ISSN 2044-8031 Issue 20 2011

Night time View Of North America by NASA Earth Observatory 2009

Mapping America - An American trilogy reviewed on page 43 In this year’s issue Why all the Why Teach 3 marsupials? American is the official journal of the 23 American Studies Resources An Interview with Studies in a Centre, The Aldham Robarts MacArthur CIS Country? Centre, Liverpool John Moores Fellowship By Carol Orme- University, Liverpool L1 9DE winning author Jonathan Lethem Johnson Tel: +44 (0)151-231 3241 Conducted by Carol is currently a Peace Corps e-mail: [email protected] James Peacock Volunteer assigned to Azerbaijan web site: State Agricultural University, www.americansc.org.uk Autobiographi- where she taught an American Editor-in-Chief: Dr Bella Adams Studies class last fall. 10 cal Fictions Editor: David Forster Rappin‘ on Editorial assistants: Ethnicity and 26 Tom Donnelly, Jodie Ellis and Racial Identity in Harriet Stuchbury Dualism Jack Layout and graphics: David Kerouac‘s Ashleigh P. Nugent. Forster Satori in Employs the concept The views expressed are those Paris of ‗Racial Dualism‘ as of the contributors, and not nec- a lens through which By Eftychia essarily those of the centre or to explore the racial Mikelli the university. significance of American rap music © 2011, Liverpool John Moores Teaching from the 1990s University and the Contributors. Motherhood, onwards. Articles in this journal may be 16 freely reproduced for use in sub- Madness and Letter from scribing institutions only, pro- Murder 33 New York vided that the source is acknowl- by Lenny Quart edged. The Challenges of Choosing The journal is published with the Modern Book reviews aid of financial assistance from American An American the United States Embassy. Literary Texts 34 legend revisited Please email us at By : Dr. Raja [email protected] with Khaleel Al-Khalili Michael Paris of the University of any changes of name or address. Central Lancashire reviews Will If you do not wish to continue Kaufman's biography of receiving this magazine, please American roots legend Woody send an e-mail with the word Why Obama Guthrie. Unsubscribe and your subscrip- can‘t close tion number in the subject line. 35 Culture 21 Guantánamo By R. J. Ellis, University 37 History of Birmingham Follow the ASRC on Twitter 40 Literature @AStudies Scan this QR or Facebook. code to An American follow us on http://www.facebook.com/AmStuds 43 Facebook Trilogy Dr Robert Macdonald reviews 3 books on mapping America

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Why all the marsupials? An Interview with Jonathan Lethem Conducted by James Peacock

Jonathan Allen Lethem is a novelist whose work is a genre-bending mixture of detective and science fiction. mean, I think that for what- In 2005 he received a MacArthur Fellowship, the so- ever reason the way I was called ―genius grant.‖ The interview took place on 25 introduced to the very appeal- May 2009 in Brooklyn, and I would like sincerely to ing examples of genre in nar- thank Jonathan Lethem for his time, patience and rative when I was introduced generosity. This is an edited version; the full interview to them—perhaps because it can be read in the online edition of American Studies was simultaneous with so many other introductions; I Today. was all at once reading Ray- James Peacock is Lecturer in English and American Literatures at Keele mond Chandler, Agatha University Christie, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Graham Greene Q So this question of genre is course of the wanderings of and Kafka—it declared itself obviously an important one, decades of story writing. Go to me as a matter to be and I‘m almost nervous in back to something like ―Light looked at as well as relished… bringing up the topic because and the Sufferer‖—is that a you always get asked about it. quarter of a century old for And maybe this has to do But it strikes me that some of me now? I mean, it‘s old, it‘s with my parents‘ relationship the characters are often very old! But I‘ve certainly ob- to cultural practice in general, conscious of the fact that served the same thing you with their bohemianism, they‘re in these kinds of genre have, which isn‘t the same which put a lot of things in collisions or mutations. I thing as crediting it as inten- embracing quote marks…. My mean, the obvious example is tional. I write meta- mother relished old black and ―Light and the Sufferer,‖ generically, and the moment white movies, but she did that when the character says, ―‗Of someone introduced that the way a pothead who also course it‘s weird [. . .] it‘s word I felt I could embrace it. likes The Harder They Come f***ing weird, it‘s science For me it‘s analogous to the and Yellow Submarine likes a fiction.‘‖ But you could also layers of cultural self- Humphrey Bogart movie—not argue, I think, that Metcalf consciousness that I write entirely straight. My father— [protagonist of Lethem‘s de- about, for instance, in a char- well, he was a mid-century but novel Gun, With Occa- acter like Dylan Ebdus, who American, fine arts painter. sional Music] seems aware listens to the music he listens What was the turn that de- that he‘s in a kind of genre to with paradigms of class fined his generation? It was fiction… Is that something and race and social position- the turn from Abstract Ex- intentional, that the charac- ing or social implications pressionism, which was like a ters have a kind of reflexive around the music, helplessly. pure high Modernism, to the awareness of what‘s happen- And he still has a very deep Pop artists, reclaiming im- ing with the genre? and, I would even say, or- agery but in an ironised ganic relationship to music as sense. So I was introduced A Well, I mean, ―intentional‖ is I do to storytelling or to simultaneously to the notion a difficult word because it genre, but he‘s in a way that art was trying to purify sounds that I‘ve planned a equally organically self- itself and reach this exalted certain motif across the conscious. And I‘m that. I kind of Philip Guston, Mark 3 Rothko, high Modernist, sub- thing that‘s most difficult to lime mountain top, but that it comprehend. was also somehow always A Right. Well, I‘ll speak very going to collapse back, as simply about that book. It Guston personally did, into was for me unmistakably a bubblegum wrappers and very, very definite step into comic books and Klansmen something more emotionally and googly eyes and funny direct. You know, I‘m very marks on the page that re- proud of the three books that minded you of food and preceded it in different ways. funny faces. So I was just Amnesia Moon is kind of an born into this complexity. ugly duckling that carries so Girl in a landscape many of my teenage yearn- ings, and it‘s the sort of book I Q The novel that for me was first wanted to write. I sort of most affecting was Girl in a managed to do one, and then Landscape. It‘s the moment I realised ―Oh, I‘m going to be when I realised I did actually forced to grow or be different enjoy your work. I‘d read a than that,‖ but it still carries couple of novels and I‘d al- this code of my earliest yearn- ways felt, ―Okay, that‘s inter- ings. And I think As She esting‖ but I wasn‘t quite sure like hiding in plain sight. No Climbed across the Table, in a that I was actually enjoying one‘s