July 23, 2012: Jennings on America’s Origins

[Following up the weekend’s post, this week’s series will feature quotes and ideas from Francis Jennings’ The Creation of America, along with some American Studies perspectives to which I would connect them. This is the first in the series, and as always, your thoughts are very welcome!]

On the most unique, significant, and inspiring paragraphs in Jennings’ book.

The Creation of America is ostensibly a re-interpretation of the Revolutionary era; but as I wrote in the weekend post, it also and more overarchingly represents a chance for Jennings, near the culmination of his career and life, to articulate some of his most significant ideas about American historiography and scholarship, history and culture, identity and ideals. No such idea jumped out at me more than that comprised by the final two paragraphs of Jennings’ “Introduction,” and those two paragraphs are worth quoting in full:

     “Even at the very beginning of English attempts at colonization, established data suggest a need for new angles of interpretation. When Sir Walter Raleigh’s abandoned colony at Roanoke picked itself up and emigrated to Chief Manteo’s town of Croatan in 1586, ethnocentrism has dictated that bloodlusting savages exterminated those white and civilized colonists. But it seems clear that the Roanoke people went voluntarily to Croatan for refuge, and it is quite well established today that Indians all over North America were trying desperately to rebuild populations ravaged by epidemic disease. It would be perfectly rational for Manteo’s people to adopt those Roanoke refugees who had been abandoned by their civilized countrymen, and it would have been equally rational for the adoptees to settle down where they were given ‘savage’ hospitality. It is conceivable—it can be neither proved nor disproved—that Roanoke’s people became part of the ancestry of today’s tribe of Lumbee Indians. Would it not be wondrous if Virginia Dare, the first English child born on American soil, became one of those Lumbee ancestors?

     I like this as a pleasanter notion than equally speculative and equally unprovable racist snarls about murderous savages. More evidence exists for subsequent events. Let us accept the door opened to them by the courtesy of Virginia Dare.”

How do I love those paragraphs? I won’t count all the ways, but I’ll highlight two of (to my mind) the most significant. For one thing, I’ll admit that I have never encountered another scholarly narrative of America’s (possible) origins that lines up more exactly with my concept of cross-cultural transformation; I named Cabeza de Vaca my 16^th-century exemplary American within that definition, but Jennings’ take on Virginia Dare, while more speculative, would work just as well—and given Dare’s symbolic status as that first-born Anglo-American would make this cross-cultural experience even more overtly defining of the American experience.

But for another thing, I love Jennings’ perspective here, on two key levels. He’s straight-forwardly honest about preferring a particular take on American history and identity—obviously such preferences shouldn’t lead us to misrepresent the historical sources and facts, but as Jennings recognizes here, history-writing is always partly about an interpretation of those sources and facts, about creating our own narratives based on them; and why shouldn’t we try to find the more communal and inspiring narratives in them, rather than then most divisive and violent? Moreover, while there are of course plenty of cases in which we can’t dispute that cultural contacts led to such divisions and violence, there are likewise plenty in which they produced communal understanding and connections, and the kinds of transformations that can result from them—so why should we assume the worst of our histories, rather than arguing for the best?

Those are my favorite paragraphs in Jennings’ book, but they’re far from the only inspiring ones. Next example tomorrow!

Ben

PS. What do you think? How would you respond to these ideas?

7/23 Memory Day nominee: Raymond Chandler, one of America’s (and the world’s) greatest mystery novelists, and also one of our most thoughtful and complex chroniclers of masculinity, heroism, social class, and more.

July 21-22, 2012: Rediscovering Francis Jennings

On the surprising but (at least in this case) entirely appropriate places we find renewed inspiration for our American Studying.

There are lots of different kinds of scholarly conversations, and I’d say that each is equally and vitally important for a life of scholarly work. There are certainly those we have with our colleagues, both at a particular institution and around the world. There are those with our models and mentors, in- and outside of academia. These days there are those we find online, such as at the many sites I highlighted in last week’s post. But for me, one of the most significant and inspiring conversations is also one that it’s all too easy to minimize, both because it’s less overtly dialogic and because it’s more old school: the conversation that we have with prior scholars, with those pioneering and influential voices who have come before us and with whose ideas we must and should remember to keep conversing in our own careers.

