[Over the last
few months, I’ve had the chance to take part in a number of interesting
AmericanStudies conversations, each hosted by a unique and significant
organization or space. So this week I wanted to follow up those events with
some further thoughts and reflections, leading up to a weekend post looking
ahead to the NeMLA
Convention later this month!]
On how an
inspiring communal conversation helped me kick-start my next book.
Thanks to a
connection from Gail Hoar, one of the
curriculum and events coordinators for the Adult
Learning in the Fitchburg Area (ALFA) program (and a very talented artist and craftsperson), I had
the chance last week to speak to a group of friends and lifelong learners who
meet monthly in New Hampshire (this time around at the beautiful Monadnock Inn in Jaffrey). All the
things I’ve said about what make the ALFA
classes and students so inspiring apply to this group too, but with perhaps
even more force, since this is an entirely voluntary gathering, a group of
individuals who are determined to carve out space and time in their full and
busy lives for collective conversations about historical and cultural and
social topics, for lifelong learning in the most genuine and communal senses. I
learned as much from chatting with them prior to my talk, and certainly from
the questions and conversation after my talk, as I could possibly have brought
to them; as I hope my posts
on book talks have always made clear, those kinds of events are
consistently rejuvenative for me, but again this community and thus this book
talk were especially noteworthy in that regard.
And this was a
book talk, but not in the same way I’ve usually meant that phrase: following up
on a newly published book of mine to share its arguments and stories with
audiences. In this case, I’m at precisely the opposite stage of the process, at
the very beginning of formulating an idea for what I hope will be my next book
project: Exclusion & Inclusion: A
Foundational American Duality. Indeed, my talk with the New Hampshire group
was the first time I’ve presented on this idea and this project in a focused
and extended way; the “exclusion and inclusion” frame certainly follows on
threads that have been part of both my books and my
online writing for years, but nonetheless I had not had an opportunity to
articulate and begin to engage with it as a central argument in its own right
prior to last week’s talk. And of course presenting an idea in a talk requires
steps and skills that are quite distinct from any form of writing about that
idea: creating a structure that can move an audience through different elements
and examples of the central idea; figuring out how to frame and define the
argument with both sufficient nuance and yet sufficient clarity; thinking about
the balance of overarching arguments and specific details, of (we might say)
histories and stories; leaving room for response and further conversation while
still communicating my own take and perspective.
Hopefully I was
able to pull all of that off in this talk, although of course that’s not really
for me to say. What I can say is that by the end of the evening I was entirely
sure that this would indeed be my next book project (something I was still
debating in this very space in mid-January). For one thing, this frame will
allow me to write about some of my very favorite American figures and moments: Quock
Walker using the Revolution’s ideas and ideals to argue for both his own
freedom and the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts; William
Apess defining King Philip as a Revolutionary American leader; interned Japanese
Americans volunteering
to serve in World War II; and many more. But for another, even more crucial
thing, the responses of these deeply informed audience members echoed and
extended my sense of just how salient this exclusion and inclusion duality is
in our current moment, indeed just how fully it can help us understand the worst
and best of what’s happening in 2017 America. To be honest, I can’t imagine
a project that could wed the historical and the contemporary sides to my public
scholarly goals and passions more fully, and, thanks in no small measure to
this wonderful group and inspiring evening, I can’t wait to get started!
Next reflection
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Thoughts on
this conversation? Conversations or events you’d share?
No comments:
Post a Comment