ever going to know how very indirect way, is also very your work until I read Girl in autobiographical I am be- emotional and people some- Landscape. It‘s the one cause all they‘re going to do times catch it. I feel there‘s a where I first had that emo- is think about how absurdly kind of cleverness to that tional connection, partly be- removed from the everyday book and I feel that I pulled cause I happened to read it this book is. But it was also a off a kind of magic act with the year my mother died, in way of calling my own bluff; I the ending. You only get a 2003. So suddenly with the wanted to write a teenage gift like that once or twice, so use of genre, I thought ―Ah, girl‘s coming-of-age story and I‘m very fond of that book…. okay; there‘s a psychological make it as emotionally stark and dangerous as the best By New York standards I‘m not particularly loud or books I saw in that genre… it aggressive. But there I was constantly cast in this role was a way of raising the stakes. If I put my own of the guy who was too loud, too sarcastic, because mother‘s death in the first people are really gentle and soft-spoken, mellow with part of the book, I would have each other and very easily disconcerted or affronted if to commit to an emotional level that would transmit you kind of get wound up…. throughout the rest of the book. I‘d have to sustain it to be worthy of giving the reality here that‘s being But Girl in Landscape was a book—burdening the book, tapped into.‖ The critic Darko transforming book for me and you might say—with that Suvin uses the term ―novum‖ one of the ironies is that The event. to describe the point of differ- Fortress of Solitude has been So I was never the same ence between our world and understandably taken as so writer again after that, I think. the alternative world of the deeply autobiographical, but Of course, the irony is in a sci-fi text. What struck me my mother didn‘t run away, funny way that book was also about Girl in Landscape is my mother died of cancer. my first flop. The people who that you‘ve got the Archbuild- And I portray it almost with really just wanted to see me ers, you‘ve got the household documentary specificity in the play forever, as confusing as deer and you‘ve got many first part of Girl in Landscape. the changes between the first other likely candidates, but I would then conceal that dis- three books might have been, for me the most significant closure within something that they could still say, ―Well, novum is the mother‘s death. would strike people as being okay, he‘s always going to be It seems to me the thing both a western and set on this cool, funny, flip, ironic, that‘s most out-there, the another planet. It‘s almost 4 playful writer,‖ and the emo- ing the size of the planet. I about this?‖ and just as I tion in Girl in Landscape was mean, it can‘t be explained thought things were getting uncomfortable for a certain unless you‘ve gone through good, they thought things constituency. I also think that that. I don‘t know if you‘ve were getting very bad, and on the whole people, even ever travelled into the Austra- they would say, ―Is some- literary readers who have lian outback or the American thing wrong? Did you have a made some accommodation West—the scale is different, bad day?‖… to the idea that there‘s some human life feels different So that‘s how I related Brook- things that science fiction when put against that immen- lyn to Tourette‘s: Brooklyn writers do that might be okay, sity and that abstraction. And was my Tourette‘s while I was another planet is the line they I‘d gone from being a city in California because I left won‘t cross, and so no one kid… I guess I was trying to there when I was too young wants to read a book set on smash together Brooklyn and to really separate my sense of another planet…. what had overwhelmed me self from where I‘d come when I travelled in the Ameri- Q. But it‘s bizarre when it‘s so from. I didn‘t get it, I hadn‘t can western states…. obvious that the other planet lived anywhere else. And is a representation of how Q Elsewhere you‘ve said that when I came back I realised, everything becomes utterly Brooklyn is your Tourette‘s ―Oh, I get to be loud and sar- defamiliarised when some- and I wonder if you could say castic here and people will be body dies. That seems obvi- a bit more about that because ous. I really like that idea.

A But try explaining that on the A This is a dangerous question dust flap of the book!... for me to answer because it calls forth one of my hoariest Brooklyn was my set-pieces. I mean, when I Tourette’s speak in front of a crowd, I‘m Q The Planet of the Archbuild- always asked, ―How did you ers is covered in ruins, frag- arrive at writing about ments of the past. In another Tourette‘s Syndrome?... And I interview you said that have a sort of rebus that I chunks of memory also lie present… which is that I grew around in Brooklyn. So I sup- up in this place (and we‘re pose the obvious question right in the middle of it now) is—to what extent is the where personalities, conver- Planet of the Archbuilders a sations, street talk are very sort of transposed Brooklyn? energetic, ironic, brittle, sometimes play at hostility, A Well, that‘s good, that‘s right and sense of humour can be and it‘s also something else, quite full of scorn, and flirt something much more imme- with aggression. And then I diate. I‘d simultaneously turned on in return and give lived for ten years in northern fallen in love with John Ford me back more of the same.‖ California, where there‘s a westerns, and the way he And I thought, ―You know, very, very different public uses the surrealist landscape the street talk is part of me, ethos of speech and behav- of the desert of Arizona and and I can take this observa- iour. By New York standards Monument Valley—it‘s like tion and make the kind of ex- I‘m not particularly loud or there‘s a Franz Kline painting aggeration of it that fiction aggressive. I wouldn‘t im- going on behind his cowboys. thrives on. If I decide that press anyone here. But there When John Wayne is raging, Brooklyn is Tourette‘s, it‘s I was constantly cast in this there‘s also this shape that‘s wrong, it‘s a mistake, but fic- role of the guy who was too raging, or waiting, or contra- tion loves those mistakes.‖ loud, too sarcastic, because dicting him, or agreeing with people are really gentle and him. And this intensity has to Regionalism soft-spoken, mellow with do with my interest in ab- Q I suspect you wouldn‘t want each other and very easily stract painting. It has to do to talk about your work in disconcerted or affronted if with my discovery of the real terms of regionalism and all you kind of get wound up…. I American West as a city kid, that implies, but there does wanted to say, ―well, yes going out there and discover- seem to be a kind of urban and‖ or ―but come on, what 5