That conversation can also be easy to minimize because it seems distinctly tied to our work in graduate school—to those reading lists that we create for exams, for example, and the many scholarly voices we encounter during that experience. Obviously the ideas and lessons we take away from those graduate conversations remain with us throughout our career, but as we move into our own scholarly identity, it can be easy to feel as if we have moved as well into the more present and ongoing conversations such as those I cited in the prior paragraph. Such, for me, was the case of historian Francis Jennings; Jennings’s pioneering book The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (1975), with its exemplary and hugely innovative revisions of our historiographies of the era of European arrival and settlement and of the relationships between settlers and Native Americans, was one of the most inspiring and striking texts I read in graduate school. Yet while I certainly tried to pay back that debt by citing Invasion prominently in the first chapter of my Redefining American Identity, I didn’t necessarily feel that I needed further conversation with Jennings.

Needless to say, I couldn’t have been more wrong. While staying in my late grandfather’s house this past week, I dipped into his impressive collection of American Studies books, and picked up Jennings’ final work, The Creation of America: Through Revolution to Empire (2000). And wow. While the book is officially a history of the Revolutionary era, and certainly represents a very distinct and important perspective on that period, it is also and most significantly a culminating statement in Jennings’ life and career, a final chance for him to articulate some of his most over-arching and meaningful ideas about American history, culture, and identity. And as such, I found it full of incredibly inspiring moments and ideas, passages that speak directly to some of my own most central interests and ideas. So this coming week, I’ll be highlighting five such passages, and using them as jumping off points for my own evolving ideas. I can’t think of a better way to make clear how much conversations with Jennings still have to offer, for me and for all American Studiers.

Series coming up,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Any prior scholars whose voices and ideas you’d highlight?

7/21 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two hugely distinct but equally talented and influential Modernist writers, Hart Crane and Ernest Hemingway.

7/22 Memory Day nominees: Another tie, this time between two unique and interesting American artists, Emma Lazarus and Alexander Calder.

July 16-20, 2012: Talk Amongst Yourselves

This American Studier is headed for vacation this week, taking his little American Studiers back to one of his favorite places in the whole world. I’ll be back (I guess an American Studier should say “I shall return”), and new posts will resume on Saturday, July 21^st. But in the meantime, here are a few places where you can find some great American Studies conversations (among the many such sites and conversations to which I’ve linked here over the years; see also all the posts under the “Scholarly Reviews” category):

1)      Mixed Race America, an amazingly thoughtful and interesting blog and community of commenters on all things race, ethnicity, and identity;

2)      Humor in America, where a diverse community of scholars, critics, reviewers, and cultural studiers analyze contemporary and historical American funniness;

3)      Open Salon (where I post a mirrored version of this blog), which has its issues with spam and the like but also features as diverse and talented a group of writers as I’ve found on the web;

4)      The Encyclopedia of American Studies Forum—the EAS itself, on the Editorial Board of which I’m currently serving, is hoping to become open and free to all soon; but the Forum already is, and features some great conversations;

5)      Funk and Beans, where a pair of talented young American Studiers (and lots of great commenters) share their perspectives on pop culture, race and ethnicity, literature and history, politics and education, and much more.

Lots of good stuff happening out there on the intertubes! Please feel free to share sites and conversations you’ve found in comments, and I’ll see you soon,

Ben

PS. Have a great week!

PPS. And I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: check out the New England American Studies Association's Pre-Conference Blog for some very timely and equally great conversations!

For the 7/16 through 7/20 Memory Day nominees, see the Memory Day Calendar!

July 14-15, 2012: Crowd-Sourcing Beach Reads

[The next crowd-sourced post, with suggestions on American Studies beach reads drawn from readers, Facebook commenters, Tweeters, friends, and more! Add yours below, and happy reading!]

Michelle Moravec highlights Clarence Lusane’s The Black History of the White House, a “very readable yet informative” work of American political and social history.

Heidi Kim writes that “Shawn Wong wrote his novel American Knees specifically so his wife could have something to read at the beach. Also for his students, who wanted something fun to relate to. It’s basically a bunch of mixed-up interracial romantic relationships that yield funny but serious reflections on racial identity."

Rob Velella (author of this guest post) describes a beach read as “something you can sit down and read in a single sitting, regardless of how challenging it is or its multiplicity of depth. On that note, then, I have to recommend Stephen Crane’s ‘The Monster’ as well as Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s ‘The Story of a Bad Boy.’ Just because.”

