Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 76

May 17, 2023: Watergate Figures: John Dean

[On May 18th,1973, the nationally televised SenateWatergate hearings began. So for the 50th anniversaryof that historic moment, this week I’ll highlight one telling detail each for ahandful of the key figures in those hearings. Leading up to a weekend post on afew contemporary echoes of that moment!]

Speakingof PresidentGeorge W. Bush’s 2005 admission that he had authorized NSA wiretaps withoutobtaining warrants, John Dean argued that Bush was “the first President toadmit to an impeachable offense.” I’m not sure any American, past or present,would be in a better position to make such assertions than Dean, who had servedas WhiteHouse Counsel under Nixon, had been instrumental in the cover-upof the Watergate break-in, and after signing a plea deal became a key witness in theSenate Watergate hearings. Dean isn’t just an impeachment expert, though—he’san exemplary illustration of two late 20th century trends: former governmentofficials becoming political pundits and commentators; and members of the Goldwatergeneration of the Republican Party becoming increasingly disillusioned with theparty’s gradual evolution into the Cult of Trump. Reflecting both those trendsis Dean’s trilogy of books released in the first decade of the 21stcentury: Worsethan Watergate (2004), Conservativeswithout Conscience (2006), and BrokenGovernment: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, andJudicial Branches (2007). A Watergate-era voice we should all still belistening to for sure.

NextWatergate figure tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

May 16, 2023: Watergate Figures: Howard Baker

[On May 18th,1973, the nationally televised SenateWatergate hearings began. So for the 50th anniversaryof that historic moment, this week I’ll highlight one telling detail each for ahandful of the key figures in those hearings Leading up to a weekend post on afew contemporary echoes of that moment!]

HowardBaker, a Republican Senator from Tennessee, was the ranking minority memberon the Ervin Committee, and it was Baker who famously asked, “Whatdid the President know and when did he know it?” However, it was also Baker whowas revealed—thanks, as so much of the Watergate investigation was, toNixon’s thorough and thoroughly illegal recording system—to have said to thatpresident in a private conversation, “I’m your friend. I’m going to see thatyour interests are protected.” That duality of course reflects—as a scandallike Watergate did in so many ways—some of the best and the worst of how thebranches of government as well as political parties can operate. But it alsocaptures the dualities of Baker himself, the first Republican Senator fromTennessee since Reconstruction and Ronald Reagan’s future Chief of Staff yetalso one of the deciding votes in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the Clean Air Act of 1970,and the Supreme Court confirmation of Thurgood Marshall. Ain’t that America?

NextWatergate figure tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

May 15, 2023: Watergate Figures: Sam Ervin

[On May 18th,1973, the nationally televised SenateWatergate hearings began. So for the 50th anniversaryof that historic moment, this week I’ll highlight one telling detail each for ahandful of the key figures in those hearings. Leading up to a weekend post on afew contemporary echoes of that moment!]

The DemocraticSenator from North Carolina who helped stopJoseph McCarthy in the early 1950s and bring down Richard Nixon two decadeslater (the Senate committee which investigated Watergate was informally knownas the Ervin Committeedue to his central role) was also a lifelong defender of Jim Crow segregation,often citing his legal training and the Constitution as justifications formaintaining that racist system. That incredibly complex set of realities notonly sums up the layers and evolution of the Democratic Party in the South and throughoutthe nation in the course of the 20th century, but also reminds us ofthe inescapable and often quite fraught interconnections between historicalissues and debates. American political history owes Sam Ervin a substantialdebt, but he and his ilk also owe Black Americans and all those who care aboutsocial justice a significant apology.

NextWatergate figure tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

May 13-14, 2023: Fall Mini-Previews

[Asanother challenging but rewarding semester comes to a close, I wanted toreflect on a handful of moments that particularly surprised me (in good ways).Leading up to these previews of some of what’s next!]

On threeof the many things I’m looking forward to in Fall 2023 (after, y’know, a verynice summer!).

1)     Returning to EthnicAmerican Lit: As I wrote about in that hyperlinked article, my reinventionof Fitchburg State’s Ethnic American Lit course was one of the first momentswhen I really made teaching at FSU my own. I got to teach that course everycouple years thereafter, and it was always a favorite, for all the reasonshighlighted in that article and beyond. I’ve gladly passed that baton to othergreat colleagues for the last few years, but this Fall I get to teach a sectionof Ethnic American Lit, and I couldn’t be more excited to return to thisfavorite course that will always feel like it’s got a lot of me in it.