regional sensibility to some of neighbourhoods out of these which is very American but is the novels. In Motherless incoherent areas is a negotia- also very much a part of Brooklyn and Fortress of Soli- tion, and it‘s undisguised. In growing up in the part of tude you use that word Manhattan the claim is being Brooklyn I grew up in, is—can ―Manhattanized‖ slightly asserted that the job is done, you make a meaningful zone pejoratively in the sense that that the glorious result has of operation and declare it Brooklyn seems to stand for been arrived at. Of course, sufficient unto itself? These the embrace of the past or the it‘s also juxtaposed and tur- neighbourhoods were at- past that constantly erupts bulent in its way, underneath, tempts to divide middle class through like Tourette‘s— and in Chronic City I try to brownstones from the sur- make that evident. But the rounding poverty, and that A Yes, yes—unwilling embrace power of the smoothing over attempt was full of ethical of the juxtapositions, an un- is also very striking, and I disasters. The only way to finished quality. To guess in my mind correlates sustain those assertions was ―Manhattanize‖ something is to American dreams of a sim- through amnesia, blindness, to slick it over, and in Brook- ple, total concept of what it is blinkers…. lyn it never quite works. It to be alive or to be justified…. isn‘t that they aren‘t trying all But on the other hand, if you the time, but the crud bleeds Utopian experiment look at my work, one of the up through the veneer. real motifs in it is the fragility, Q The other side of this ques- beauty, and importance of tion is that a number of your subcultural life. Growing up novels seem to take this idea as a child of sixties radicals of regionalism too far. You and a grandchild of American explore the consequences communists in New York City, when people take it to a really but in Brooklyn, which is a tiny, parochial level. Amnesia kind of bastard part of New Moon, I think, is the first ex- York City, I was, without un- ample, where one of the con- derstanding it fully at the sequences of the unnamed, start, nestled within a whole cataclysmic event is that peo- series of subcultures and be- ple retreat into the local. lieved them initially to be Then again in Chronic City much more dominant or last- you talk about the problem, ing than many of them would or at least the phenomenon, turn out to be. They were, in of ethics becoming local. It fact, on the verge of extinc- seems to me that ―local‖ is tion practically by the time I another form of amnesia. was coming into them! But I A This is very interesting be- still feel very, very moved by cause it‘s an area of persis- the bravery of their assertion tent tension for me. I remem- ber at one point coming Q Does that make Brooklyn across an argument that somehow more ―real‖ than thrilled me in a way I can‘t Manhattan? quite finish being thrilled by, A Well, that‘s a pitfall you‘re where the movement in politi- inviting me into, isn‘t it? cally correct anthropology was to say that local culture Q It is. I‘m sorry! needed to be ratified, re- A No, no, I‘ll say no. It‘s not spected, that there were mat- more real but its unreality is ters of local ethos. And more revealing and revealed. someone, problematising That‘s what I would say…. what had become a kind of And the thing about Brooklyn mantra, said, ―So, what if the that seems to me most defini- abolitionists had accepted tive is that it‘s a negotiation, slavery as a local, cultural and a visible negotiation. condition of the southern Walking down the street is a states? Would you take it to negotiation; trying to make that point?‖ And this tension,

6 even if they turned out to be not paid, they risk life and Q So to come to Chronic City. I relatively temporary…. limb to declare themselves was very interested in Perkus‘ part of this community—and eye…. America is a gigantic utopian to the people who don‘t value experiment that because it‘s A don‘t know if you were cata- it, it‘s contemptible, illegal, too enormous to be meaning- loguing them, probably not, destructive, and the price was ful, it‘s too giant and abstract, but I tried to never use the usually to destroy the lives of breaks down into the states or same word— the people who did it. But in into the communes or into that book another subculture, Q That was my next question— the genres or the little zones quite poignant to me, is the where people try to make A Good! You know, the meta- science fiction convention, something that they believe phors I love most—and I where people go and for in, that they think can work. guess the ultimate example of three days in a hotel where And these things simultane- this in my writing is Lack in the staff literally finds them ously exemplify American As She Climbed Across the Table—are the ones that feel America is a gigantic utopian experiment that, each time they‘re used as because it‘s too enormous to be meaningful, breaks though they‘re incredibly alle- down into the little zones where people try to make gorically specific, but by the end they‘ve been used in so something that they believe in. many different lights that you think, ―That was an allegori- idiotic, they set up their per- contemporary life and they‘re cal concept or it was a symbol fect world, where they finally very suspicious, because that, if it was simultaneously feel right and normal. And you‘ve stepped out of the a symbol of a hundred differ- then on Sunday they check mainstream, you‘ve gone off ent things, is it a symbol at out and they go back to the into your own little king- all?‖ It‘s like the metaphor as life of being a loser else- dom… And so I think I‘ve al- lens that can be used every- where; they get back on their ways tried to figure out— where. I mean, Tourette‘s planes and it‘s over. But for what‘s the right size of group becomes the same thing. I three days they had it going. to set up your little utopia made a game of comparing And this is that same dream. with? Where and how can Tourette‘s to Brooklyn, to the this be done, and can it be Q I‘m reminded of Perkus subway, to conspiracy theo- made to last a little while? If Tooth‘s accusation that he ries— you look at Fortress of Soli- levels at Chase Insteadman in Q To Prince. tude, this becomes very ex- Chronic City. He says, plicitly a book about soul fans ―You‘re an amnesiac Ameri- A To Prince, yes. If it‘s sud- as a subculture…. can because you have an in- denly applied to everything, ability to imagine these things then it stands in for con- Q Or graffiti. have happened to anyone sciousness itself. And his eye A Or graffiti. Graffiti exempli- else,‖ or along those lines. certainly is, I think, one of fies the creative act as a kind So it seems to be that, yes, those, like the Lack, or like of absurd—you know, any art those small groups can be Tourette‘s, or in a sense like making is a kind of terribly viable if at least you have dreaming is in Amnesia Moon beautiful, terribly fragile and some kind of awareness of a) or as the stone outcroppings useless or non-viable utopian difference and b) the fact that are in a John Ford film. They zone that‘s being set up, other subcultures or mini- mean everything and there- where you can‘t make any utopias might well be having fore not any one thing. But money, and people end up the same experiences as you. they mean it intensely, insis- pitted against each other be- tently; they demand that you A Yes, absolutely, one that has cause it‘s competitive, so the go with them to that sense of a little more historical con- little utopias fall apart almost meaning…. sciousness, perhaps, and is a before they‘re set up. And little more capable of encom- Q My personal favourite, on this graffiti is a marvellously per- passing imperfection or para- subject, was ―mugwump verse one because in the view dox…. If it can encompass a eye.