May 16, 2012: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part Three

[On Saturday, May 12^th, I had the honor to run the second annual New England ASA Spring Colloquium. We met in Salem, first at The House of the Seven Gables and then out and about in the historic district, and talked about historic sites, public history and memory, place and identity, and much more. In this week’s series I’ll be briefly highlighting each of our six featured speakers and a bit on his or her interesting and inspiring talk and ideas. Your feedback and ideas are welcome too!

Our third speaker, Esther Thyssen, delved into the many complex contexts and meanings behind Salem’s plethora of public statues and sculptures.

Esther’s a thoughtful and talented art historian, and in her talk she did a wonderful job highlighting and analyzing many of the details and choices that make for great public art (as in the truly unique and compelling Salem Witch Trials Memorial) or, well, crappy statues (as in the Bewitched Statue, in which Elizabeth Montgomery is ostensibly put in conversation with the Salem Witch Trials). In keeping with the Colloquium’s focal points, she also very effectively linked the individual statues and sculptures to the places and spaces around them, and considered how they impact our experiences of a place like historic and contemporary Salem.

Yet Esther took her talk and ideas one step further, in a particularly challenging and important way. It’s all too easy to critique the crass commercialism of the Bewitched Statue, for example—but the truth, as Esther nicely noted, is that the initial impulse behind a work, even the funding and government actions that allow for its creation, don’t dictate how it’s responded to, what it means for those who encounter it and make it part of their experience of a place. Her arguments that all of a place’s public art becomes part of how its landscape is inscribed, but also that the inscriptions continue to evolve and shift with each arrival and perspective, are very important for us American Studiers to keep in mind, as we consider the identities and meanings of every space around us.

Next speaker tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Any statues or memorials you’d especially highlight?

5/16 Memory Day nominee: Adrienne Rich, the hugely talented poet, scholar and essayist, and feminist activist whose recent passing only reminded us more of everything she has meant to American culture and society for many decades.

May 15, 2012: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part Two

[On Saturday, May 12^th, I had the honor to run the second annual New England ASA Spring Colloquium. We met in Salem, first at The House of the Seven Gables and then out and about in the historic district, and talked about historic sites, public history and memory, place and identity, and much more. In this week’s series I’ll be briefly highlighting each of our six featured speakers and a bit on his or her interesting and inspiring talk and ideas. Your feedback and ideas are welcome too!]

Our second speaker, Liz Duclos-Orsello, wove theoretical, practical, political, and personal reflections on place, space, and history into a rich introduction to Salem’s many exemplary questions and themes.

I promise that I didn’t in any way request or otherwise engineer this, but I don’t know that it would have been possible for Liz’s talk to complement Nat Sheidley’s any more fully than it did. Both introduced a significant number of crucial questions and themes for our day’s and ongoing conversations, but they did it in very distinct and again entirely complementary ways: Nat’s use of his specific situation and example complemented by Liz’s wide-ranging and theoretical (in the best sense) questions and focal points; Nat’s identification of particular goals and plans complemented by Liz’s overarching sense of both the challenges and opportunities available to 21^st century public sites and scholars; and so on.

One of our later speakers noted the unfortunate fact that public and academic historians or scholars don’t always talk to each other, much less work together. But in this room, at this event, on this day—and in NEASA more broadly, I’d very happily say—nothing could be further from the truth. We’re all American Studiers, and as these first two talks proved, putting all of our voices and ideas in conversation can only benefit not only us, but also and most importantly our communities and audiences.

Next talk tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think?

5/15 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two influential turn of the 20th century authors, L. Frank Baum, who wrote many successful children’s books but none that impacted American culture more than the fourteen set in in the marvelous land of Oz (thanks of course in part to the film adaptation); and Katherine Anne Porter, perhaps the only modernist American author whose use of stream of consciousness could rival Faulkner’s, and for more than three decades one of the premier chroniclers of Southwestern and American communities and lives.