2)     Sharing Gannon in English Studies Capstone:Our Senior Capstone course is another one that I love each and every time I getto teach it, but the most recent (Fall2021) section was particularly special, as we were reading Kevin Gannon’s Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto (2020) and Kevin was kind enough to Zoom in to chat with us aboutit and all things education in the 21st century. We’ll see if we canmake that work again in Fall 2023, but no matter what we’ll be reading Gannon’sbook once more, and I know it’ll speak to this moment and group of studentsdistinctly yet just as potently as it did that last one.

3)     Grad Historical Fiction: The first class Iever got to teach in our English Studies MA program was American HistoricalFiction, a course I designed myself for that first Summer 2006 section. I’ve taughtit afew more times over the years, but it’s been a long time since the last oneand I think I had decided it was in my own history. But the past isn’t dead, it’snot even past, and this Fall I’ll get to teach Hawthorne and Chesnutt, Faulkerand Silko, Colson Whitehead and plenty more to another group of our awesome Gradstudents. So much to look forward to, this Fall as ever!

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Spring semester reflections or Summer/Fall previews you’d share?

May 12, 2023: Spring 2023 Surprises: Contemporary Short Stories in Adult Ed

[Asanother challenging but rewarding semester comes to a close, I wanted toreflect on a handful of moments that particularly surprised me (in good ways).I’d love to hear some of your Spring reflections in comments!]

As I wrotein thispreview post, I was really excited to return after many years toliterature-focused adult learning courses, teaching Great American Short Storiesfor both ALFA and WISE (the two such programs in which I teach mostfrequently). There were lots of reasons for that excitement, but high on thelist was the chance to read some contemporary stories I would otherwise havemissed (handily collected in the BestAmerican Short Stories 2022 anthology). I enjoyed all the ones I readand taught, but would highlight this trio of particular stand-outs:

1)     Leslie Blanco’s “A RavishingSun”

2)     Karen Russell’s “The GhostBirds”

3)     and Hector Tobar’s “TheSins of Others” (not available online in full, but well worth seeking out)

Gonna haveto make sure I don’t go years between chances to read and teach such greatstories again!

Lookingahead this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Spring semester reflections you’d share?

May 11, 2023: Spring 2023 Surprises: Ruiz de Burton in Multi-Ethnic American Literatures

[Asanother challenging but rewarding semester comes to a close, I wanted toreflect on a handful of moments that particularly surprised me (in good ways).I’d love to hear some of your Spring reflections in comments!]

This mightcome as a surprise, given how frequentlyI’ve written about her and her works in this space and beyond, but beforethis semester I had never taught an entire Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton novel. I’vetaught excerpts from The Squatter and the Don(1885) many times in my HonorsLit Seminar on the Gilded Age, and had taught the opening of WhoWould Have Thought It? (1872) here and there as well. I really loveRuiz de Burton (duh), but I can’t lie, I wasn’t entirely sure how the entiretyof her long and chatty late 19th century novels of manners wouldteach here in 2023. So I was very pleasantly surprised that the conversation aboutWho Would Have Thought It? in my Gradclass on Multi-Ethnic American Literatures not only went well, but was one ofthe couple best conversations of the semester (always a competitive categorywith our great Grad students). Guess I should teach her whole books more often!

Lastsurprise tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Spring semester reflections you’d share?

May 10, 2023: Spring 2023 Surprises: Barbie and Joe in First-Year Writing II

[Asanother challenging but rewarding semester comes to a close, I wanted toreflect on a handful of moments that particularly surprised me (in good ways).I’d love to hear some of your Spring reflections in comments!]

Ever sinceI revampedmy First-Year Writing II syllabus for the Spring 2014 semester, I’vestarted that course (which as I wrote in that hyperlinked post focuses overallon layers to our 21st century world and identities) with a unit andpaper on analyzing ads. Over time I’ve found a variety of sample ads, presentand past, to share for our collective practice with that skill, including acouple of YouTube compilations of 1980s TV commercials for Barbie and G.I. Joe respectively. Otherthan the inevitable horror this child of the 80s feels at the passage of time,sharing these commercials has always been a fun way to help us get into thisfirst unit’s texts and topics. But this semester, my great group of First-YearWriting II students (a handful of whom I’d taught in the Fall, but most of whomwere still new to me in these opening weeks of the semester) went above andbeyond, not only analyzing these ads closely to practice those Paper 1 skills,but raising all sorts of thoughtful contexts about gender and identity,childhood, marketing and commercialism, and more. FYW discussions can be tough toget going, but this conversation sure got ours going on a great note!

Nextsurprise tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Spring semester reflections you’d share?

May 9, 2023: Spring 2023 Surprises: Akata Witch in Intro to Sci Fi and Fantasy

[Asanother challenging but rewarding semester comes to a close, I wanted to reflecton a handful of moments that particularly surprised me (in good ways). I’d loveto hear some of your Spring reflections in comments!]