‖ Wonderful. Clearly, it‘s of the people who do it it‘s lot of ironies and perversities, that kind of multivalent sym- this incredibly expressive, it might be a little more bol which may not even be a communal, selfless kind of art workable, too. symbol, but it seemed to me making—you know, they‘re also a kind of linguistic chal- 7 lenge to yourself, but also to one hand, it gives voice to ingful but we‘re always just the reader, to consider what something; on the other hand thinking, ―What are they go- language is capable of. It‘s it silences it or at least sub- ing to put there?‖… You almost as if the need to keep sumes it within a different know, we don‘t grant any re- finding different ways to de- kind of text. I was thinking ality to the hole in the ground, scribe this makes it indescrib- particularly of graffiti, which even though it‘s been with us able. we‘ve touched on already, but for pushing toward a decade, also the rock gig in You Don‘t this unbelievable hole in the A It‘s a slightly Lionel Essrog Love Me Yet. ground. We don‘t take it as thing smuggled into Chase‘s itself; it‘s only a delayed plan. consciousness, that he can‘t A And the father‘s film, which is So I‘ve lost the very begin- quit describing that eye. described for a page and a ning of this question! half of Fortress of Solitude— Q He has to keep smoothing it. A Yes—―maybe I can find the Because I write enthusiastically about popular culture right word and I can stop and import gestures from comic books and film I am looking at it! If I could just find the word, then I wouldn‘t mistaken for something less than the extremely tradi- have to notice that f***ing tional writer that I am… I‘m a thoroughgoing embodi- eye!‖… ment of tradition and not a radical at all. Q I wonder if you‘d like to say something about ekphrasis, Q Yes, there are lots of exam- Q It‘s about ekphrasis, the the description of other art- ples, even Laird Noteless‘ power of language. works in the text. chasms in Chronic City. Is it celebrating the power of writ- A I‘m very, very excited about it. A I‘m thinking about this very ing, or are you also acknowl- You see me trying to go this much because I‘m reading the edging artistic forms that way in some of my earlier collected stories of J. G. Bal- challenge the power of what short stories that are probably lard. It‘s one of my pet things you do? unworkable, ones I didn‘t col- and one of the things I think is lect, actually. There are a lot so radical about Ballard is The absolute in visual arts of artists and impossible art- he‘s so interested in arts. A Well, I‘m certainly very inter- works in those stories, I guess Fiction is often very shy about ested—I‘m very interested in in the manner of Ballard, spe- areas of artistic practice that cifically. But also Kafka, with the novel can knock on the The Hunger Artist. You know, door and never cross the conceptual pieces and people threshold. I do very much like doing things. monumentality and endless- Q Music has such a special ness…. status because it‘s so di- And I‘m drawn to the abso- rectly— lute in visual arts—Robert A It‘s so emotional, so physical Smithson‘s Earthworks, and you can‘t describe it— which is an obvious point of reference for Noteless…. I Q It‘s like ―hiding in plain sight‖ wanted to think about what if again, isn‘t it, because it‘s a really monumental Earth- secret. works kind of artist was set A Yes, it drives you crazy, it loose in Manhattan and al- drives you absolutely crazy! lowed to ruin things. And in a way, ironically, I got And of course I was thinking closer to it in Fortress of Soli- about the gigantic hole at the tude where a character bottom of Manhattan now, spends, at some level, six where those buildings were hundred pages testifying to effectively reversed. We all the uselessness of music to the other arts. live a stone‘s throw from this his experience, than I did in Q Absolutely. I think it‘s Peter chasm which just has this You Don‘t Love Me Yet where Wagner who said ekphrasis horrible authority and also I pretend it can be present…. has a ―Janus face.‖ On the invisibility. It‘s deeply mean- 8 Q It was interesting what you Q So the last question—forgive embodiment of tradition and said about Dylan, because it me for this, it‘s a clichéd not a radical at all. I have strikes me that Fortress of question… Let‘s just suppose acknowledged the fact of radi- Solitude is about a man‘s at- for a moment that the novel is cal experiment and made tempt to find ways of reme- dying, or that it‘s become sometimes some intertextual diating adolescent experi- residual practice. Do you see jokes about writing some- ence, and it repeatedly de- ekphrasis—the use of the thing more metafictional or feats him. He never really graphic novel, comic books, experimental than I ever have had a graffiti tag of his own, music, various things that you troubled to do. My work ac- so his liner notes and his mu- and other writers are putting knowledges the existence of sic journalism are a way of in to your novels—as a way of those experiments but I‘m like remediating what he‘s experi- reinvigorating the novel? Or a nineteenth-century novelist, enced. And it seems to be is it just another thing that really. I‘m so devoted to the about that problem: they‘re novelists can do and have traditional means, I‘m so in not adequate. always done? love with them—trying to gobble up the world around A Absolutely. He can‘t get A I would just come down so me by taking its measure in there, he‘s just always on the strongly on the other side that scenes and characters and other side of the pane of I‘ll just be very boring, in a dialogue and paragraph and glass. That‘s truer, finally, way, by not even flirting with plot. Those tools are so en- unfortunately, to a writer‘s the question…. Because I thralling to me. I‘m totally situation in relationship to write enthusiastically about committed to them, and so music than the sort of sleight popular culture and import there‘s nothing about my of hand I attempted in You gestures from comic books work that I think should Don‘t Love Me Yet, which is and film and ―joke‖ literary threaten anyone short of the to say, ―Oh, let‘s have it, let‘s forms, that handful of facts mandarins who just don‘t put it in the book, let‘s dance causes me to be mistaken for want the Fantastic Four ever to this book!‖ And everyone something less than the ex- to be mentioned inside a just couldn‘t dance! tremely traditional writer that novel. I am…. I‘m a thoroughgoing

9 Autobiographical Fictions: Ethnicity and Identity in Jack Kerouac’s Satori in Paris By Eftychia Mikelli