Irene Martyniuk writes that “Beach reads, or summer reads, to me, are more about entertainment than analysis. That doesn't preclude the two from coming together, by any means. In fact, when they do, it is remarkably pleasant and useful in surprising ways. For instance, when I had only been at FSU for a few years, I read Clancy's Patriot Games with the notion of just arguing about it with my conservative family. Instead, I was able to discuss it at great length at an Irish Lit conference back in South Carolina, focusing on terrorism and presentations of terrorists. Even further, after 9/11, I went back to the same group and talked about how I need to rethink my ideas in light of what had happened.”

Max Cohen writes that “As far as American Studies sci-fi/fantasy book reads go may I suggest The Demon Trapper’s Daughter? YA but still worth the read. Set in the year 2018 in Atlanta, GA after our education system has failed (because of privatization) and Atlanta is basically a festering pile of demons and death. Kind of a light read (at least compared to Tad Williams) but the underlying collapse of America should be pretty interesting to you.”

And a bonus: following up last week’s series on the Jackson Homestead and Museum, Faith Sutter of Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology recommends Digging Veritas, the Peabody’s exhibition on Harvard’s 17^th century Indian College.

Vacation post (with many links!) next week,

Ben

PS. Any suggestions to add?

7/14 Memory Day nominee: Woody Guthrie, for lots of reasons but especially for the song that I have nominated as our new national anthem!

7/15 Memory Day nominee: Clement Clarke Moore, who might or might not have written “A Visit from St. Nicholas”—which is pretty appropriate since the poem did more than any other single work to cement our images of perhaps our most mythic and frequently lied-about figure.

July 13, 2012: American Studies Beach Reads, Part Five

[Having spent many a youthful summer’s day with Tom Clancy’s latest, I’ve got nothing against a good low-brow beach read. But there are also works that offer complex, compelling, and significant American experiences along with their page-turning pleasures. This week I’ll be highlighting some of those American Studies beach reads—and please share yours for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post!]

A handful of other great choices for your reading on the beach this summer.

1)      Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust (1933 and 1939): Darkly cynical satires on human nature, Hollywood, and America don’t get any more funny and fun than this!

2)      Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943): One of the most readable and engaging entries in perhaps my favorite American literary genre: the multi-generational immigrant family novel.

3)      Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969): One of the best American autobiographies (or starting points for one—there are more volumes if you like this one!), by one of our most important poets.

4)      Roger Zelazny, Doorways in the Sand (1975): If you want a shorter work of sci fi than Tad Williams’ series, try this slim but hugely entertaining and thought-provoking novel by one of sci fi’s all-time greats.

5)      THIS SPACE FOR RENT: I’ll say it even before the PS this time—the weekend’s crowd-sourced post needs your suggestions! What should American Studiers read on the beach this summer?

That crowd-sourced post this weekend,

Ben

PS. You know what to do!

7/13 Memory Day nominee: Stewart Culin, the museum researcher, archivist, and ethnographer whose work on games, language, and objects, particularly in Native American cultures but also around the world, profoundly impacted our understandings of those elements and cultures.

July 12, 2012: American Studies Beach Reads, Part Four

[Having spent many a youthful summer’s day with Tom Clancy’s latest, I’ve got nothing against a good low-brow beach read. But there are also works that offer complex, compelling, and significant American experiences along with their page-turning pleasures. This week I’ll be highlighting some of those American Studies beach reads—and please share yours for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post!]

Why you should read an epic four-volume sci fi series on the beach this summer.

If you’re a fan of science fiction already, I probably won’t have to work very hard to convince you to give Tad Williams’ Otherland series—all four 800-page volumes of it—a shot. Williams has had a long and impressively varied career in sci fi, fantasy, and related genres, in print and in numerous other media (Otherland is in fact currently being developed into an online gaming system and also has been optioned as a film which Williams is set to script), and to my mind this series remains his most significant achievement; I’d put it alongside Dan Simmons’ Hyperion novels as the best sci fi series of the last couple decades. So if you’re a fan of the genre and haven’t read Williams’ series yet, feel free to stop reading now and go pick ‘em up; I promise you won’t be disappointed.

But if you’re not a fan, I know that much of that paragraph—and especially the part about 3200 pages of epic science fiction—is more likely to send you running in the other direction than to scream “beach read!” to you. Moreover, Williams’ series is set in numerous places, real and virtual, and if I’m remembering correctly only two of its many central plot threads take place in the United States; hardly an obvious fit for a series on American Studies beach reads. Yet I am including Williams’ series in my own, and there are a couple of pretty good reasons why. For one thing, Williams sets his series in a near-future in which numerous early 21^st century American and world trends—historical, cultural, technological, and more—have been extended and amplified; as with all of the best sci fi, then, his works allow us to consider and analyze our own moment and society from that distance. It doesn’t hurt, for the beach reading and for helping that socially critical medicine go down more smoothly, that Williams’ touch in these areas is both wry and funny; each chapter begins with a brief glimpse into one or another of these futuristic trends, and taken together they comprise a dark satirical vision on par with the kinds of black comedy I referenced in yesterday’s post.