May 14, 2012: NEASA Colloquium Highlights, Part One

[On Saturday, May 12^th, I had the honor to run the second annual New England ASA Spring Colloquium. We met in Salem, first at The House of the Seven Gables and then out and about in the historic district, and talked about historic sites, public history and memory, place and identity, and much more. In this week’s series I’ll be briefly highlighting each of our six featured speakers and a bit on his or her interesting and inspiring talk and ideas. Your feedback and ideas are welcome too!]

Our first speaker, Nat Sheidley, shared some of the challenges and opportunities presented by his work with the Bostonian Society and the Old State House Museum.

The Old State House Museum is at an interesting turning point: with its 300^th anniversary coming up next year, the Museum is working hard to become a more 21^st century, interactive and engaging, complex and vital part of Boston, New England, and America’s presentation of its history, most especially of the Revolutionary War and era. One of the best steps the Society has taken so far was hiring Nat to be the director of public history and of the project, as he proved at the Colloquium, sharing his thoughtful, multi-part approach to creating a “radically inclusive” and very exciting museum and living history space.

As Nat noted in his talk, the Old State House has a built-in population of visitors, since it’s part of Boston’s Freedom Trail, one of the most popular historic “sites” in America. While the proposed changes will certainly make the museum a more complex and meaningful site for all those visitors, however, they also are geared toward connecting the museum more fully with all of the communities and experiences that constitute 21^st century Boston and New England. After all, as Nat argued eloquently, public historic sites that don’t speak to those who live around them in the present can become simply antiquarian—and he believes instead, as do I, that the past has a great deal to say to the present and future.

Nat’s talk was a great way to start our day off! Next talk tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think?

5/14 Memory Day nominee: Ed Ricketts, the marine biologist and philosopher who helped change America’s relationship to its oceanic and natural worlds and who served as the inspiration for the character “Doc” in his friend John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.

May 12-13, 2012: The Mother of All Stories

[In honor of Mother’s Day, I’ll repeat this post, one of my favorites—because it’s on an amazing short story, because it deals with the challenges and complexities and amazing possibilities of one of my very favorite subjects (parenting), and because it reminds me of some of the most inspiring people I know: mothers. Happy Mother’s Day! You rock!]

I would be the first to admit that I am doing what is without a doubt my most important life’s work—as a dad to the two crazy and crazy cute young dudes pictured above—in near-ideal conditions. However you slice it, from past role models to present support from family and friends, economic security to good health, neighborhood and community to (at least when it comes to something like mixed-race identity) a very tolerant and open-minded historical era and time period, I can’t imagine there being more positive influences on my ability to be a good dad (don’t worry, I’m knocking on wood while typing all that). And still, it’s hard. It’s hard especially on two distinct and crucial levels: on its own terms, it’s hard to feel day in and day out like I’m doing everything I can do for and with them, to prepare them for the best and happiest and most successful futures and lives; and in a broader context, it’s hard much of the time to feel as if I’m balancing out parenting and my career in ways that are mutually productive. And I don’t think those things are even vaguely distinctive for me—quite the opposite, I think they’re indications of just how hard these questions are for everybody.

But of course the reality is that these questions are much, much harder for a great many Americans. If even one of those positive influences that I listed above is replaced with a negative one—if one doesn’t have much familial or social support, if one’s financial situation is unstable or disadvantaged or bleak, if health issues become prominent, if one’s community is dangerous or threatening, and so on—the difficulties increase exponentially. And if multiple or even most of the influences become negative, if in fact being a good parent becomes an effort to rise above (rather than, in my case, to live up to) all of what surrounds one—as, I believe, is the case for many of the impoverished families and parents with whom my Mom works in a Head Start-like program in Central Virginia (although she and that program are, just to be clear, one extremely positive influence in their worlds)—well, I can’t even imagine how difficult it becomes at that point. And yet, as if so often the case, a singular and singularly amazing work of American literature allows me to imagine, even in a small way, what it feels like to be in that situation, to try to parent well, or even perhaps just to parent at all, in the face of most every single factor and influence and aspect of one’s situation.