Introduction died (1965), and published in its urgency to establish a stable entirety by Grove Press in 1966. 2 identity becomes vividly commu- bout forty years since This article seeks to establish the nicated, as the novel‘s main focus Jack Kerouac‘s death significance of Satori in Paris in is on the narrator‘s search for his legacy remains the Kerouacian oeuvre, exploring origins. However, this quest remarkably influential. A the complex aspects of identity proves problematic, for the idea Recent years have witnessed a formation that are addressed in of origins is repeatedly ques- renewed interest in Kerouac‘s the novel. tioned. The narration is accord- work, and the proliferation of Ker- ingly structured around discon- ouac-related events internation- In Satori in Paris Kerouac pro- tinuous episodes that reflect the ally attests to the numerous ways vides a fictional version of a ten- fragmentation of the narrator‘s in which his writing is still rele- day trip undertaken for the pur- quest. vant today. Book-length studies 1 pose of establishing a rapport and articles on Kerouac continue with his ancestry in France. The Critical reaction to Satori has to be published regularly, offering story in the novel is about the been largely unsympathetic. Clark original interpretations of previ- French-Canadian narrator‘s jour- argues that ―the trip had gone by ously unexplored aspects of his ney from America to France in in a blur, and that word is the work. But whereas criticism of On order to track down his family best description of Satori in Paris, the Road and other more widely line, which he believes to be of a disturbing, unintentional known novels has been prolific, noble blood. He desires to investi- ‗confession‘ of how badly Jack less attention has been paid to gate his past and thus embarks had deteriorated‖ (203). Gifford Satori in Paris, a novel composed on a search for ethnic origins and and Lee refer to the trip narrated about four years before Kerouac identity: ―my quest‖ (52, 92). The in Satori as ―a lonely, abortive sojourn that resulted in little of Eftychia Mikelli holds a PhD from the Department of value‖ (300) and Theado states English Studies at Durham University, where she is that Kerouac ―failed to achieve currently employed as a postdoctoral teaching assis- his purported goal of reaching his tant. Her article explores the fictional aspects of iden- family heritage‖ (176). Indeed, the narrator‘s inability to trace his tity formation in Jack Kerouac‘s Satori in Paris, depart- origins lends validity to such ing from previous autobiographical readings of the comments. However, it should novel. Drawing upon Derrida‘s deconstructive theories, not be overlooked that the narra- it examines the ways in which the narrator‘s attempts tor‘s quest for origins is part of a to establish a coherent ethnic identity are undermined more fundamental attempt to by instability and hybridization. establish an (initially ethnic) iden- 10 tity. The wider implications aris- the two. Subjectivity is yet an- ―from Medieval French Quebec - ing from reflections upon the con- other significant factor; individu- via - Brittany stock‖ (45) and em- cept of identity in Satori in Paris als have different ways of per- phatically projects the noblesse of have rarely been substantially ceiving events and then preserv- his family line, declaring that his addressed by critics. My analysis ing them in their memory: ―ancestor was an officer of the aims to shed light on such con- ―Autobiography expresses the Crown‖ (51). Indeed, he traces his siderations; disengaging Satori in play of the autobiographical act heritage ―back to Cornwall, Wales, Paris from several more conven- itself, in which the materials of and Ireland and maybe Scotland tionally autobiographical ap- the past are shaped by memory afore that […] then down over to proaches that have been pursued and imagination to serve the the St. Lawrence River city in in the past, I will explore the dy- needs of present conscious- Canada where I‘m told there was namics of the processes of iden- ness‖ (Eakin, Fictions 5). A variety a Seigneurie (a Lordship)‖ (73). tity formation that shape the of factors can intervene to re- The family heritage Kerouac has novel. shape one‘s perception. Memory bestowed on his narrator consti- is selective; certain events are tutes the propulsive force behind Autobiographical fictions recalled more vividly than others, the trip to France. Asserting his The fact that Satori in Paris has and representation becomes in- noble background, the narrator been inspired by Kerouac‘s trip to creasingly problematic. Nonethe- sets the scene for what appears France can to an extent account less, an autobiographical narra- to be for him a most dignified for the critical tendency to ana- tion should not be taken as an cause and a quest of ultimate lyse the novel with close refer- absolutely artificial construct, importance; he feels that by track- ence to the actual events in the completely severed from its au- ing down his ancestry he is fulfill- author‘s life. A first view of Satori thor. To deny that Kerouac had ing a family dream (Satori 74). would seem to justify this; it can indeed travelled to France would For the narrator of Satori in Paris be said that Kerouac himself is be foolish; however, the distinc- the attempt to align himself with partly responsible, having stated tion between that and the work the heritage of the aristocracy of that he has decided to use his real delivered, the product of the mind Brittany is the ultimate quest for name, ―because this story is which gives birth to the fictional identity. However, the projection about my search for this name in character, should be kept in mind. of a multiplicity of geographical France‖ (8). 3 A preliminary explo- loci as ―the origin‖ is from the This fundamental distinction in- ration of the concept of autobiog- start suggestive of the problems tensifies the complications that raphy is particularly useful here in implicated in the narrator‘s at- transpire from the use of the order to illuminate the author‘s tempt to establish an ethnic iden- proper name in the novel. The claim to identification with the tity. narrator draws attention to his narrator and the complications arising thereof. ―I had no other solution other than to rewrite myself - Rimmon-Kenan argues that auto- biography is ―in some sense no at a distance - a great distance, here and now‖ less fictional than what is conven- tionally classified as such‖ (3). In passport ―which says: ‗John Despite the narrator‘s intentions, a work that bears his name as its Louis Kerouac‘ because you cant a number of predicaments blight title, Roland Barthes points to the go around America and join the his project. At the Mazarine Li- impossibility of autobiography Merchant Marine and be called brary of Paris he is informed that becoming an accurate transcrip- ‗Jean‘‖ (Satori 95); the tension the records that he was looking tion of reality: ―I had no other between these two names is sug- for had been destroyed by Nazi solution other than to rewrite my- gestive of more general confu- bombings (22/52-3), then at the self - at a distance - a great dis- sion with regard to representa- National Library he is not pro- tance, here and now‖ (142). Burke tions of Franco-American identity vided with the material he wants maintains that in this, ―Roland in the novel. because the employees there Barthes would seem to be break- mistrust him: ―they all smelled In his initial attempt to fore- ing the timehonoured autobio- the liquor on me and thought I ground an ethnic identity, the graphical contract - that the self was a nut‖ (33); he cannot find narrator sets out to track down writing and the self written on anything at the National Archives his ancestry, which he believes to should be one and the same either (51). He subsequently be of aristocratic origin: he men- self‖ (54). In fact, the temporal misses his plane to Brittany and tions ―nobles, of which I am a distance between the actual tak- therefore has to travel by train (57 descendant (Princes of Brit- ing place of events and their nar- -9). Eventually, he comes to real- tany)‖ (Satori 16). He takes great ration forbids the identification of ize that he cannot attain the de- care to stress that he comes 11 sired results ―because Johnny ingly meaningless sea of ethnic various identities proves prob- Magee around the corner as any- signs and symbols‖ (Harney 377). lematic; he interchangeably body knows can, with any luck, moves from one to the other, un- find in Ireland that he‘s the de- Hybrid identities able to decide which of these scendant of the Morholt‘s King Not only is the narrator‘s quest (already ambiguous) identities and so what?