As Imentioned in mysemester preview post, the new addition to my Sci Fi/Fantasy syllabus thistime around was Nnedi Okorafor’s AkataWitch (2011). I like Okorafor’s novel a lot, but we can never know for surehow a reading is gonna go the first time we teach it—and, as I’ve highlightedin this space before, I’m always particularly uncertain about assigning longerworks like novels in our fraught and challenging current moment. And to add onemore variable, we read Akata Witchafter four weeks working with only short stories, meaning in the two weeks wespent on Okorafor’s book we have significantly more pages in front of us thanhad been the case. So I was definitely surprised and really impressed with howfully the students got into Akata Witch,in both senses: getting through the novel across those couple weeks of classesand conversations; and connecting to it on many different levels, making thosediscussions consistently thoughtful and fun. Think this one is staying on thesyllabus!

Nextsurprise tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Spring semester reflections you’d share?

May 8, 2023: Spring 2023 Surprises: Hawthorne & History in The American Novel

[Asanother challenging but rewarding semester comes to a close, I wanted toreflect on a handful of moments that particularly surprised me (in good ways).I’d love to hear some of your Spring reflections in comments!]

I firsttaught TheAmerican Novel to 1950 in my first Spring semester at Fitchburg State(Spring 2006, if you want me to feel really old), and in the many sections sinceI’ve switched out almost every book on the syllabus at least once or twice. Withone exception: I’m pretty sure I’ve started every section of this class (afteran introductory week featuring two early 19th century short storiesto get us going a bit) with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s TheHouse of the Seven Gables (1851). I greatly enjoy Hawthorne’shistorical romance and find that it teaches really well, but certainly thatconsistent presence means the couple weeks of conversations about the book tendto feel familiar by now. So I was pleasantly surprised this semester when ourfinal discussion about the novel became a thoughtful, multi-layered deep dive intohistories of the Salem Witch Trials, both in and beyond Hawthorne’s book. I’dclaim that my drawing of the House and its environs on the whiteboard was the key,but really, as usual, this was all about a great group of FSU students andtheir perspectives and ideas. That part is never a surprise!

Nextsurprise tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Spring semester reflections you’d share?

May 6-7, 2023: Hemispheric Studies Scholars

[April 30thmarks the 75thanniversary of the formal founding of the Organization of American States(OAS). So this week I’ve offered some AmericanStudies contexts for thatimportant community and a handful of other hemispheric histories, leading up tothis weekend post highlighting some of the many awesome scholars doinghemispheric studies!]

1)     ElenaLahr-Vivaz: Full disclosure, the first two scholars I’m highlighting hereare good friends of mine—but that doesn’t change in any way the strength andimportance of their work, nor its relevance to this week’s subjects. Lahr-Vivaz,a fellow Charlottesville, Virignia product, is doing some of the most thoughtfulLatin American Studying I’ve encountered, and I’d highlight in particular herexcellent recent book Writing Islands: Space andIdentity in the Transnational Cuban Archipelago (2022).

2)     DiegoUbiera: Elena I only get to see occasionally; but Diego, who is my FitchburgState University English Studies colleague as well as a good friend, I’mfortunate enough to see and work closely with (I consider chairing the jobsearch that brought Diego to FSU one of my career highlights!). His co-authored2022 Latin American Research Reviewarticle, “CaribbeanExceptions: The Problem of Race and Nation in Dominican Studies,” reveals ascholar who is both deeply connected to Dominican Studies yet investigatingquestions that cut across the hemisphere’s histories and current events alike.

3)     Greg Grandin: Theselast few folks I don’t know personally, but I sure know their exceptional workon such hemispheric histories and topics. Grandin’s book Empire’sWorkshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism(2006, but that’s a link to the 2021 updated and expanded edition) remains agold standard for thinking about the U.S. and empire, which of course is farfrom the only way to approach hemispheric studies but is certainly one of particularinterest to this AmericanStudies blog.

4)     Britta Crandall and Russell Crandall: Two-for-onehere in the #4 slot, as this paired of married Latin American Studiesprofessors and scholars co-authored one of the best post-Grandin books on theU.S. and Latin America, “OurHemisphere”?: The United States in LatinAmerica, from 1776 to the 21st Century (2021). While I’mslightly worried about replicating that “our hemisphere” notion by including acouple U.S.-centric books in this list, that is of course the focus of thisblog—and I greatly welcome suggestions for non-U.S.-centric works, along withmy own more genuinely hemispheric entry…

5)     FelipeFernández-Armesto: … TheAmericas: A Hemispheric History (2006), Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s magisterialand to my mind entirely successful attempt to bring Glissant’s concept ofcreolization to bear on the history of the Western Hemisphere. Not sure I needto say much more than that, other than, y’know, read the book!

Next seriesstarts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Histories, contexts, and/or scholars you’d highlight?