That work is “I Stand Here Ironing,” a short story by Tillie Olsen. Olsen spent the first half of her life living with these questions, as a working single mother who was trying both to be a good parent and to find time or space to hone her considerable talents as a creative and critical writer; when she finally achieved success, with the book of short stories Tell Me a Riddle (1961) that featured “Ironing,” she spent the second half of her life writing about (among many other things) precisely these questions, such as in the unique and important scholarly study Silences (1978) which traces the effects of work and parenthood on women writers in a variety of nations and time periods. Yet I don’t think she ever captured these themes more evocatively or perfectly than in “Ironing,” a brief story in which a mother imagines—while performing the titular act of housework—how she might describe her relationship to her oldest and most troubled daughter (named Emily) to a school official who has asked her to do so. Although the narrator is now in a more stable situation, the first years of her daughter’s life comprised her lowest point in every sense, and for much of the story she reflects with sadness and regret and pain on all that she was not able to offer and give to and be for her daughter during those years. But she comes at the end to a final vision of her now teenage daughter that is, while by no means idealistic or naïve, a recognition that Emily is becoming her own person, that she is strong and independent, and that she has the opportunity to carve out a life that, at the very least, can go far beyond where it began.

It’s a beautiful and powerful story, and a very complex one, not least because no parent can read it with the perspective of simply a literary critic or a distanced reader in any sense. It pushes us up against the most difficult aspects of this role, makes clear how much more difficult still they can be than most of us (fortunately) will ever know, and then finally reminds us of the absolutely unalterable and singular and crucial meanings of what is, again, the most important thing we’ll ever do. Word to your mother.

More next week,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Any great works about mothers to highlight?

5/12 Memory Day nominee: George Carlin, who to my mind rivals only Mark Twain when it comes to American humorists whose voices, perspectives, and ideas have been hugely influential in satirizing, critiquing, reflecting, and engaging with our society and culture.

5/13 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two unique and talented American musical artists with very different stories and arcs: Ritchie Valens and Stevie Wonder.

May 11, 2012: American Studies Insights, Part Four

[With work on my current book project ramping up to a fever pitch, at precisely the same time that the end of semester grading pours in—thanks, universe!—this week’s series will be particularly quick hits: each day a single American Studies insight, not necessarily earth-shattering but on my mind, courtesy of one of my classes this semester. Your insights and responses very welcome in the comments!]

Today’s insight is a bit different, and perhaps obvious: but it came to me with absolute clarity on Wednesday afternoon, as I said some last-class things to my English Capstone students.

I was talking to them about some of the skills and strengths that I think our shared passion for writing, reading, creating, teaching, talking about, and working with stories can help us find and hone and bring out into the world. I started with one that I find especially key, and about which I’ve written in this space quite a bit: empathy. And I used the example of Tuesday night’s disheartening North Carolina vote, which made same-sex marriage illegal in the state’s constitution; it would be impossible, I argued on Wednesday, for someone to empathize genuinely and fully with a person being affected by that law and still vote for it.

I didn’t know it at the time, but President Obama was at almost the exact same moment talking in an interview about how his personal evolution has led him to support the legality of same-sex marriage. That’s a very good thing, but as I had looked out into my group of graduating English seniors, my insight was even better: that I didn’t have the slightest doubt that every one of them are capable of that empathy, that in fact it’s a core part of who they are. Partly that’s because of their specific skills and interests, maybe; but mostly it’s because they’re young, and folks in this generation have that kind of empathy, across seemingly divided communities, very consistently and impressively. I’m proud of my President, but prouder still of my students.

Special post this weekend,

Ben

PS. What do you think? And with the series finishing, any insights you want to share?

5/11 Memory Day nominees: A tie between Irving Berlin, the Russian immigrant who in the course of his 20^th century-spanning life created some of the most enduring and powerful American songs; and Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was also one of America’s most talented and charismatic public figures and educators.

May 10, 2012: Maurice Sendak

[A break in the insight-full series to pay tribute to one of 20^th century America’s most unique and talented artists.]