‖ (52). Later, he bit- destabilized by the inability to suits him most. This oscillation is terly wonders: ―who ever thought reach an origin, but it also be- further highlighted in the alter- that in my quest for ancestors I‘d comes difficult to define the exact nate use of French and English end up in a bookie joint in nature of the identity he wishes to throughout the narration, for ex- Brest‖ (92), openly acknowledg- trace. The French and American ample when a large paragraph in ing the vacuous nature of his pur- elements that the narrator identi- French is followed by its lengthy suit. The fact that his search takes fies as major components of his English counterpart in a passage him to a bookie joint parodies the ethnic identity are in constant that spans almost two pages in narrator‘s initial purpose of trac- tension, and he is unsure whether length (63-4). Such linguistic in- ing his aristocratic lineage. Finally, he should think of himself as pre- stability is suggestive of a more he openly admits: ―my dreams of dominantly American or Breton. general tension in perceptions of being an actual descendant of the He initially takes pains to estab- ethnicity, also emphatically fore- Princes of Brittany are shat- lish his Breton ancestry and dis- grounded in the narrator‘s at- tered‖ (112). In this light, procla- tinguishes himself from other tempt to emphasize his Breton, as mations like ―the Little Americans in Paris, reflecting on opposed to French, background. Prince‖ (54) and ―the Prince of the dismal state of an American Breaking language down to the Brittany‖ (114) strike an ironic he sees in a restaurant, and ex- level of phonemes, he professes chord. The narrator has been posing the comic effect of two that Standard French language looking for a solid marker of eth- American sisters‘ efforts to buy has really been changed by nic origin that would help him oranges (38-40). However, despite the influx of Germans, trace his genealogy; eventually he this attempt to dissociate himself Jews and Arabs […] and I comes to realize that this is per- from his American background, at also remind him […] that in petually deferred. The narrator‘s other instances the narrator em- those days you said not insistence on tracing his lineage phatically represents himself as ―toi‖ or ―moi‖ but like is particularly striking, consider- an American, and furthermore, a ―twé‖ or ―mwé‖ (as we ing that America has traditionally tourist: ―So how can an American still do in Quebec and in welcomed ethnic diversity, pro- tourist who doesnt speak French two days I heard it in Brit- moting the importance of individ- get around at all? Let alone tany) […] François‘ name ual effort over ethnic background. me?‖ (31). Later he describes was pronounced François That Kerouac‘s narrative is driven himself ―as a New Yorker‖ (37), and not Françwé for the by a desire to establish his ethnic whereas earlier he had stated that simple reason that he origins therefore constitutes an he lives in Florida (11). Thus, even spelled it Françoy, like the ironic comment upon Cold War with regard to his American iden- King is spelled Roy, and America‘s lingering preoccupa- tity there is no fixed point of ref- this has nothing to do with tion with race, emphatically fore- erence. The narrator‘s American ―oi‖ and if the King had grounded in projections of other- persona is further outlined in ever heard it pronounced ness in novels such as On the phrases like: ―looking like any rouwé (rwé) he would not Road and The Subterraneans. The decent American Boy in trou- have invited you to the narrator of Satori seeks an ethnic ble‖ (69), ―am a tourist‖ (76) and Versailles dance but given identity outside America; he has ―it‘s not my fault, or that of any you a roué with a hood to be dislocated in order to be American tourist or even patriot, over his head to deal with able to safeguard his effective re- that the French refuse the respon- your impertinent cou, or entry into the country. The hy- sibility of their explanations - coup, and couped it right bridized nature of his identity ‖ (85). Such images do not only off and recouped you noth- gives rise to a number of compli- conflict with his projections of ing but loss. (45-6) cations, and the inconclusiveness French identity, but also bear wit- of his search for origins reveals ness to forceful tensions inherent Pitting Standard French against his marginal experience of ethnic- in its American representations, what he takes to be ―generic‖ ity. In this context, the fact that he themselves already complicated Breton, the narrator draws atten- brings back to his mother a trivial by the hybridized nature of tion to a series of linguistic devel- Breton butter bucket as a souve- American identity. opments that undermine the co- nir (82) can be interpreted as an The tension is further intensified herence of Standard French lin- ironic gesture, and his quest now as the synthesis of the narrator‘s guistic identity. Against the ad- becomes ―adrift in the increas- 12 mittedly hybridized French lan- ―original‖ centre. In this context tility of the proper name chal- guage the narrator positions the coherence cannot be achieved, lenges the idea that a unified and allegedly pure Breton one. How- either due to an overabundance stable ethnic identity can be ever, the clarity of the meaning of of linguistic traces or because achieved, and also questions the ―Breton‖ is soon called into ques- these traces are never sufficient. common critical assumption that tion when, after having been In either case, the influx of nov- the author Kerouac and his narra- elty is never exhaus- tor‘s persona can be taken as tive; further supple- identical. mentarity occurs The proper name cannot be asso- and language re- ciated with a fixed signification, mains perpetually and its various linguistic substitu- unstable. It is a simi- tions forcefully introduce into the lar instability that narrative: characterizes the narrator‘s national the moment when lan- identity, which is guage invaded the univer- always in need of sal problematic, the mo- completion, as a ment when, in the absence variety of, often con- of a centre of origin, every- flicting, ethnic frag- thing became discourse ments is repeatedly […] that is to say, a system called upon to make in which the central signi- up for the a priori fied, the original or tran- lack of a generic and scendental signified, is pure national origin, never absolutely present Jack Kerouac © Tom Palumbo itself an ideological outside a system of differ- construct. ences. The absence of the overwhelmed with information, transcendental signified Therefore, it does not come as a he exclaims: ―what the hell […] extends the domain and surprise that the narrator‘s initial everybody‘s suddenly a the play of signification claim that ―this old name of mine Breton!