[On April
28th, 1967, Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted
into the U.S. army and was stripped of his heavyweight title. So this week,
I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of contexts for moments and acts of civil
disobedience, leading up to Friday’s post on Ali’s activism.]
On civil
disobedience, public scholarship, and where the two forms of activism
intersect.
For
much of this blog’s six and a half year history, when I wrote about scholarship
and political activism in this space I tended to treat the two things, as I did
in this
meta-post, as distinct and even at times (to my mind) opposed options for
any AmericanStudier (or other academic). I certainly still believe that to be
the case when it comes to classroom teaching; espousing a particular political
party or candidate in the classroom (which, as I wrote in this
post nearly five years ago, I believe that very few of us teachers do,
despite cultural stereotypes of indoctrinating liberal professors that have
recently found new
life at the highest levels of education debates) is for me anathema to complex,
contextual, historical and cultural and literary and analytical and above all
student-centered course work. Yet in a scholar’s work and career outside of the
classroom, it’s entirely possible to be both a committed political activist and
(what I have increasingly
come to define as) the best kind of public scholar, a fact that’s
exemplified by my friend and English and AmericanStudies colleague, Wellesley
College Professor Lawrence
(Larry) Rosenwald.
Larry’s
particular kind
of political activism has brought him a (relatively) good deal of
attention, both because it’s unusual and because it’s at least potentially
illegal: he is a tax resister, and specifically a war
tax resister, an American citizen who refuses each year (at least those
years when the US is fighting a war) to pay the portion of his taxes that he
has calculated go to support our defense and military spending. Yet while these
actions and choices are certainly individual, political, and in response to contemporary
issues and realities, they are also, as Larry argues with great nuance and
impressiveness in this essay,
deeply scholarly and analytical, connected to a line of American philosophy and
writing that extends back at least to Henry David Thoreau and his practice and
ideas of civil disobedience (about which more later this week). That essay of
Larry’s is in fact a model for me of public AmericanStudies scholarship, a
piece that does full justice to an American literary figure and historical
moment and philosophical and political narrative, while at the same time
foregrounding and engaging directly with Larry’s own and our national
contemporary connections to all of those focal points.
That
activism and essay would be more than enough to merit Larry a place in this
week’s series, but they’re far from the only, nor even necessarily the central,
impressive public scholarly works of his. Larry has also made at least as
valuable and critical a contribution to our national identity and conversations
with his book Multilingual
America: Language and the Making of American Literature (2008): that
text acts as a very thorough and comprehensive survey and analysis of the
multilingual canons and traditions that have been part of our national
literature and identity from their origins; and at the same time makes a
compelling case for redefining both that literature and our identity precisely
through multilingualism. In other words, the book has a great deal to offer to students,
literary critics, cultural historians, interested AmericanStudiers outside of
the academy, and educators who work with multilingual student populations,
among many other potential audiences; public scholarship, as I have tried to
articulate in this space on multiple occasions (including this
post), entails not only certain kinds of focal points and methodologies but
also and at least as importantly broad and deep connections to a variety of
audience members and communities, and Larry’s book, like his work in general,
fits that definition perfectly.
I
suppose my main takeaway here, and (I have realized more and more over these
six years) one of my main purposes for this blog, is that public scholarship is
on a core level inherently political activism. That’s true when it aligns
directly with overt activism, as with Larry’s performance and analysis of civil
disobedience; and is true when it comprises instead a sustained illustration of
and argument for a distinct and crucial vision of our national and cultural
identity, as with Larry’s book. But even if you disagree entirely with those
points of mine, Larry’s multifaceted AmericanStudies work is exemplary and well
worth our communal awareness and response. Next civil disobedience post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other contexts for civil disobedience you’d highlight?
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