a part midcenturyHollywood histories, but Vaughn went into significantly more detail about itsorigins, evolutions, specific provisions, effects, and, most inspiringly, the manifoldacts of resistance through which artists and filmmakers (including none otherthan FrankCapra himself) challenged and eventually helped end the Code. I’ve neverattended a NeMLA conference without coming away thoroughly impressed by atleast one scholarly presentation, and this was the paper that did it for me in2024.

Lastreflection tomorrow,

Ben

PS. If youwere at NeMLA, what would you share? If not or in any case, other organizationsyou’d highlight?