‖ (93). The narrator mo- infinitely. (Derrida 91) […] is just about three thousand mentarily expresses a belief in years old and was never changed the ―originary‖ nature of Breton The variations on the name invali- in all that time and who would identity, only to realize that the date conceptions of ―Kerouac‖ as change a name that simply hybridization it has been subject a generic, original and independ- means House (Ker), In the Field to over the centuries problema- ent identity; ―Kerouac‖ only (Ouac)‖ (72), is subsequently con- tizes any claims to ―originality‖.4 makes sense when defined tradicted by a reference to an al- The vacuity of the narrator‘s against ―Kernuak […] Kériaval ternative spelling: ―why did the search for a coherent ethnic iden- […] Kermario, Kérlescant and pilot pick old Keroach? (Keroac‘h, tity is thus exposed. An integral Kérdouadec […] Kéroual‖ (73), early spelling hassle among my ethnic identity cannot be attained, and ―Keroach? (Keroac‘h)‖ (95). uncles)‖ (95). These different ver- because it is constantly subjected Identity now can only be under- sions also point to the instability to the Derridean notion of stood within a system of signifi- of identity, which seems to be as ―supplementarity‖. Derrida ar- cations, which are also subject to susceptible to change as the vari- gues that ―one cannot determine variation. This constitutes a major ous spellings of the narrator‘s the center and exhaust totaliza- point of rupture with the notion of name. In an attempt to trace his tion because the sign which re- a coherent ethnic identity. Ethnic origins, the narrator provides a places the center, which supple- identity is dispersed in an infinite detailed exposition of numerous ments it, taking the center‘s place play of signification, which, ac- variations on his name, evoking in its absence - this sign is added, cording to Derrida, came into family and place names, and an occurs as a surplus, as a supple- force ―at the moment when Euro- assortment of ―fatherlands‖ (73). ment. The movement of significa- pean culture […] had been dislo- In this context the importance of tion adds something, which re- cated, driven from its locus, and the etymology of the proper sults in the fact that there is al- forced to stop considering itself name is undermined, exposing ways more‖ (99). Both Breton and as the culture of reference‖ (93). the ironic overtones implied in Standard French are infused with the decision to name the narrator If one were to seek such a mo- a variety of new linguistic ele- ―Kerouac‖. A poignant comment ment in Satori, one would be ments that are intended to com- on notions of identity, the versa- tempted to position it in the nar- pensate for the lack of an 13 rator‘s ancestors‘ departure from guage reflects the more general further exploded, as an array of France, speculating that the dislo- hybridization of identity to the identities is laid in a paratactic cation to which the ―Kerouacs‖ point where no pure elements order that suggests their inter- have been subjected, both spa- can be singled out. In Satori in changeability. This disorderly tially and linguistically, has disso- Paris the narrator is unable to pastiche of identities is expres- ciated them from firm points of reach a unified identity, because sive of fragmentation. Despite the reference. However, such reason- it is ultimately impossible to de- negativity implied in the narra- ing would be problematic in line fine its constituent parts; what tor‘s realization that his identity with Derridean thought. I have ensues is ―the disillusioned reali- has become a composite of frag- already pointed out that the zation that the ethnie he wanted ments, he nonetheless does not Breton/French languages, as indi- to return to was gone. It existed hesitate to experiment with pro- vidual expressions of European mostly as rhetoric, his own rheto- jections of identity for the pur- culture, are not free from external ric‖ (Harney 378). The vacuous pose of stylistic exercises, and influences that have unsettled nature of the search for an ethnic playfully describes himself as their referential authority. There- identity in Satori is thus empha- being ―crazy as that raccoon in fore, it is more appropriate here sized, and a series of associations Big Sur Woods, or the sandpiper to talk about a continuous, origin- that problematize the concept of thereof, or any Olsky-Polsky Sky less process, whereby the proper identity beyond ethnic considera- Bum, or Route Sixty Six Silly Ele- name, also conventionally a signi- tions is introduced. phant Eggplant Sycophant and fier of ethnic identity, is deprived of a fixed corresponding signified. This leaves us with a ―structure of The narrator is both Jack Kerouac, infinite referral in which there are only traces - traces prior to any the implied American author who entity of which they might be the trace‖ (Culler 99). In this context, goes to France, and Jean-Louis the notion of identity is further destabilized, and the traditional Lebris de Kérouac, the descendant function of the proper name is openly challenged. Culler argues of French immigrants. that ―effects of signature, traces of the proper name/signature in The constructedness of identity the text, produce a disappropria- with more to come‖ (75). The and its subsequent potential to be tion while they appropriate‖ (192). playful tone of this utterance not- modified is further exposed when The limitations of the narrator‘s withstanding, the incoherence of the narrator assumes the persona effort to use the proper name as these caricaturesque identities of ―Duluoz‖, ―a variation I in- license to appropriate a national ultimately parodies the narrator‘s vented just for fun in my writerly identity, however, soon transpire. (admittedly illusory) quest for youth (to use as my name in my Bereft of even the illusion of unity, identity. The narrator even refers novels)‖ (101). The elusiveness of ―Kerouac‖ is left pending in an to the Innkeeper of the Victor identity becomes more striking as infinite play of substitutions of Hugo Inn as ―Neal Cassady‖ in the narrator steps in and out of the proper name, and, conse- this blurring of boundaries (83). personas in free association: quently, of ethnic identity. Identity thus becomes discontinu- THIS COWARDLY BRETON ous and loses its power of refer- Although the narrator‘s influ- (ME) […] this Kerouac who entiality. In Satori in Paris it is not ences are largely American, he would be laughed at in only ―the referential basis of nonetheless still carries elements Prince of Wales Land […] autobiography‖, but identity itself of the French-Canadian tradition this boastful, this prune, that is inherently unstable. The he has been exposed to by his this rage and rake […] ―this quest for an ethnic identity is con- family. The narrator is both Jack trunk of humours‖ […] this stantly interrupted and does not Kerouac, the implied American fear-of-death tumor […] yield the desired results, as author who goes to France, and this runaway slave of foot- ―locked out of a fading ethnocul- Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac, the ball fields, this strikeout ture, ridiculed by his own filiopie- descendant of French immi- artist and base thief […] tistic search, Kerouac experiences grants; these already problematic This, in short, scared and a rupture in ethnicity‖ (Harney identities are in constant tension, humbled […] descendant 375). Perhaps more importantly, prohibiting the formation of a of man. (77-78) however, the concept of identity coherent Franco-American iden- is itself problematized, as conven- tity. The hybridization of lan- Any claims to solid identity are tional notions of autobiography 14 give way to a recognition of the Notes ―Breton.