Those who know me, and more exactly know how I feel about William Faulkner, will know just how much of a compliment it is for me to say that Maurice Sendak was the Faulkner of children’s books.

I don’t mean that in an American Studies way. Compared to Faulkner and his profound connection to a particular place and world, and likewise compared to the other children’s authors and books that have appeared in this space—Margaret Weis Brown and her educational advocacy, Ezra Jack Keats and The Snowy Day, Virginia Lee Burton and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel—Sendak and his works were particularly universal, connected to themes and images, narratives and emotions, that exist outside of any national tradition and, often, in the deepest cores of kids’ and all of our identities and lives. Does it make any difference where Max’s room is, what city Mickey’s night kitchen might emulate, where stubborn uncaring Pierre and his parents (and the lion) live? No, I don’t think it does.

Instead, what made Sendak Faulkner-esque, for me, was his ability, particularly in Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, to create perhaps the closest thing to a true stream of consciousness style in children’s literature. Those books are pure representations of (respectively) the imagination and the dream, of the places where a child’s—and, again, all of our—mind and soul can go when inspired and given free reign. And whereas Faulkner’s stream of consciousness could be deeply discomfiting and frustrating, demanding multiple reads and intense analytical work, Sendak’s feels so right, so immediate, hits us—and doubly so hits kids, I have found—right where we live. If that’s not a gift, and a rare and powerful one, I don’t know what is.

May you find all the wild things and morning cake you can handle, Mr. Sendak. An American author and artist whose works and words will live on forever. Final insight tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Any Sendak thoughts or stories to share?

5/10 Memory Day nominee: T. Berry Brazelton, the pioneering pediatrician and advocate for early childhood education and awareness, whose efforts on behalf of some of our most vulnerable and important Americans (and humans) continue to this day.

May 9, 2012: American Studies Insights, Part Three

[With work on my current book project ramping up to a fever pitch, at precisely the same time that the end of semester grading pours in—thanks, universe!—this week’s series will be particularly quick hits: each day a single American Studies insight, not necessarily earth-shattering but on my mind, courtesy of one of my classes this semester. Your insights and responses very welcome in the comments!]

Today’s insight came early in the semester with my Intro to American Studies course, as a familiar song opened up in a new way for me.

Since the first time I taught (or rather team-taught, with a colleague in History) our new Intro to American Studies course—and really since I first came up with the idea for a course focused on the 1980s—I knew that Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” (1988) would be one of the multimedia texts that we’d analyze. It’s a great song, full of interesting and evocative choices and moments, and at its heart is that incredibly complex title image: the car owned by the speaker’s significant other. In the course of the song’s verses and shifting choruses, that car serves as a symbol of genuine hope and progress, a speeding vehicle toward more temporary and even “drunk”-en escape, and eventually a divisive reminder of all that has not happened for the speaker and her husband. But this time, as we talked about Chapman’s song in the context of poverty in the ‘80s, I started to recognize the more simple truth at its heart: how fully a car can serve as a reminder of our stark contemporary divisions in wealth and class.

After Katrina hit New Orleans, I remember seeing and hearing many commentators wonder why all those stranded residents hadn’t simply left the city—not recognizing how few of them could afford a car. Similarly, many Americans don’t seem to realize the central problem with the new photographic voter ID laws being passed or considered in many states: that for many millions of impoverished Americans, a driver’s license (the only common government-issued photo ID) is entirely meaningless and useless. In these and many other cases, a car is not a symbol or an image, not an American icon, but simply and crucially an important tool and resource that lies outside of the lives of many of our fellow citizens. The next time I talk with a class about Chapman’s song, I’ll try to make sure we include among our topics of conversation the idea that sometimes the literal reading of a text is one of the most powerful and significant.

Next insight tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? And I’ll ask again—insights to share?

5/9 Memory Day nominee: Daniel Berrigan, the Catholic priest and peace activist whose courageous opposition to the Vietnam War marked only the beginning of a long career of activism, protest, and poetry (and inspired a song by one of my favorite singer-songwriters, Dar Williams).