That’s one good reason for any American Studier to engage with science fiction, and particularly with a series as pitch-perfect in its futuristic world-building and social commentary as Williams’. But I would argue that the series’ central theme is even more salient for any and all 21^st century American Studiers. I’m not going to spoil the specifics of how Williams develops this theme, as it’s central to the series’ mysteries and arcs, but will say that his characters and his books are concerned, on multiple key levels, with questions of story-telling: how we create and tell stories; what stories mean for individuals and communities; how stories can be put to the worst as well as the best uses; what the oldest and most enduring stories have to offer all of us in a 21^st century, technologically driven society; and many more such questions. As I’ve argued many times in this space, I think few questions matter more to American politics, culture, society, and Studies than that of our national narratives, the stories we tell about our past, our community, our identity. Williams’ series makes for a hugely imaginative and entertaining way in to thinking about such narratives, and about the deepest human questions to which they connect. Definitely worth your suntanning time!

Next beach read post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Nominations for American Studies beach reads, for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post? Bring ‘em!

7/12 Memory Day nominee: Henry David Thoreau, one of America’s foremost philosophers, environmentalists, political activists, travel writers, lecturers and essayists, and literary voices.

July 11, 2012: American Studies Beach Reads, Part Three

[Having spent many a youthful summer’s day with Tom Clancy’s latest, I’ve got nothing against a good low-brow beach read. But there are also works that offer complex, compelling, and significant American experiences along with their page-turning pleasures. This week I’ll be highlighting some of those American Studies beach reads—and please share yours for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post!]

Why you should read two Holocaust novels on the beach this summer.

When faced with the worst of what humanity can do and be, sometimes all we can do is laugh. That idea is at the heart of a particular post-war strain of American literature and art, the satirical black comedy of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (and later Full Metal Jacket), and other similar works. Yet while some of these works (especially Vonnegut’s novel) do feature relatively sympathetic characters, I would argue that our laughter is not with these characters so much as at them, or at least at the ironic and ridiculous situations in which we encounter them. Such laughter might well help us deal with the horrors behind those situations, or render the memories of them powerless to inflict further pain; but it also has the potential to distance us from the horrors, to make histories that were dead serious to those who experienced them instead seem somewhat silly to us.

That’s one kind of laughter in response to the worst in humanity, and whatever its strengths and weaknesses, I don’t think it makes for entertaining beach reading (although to each his or her own!). But there’s another, very different kind of laughter, one in which the funny voices and perspectives of sympathetic characters lead us as an audience to laugh even as those characters deal with such historical horrors. I think that was the intent behind Roberto Benigni’s Holocaust-centered film Life is Beautiful (which I haven’t seen, so I can’t personally speak to the results!). And that kind of laughter also comprises a big part of two recent, popular and award-winning American Holocaust novels (written by a pair of married New Yorkers): Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated (2002) and Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love (2005).

Both Foer’s and Krauss’s novels are in many ways mysteries, puzzles in which the final pieces don’t lock together until their conclusions, and I’m certainly not going to spoil either here (what kind of beach read commendation would that be?). But I will say that one of the chief pleasures of both novels is in the very funny narrative voices of two of their protagonists: Foer’s Alex, a supremely self-confident yet secretly sensitive Ukrainian kid whose efforts at translating and writing in English aren’t exactly prize-winning; and Krauss’s Leo, a self-deprecating and gloomy elderly Jewish American man whose experiences posing nude for an art class form a throughline for much of the novel’s opening section. It’s no spoiler to say that the novels go many other places as well—they are, after all, Holocaust novels—but as readers we are guided to and through those places by Alex and Leo’s voices, and the genuine, sympathetic, and hearty laughs that each provides. Not a bad reaction to get from a beach read!

Next beach read tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Nominations for American Studies beach reads, for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post? Bring ‘em!

7/11 Memory Day nominee: Jhumpa Lahiri, author of some of the 21^st century’s best American short stories and one of its best novels, and a singular talent whose next steps I can’t wait to follow!