On the public scholarly work that’s
as entertaining as its subject.
I’m not recommending John F.
Kasson’s Amusing
the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century (1978) as a great AmericanStudies
beach read because it features on its cover
an amazing 1897 photograph of five turn of the century young women baring
their (I’m sure) fashionable bathing suits, although they certainly do reflect
how longstanding the concept of summertime fun is. I’m not even featuring it
because it offers one of the best historical and social analyses of one of America’s most famous beaches,
although it’s true that I know of few if any AmericanStudies books that would
feel more at home propped on your towel. No, I’m sharing Kasson’s book as part
of this series because it’s that rare scholarly work that is just plain fun and
engaging to read.
Obviously Kasson’s topic helps
with those effects—it would be both ridiculous and insensitive to expect a scholarly
work about historical traumas or tragedies (for example) to be fun, after all. Similarly,
a great deal of the pleasure of Kasson’s book comes from his well-chosen and
evocative photographs and images of material culture artifacts, another feature
of his particular subject matter. But it would be wrong not to credit Kasson’s
voice and style with a significant role in his book’s readability and
engagingness, just as it would be wrong not to admit that many scholarly
writers (whatever their subjects) don’t consider those effects as nearly
important enough (a function in part of the dissertation process and what it
teaches, in part of the nature of academic peer review, and in part of in the
insularity of any community’s particular language and jargon, among other factors).
One way for our writing to get
more readable is to read more great writing, and so if you’re an academic (like
me, and this advice is meant for me for sure), you could do a lot worse for
your beach reading than Kasson’s book. But whatever your profession, Amusing the Million is a pitch-perfect
beach read—for all the reasons I’ve mentioned, and for many more, including its
ability to help us understand our own new century’s society and popular
culture, our own sites and mediums of entertainment and amusement, play and
consumerism, spectacle and performance. In many ways we’re still living in the
world Kasson lays out so evocatively and engagingly—and his book is so much fun
that taking in those lessons about then and now won’t hurt a bit.
Last beach read tomorrow,
Ben
PS.
What would you recommend for a good beach read? What are you hoping to get to
by the pool this summer?
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