‖ The New Encyclopae- th fictional dimensions it contains. dia Britannica: Micropaedia. 15 1 The 1951 Scroll on which ed. 2003. Conclusion On the Road was written has re- cently been on display at various Burke, Seán. The Death and Re- It thus transpires that the initial venues throughout America and turn of the Author: Criticism and claim that ―as in an earlier auto- in 2008 it was exhibited in the Subjectivity in Barthes, Foucault nd biographical book, I‘ll use my real Barber Institute of Fine Arts at the and Derrida. 2 ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998. name here‖ (8) bears no special University of Birmingham in the UK. The British Arts Council spon- weight, save that of irony. This is Clark, Tom. Jack Kerouac: A Biog- sored the London International raphy. 1984. London: Plexus, 1997. further emphasized by the realiza- Poetry and Song Festival (LIPS II) tion that ultimately there is no in 2007 as a celebration of Ker- Culler, Jonathan D. On Decon- point of origin to be traced, as ―to ouac‘s On the Road and the Beats, struction: Theory and Criticism reenter the house of origins and in 2008 the Harry Ransom after Structuralism. London: would require the death of mem- Humanities Research Center held Routledge, 1993. a Beat exhibition which included ory‖ (Eakin, Touching the World Derrida, Jacques. ―Structure, a Beat film series. 229). Reconstruction of the past Sign and Play in the Discourse of through the memories of the pre- 2 McNally notes that initially the Human Sciences.‖ Modern sent is an unreliable procedure the novel ―was printed in succes- Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Ed. David Lodge and Nigel Wood. that tears one further away from sive issues of Evergreen [Review] that spring [1966]‖ (322). 2nd ed. Harlow: Longman, 2000. any intention of reaching ―the 89-103. origin‖, already an illusion amidst 3 The other works in which hybridization and blurred the narrator is named ―Kerouac‖ Eakin, Paul John. Fictions in Auto- are Lonesome Traveler and Book biography: Studies in the Art of boundaries. In this context, the of Dreams. Self-Invention. Princeton, N.J.: proper name loses its significance, Princeton University Press, 1985. allowing for further play upon the 4 The New Encyclopaedia unstable notion of identity, as Britannica is revealing of substan- Touching the World. tial racial blending that casts Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer- American, Breton, literary and doubt over the notion of a ―pure‖ sity Press, 1992. fictionalized identities fuse and Breton identity: inconclusively wrestle. Gifford, Barry, and Lawrence Lee. The Celts are the first his- Jack‘s Book: Jack Kerouac in the The ambiguity as to the narrator‘s torically identifiable inhabi- Lives and Words of his Friends. ethnic origins leads to a more tants of Brittany, but they London: Hamish Hamilton, 1979. general crisis in identity construc- probably intermingled with Harney, Steve. ―Ethnos and the tion. Language cannot bear the earlier peoples […] Beat Poets.‖ Journal of American claims to stability and purity, ur- Conquered by Julius Cae- Studies 25. 3 (1991): 363-380. gently communicating the disper- sar in 56 BC, the region Kerouac, Jack. Book of Dreams. sal of the notion of identity. In became part of the Roman 1960. San Francisco: City Lights Satori in Paris the concept of Empire as Armonica […] Books, 1981. identity is scrutinized, dissected After the Romans withdrew, ---. Lonesome Traveler. 1960. Lon- and broken down. In a 1960s con- Celts from Britain moved don: Penguin, 2000. text of rapid social transforma- into the region to seek ref- tions, Kerouac exposes the com- ---. On the Road. 1957. London: uge from the Anglo-Saxon Penguin, 2000. plications that arise from the at- invaders of the 5th and 6th tempt to establish a coherent eth- centuries […] Brittany be- ---. Satori in Paris & Pic. 1966/1971. New York: Grove nic identity. Sensitive to the cul- came part of France when Press, 1985. tural processes of his era, Ker- Anne, heir of Brittany, mar- ouac is alert to the emerging Civil ried two successive kings ---. The Subterraneans. 1958. New Rights Movement. Satori in Paris of France. (534) York: Grove Press, 1966. is deeply concerned with the in- McNally, Dennis. Desolate Angel: teractions between ethnicity and Works Cited Jack Kerouac, the Beat Genera- identity and converses with ar- tion and America. New York: Ran- ticulations of ethnicity instigated Barthes, Roland. Roland Barthes dom House, 1979. by Roland Barthes. Trans. Richard by the proliferation of ethnic Howard. Basingstoke: Macmillan, Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. Narra- voices in America at the time. In 1977. tive Fiction: Contemporary Poet- its problematization of the con- ics. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, cept of a unified identity, the ―Beat Film Series.‖ Harry Ransom 2002. Center. 22 Feb. 2009 ˂http:// novel addresses vital questions www.hrc.utexas.edu/events/2008/ Theado, Matt. Understanding about the nature of identity, often beatfilm/˂. Jack Kerouac. Columbia: Univer- capturing a postmodern sensibil- sity of South Carolina Press, 2000 ity. 15 Teaching Motherhood, Madness and Murder: The Challenges of Choosing Modern American Literary Texts By Dr. Raja Khaleel Al-Khalili, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Hashemite University, Jordan

Many of the classical texts of American shape a canon can be summa- literature by women writers present a negative rized by Charlotte Templin in ―Canons, Class and the Crisis of image of women as inferiors in a patriarchal the Humanity.‖ Templin reviews society. This presents a problem for instructors critical opinion on canon forma- wishing to choose texts as a liberating tion, class considerations, and the shaping of a course in the Hu- experience for both teachers and students. Dr manities. According to Templin, Al-Khalili looks in particular at Mary Wilkins John Guillory in ―Cultural Capital: Freeman's "The Revolt of Mother‖, Charlotte The Problem of Literary Canon Formation‖ emphasizes ―cultural Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall Paper and capital‖ as a more important fac- Susan Glaspell‘s Trifles. tor in teaching literature than the canon‘s representation of social here are many challenges of American literature. However, groups. In other words, the canon T teaching American literary there is a consensus by most in- is not as important as the school texts to undergraduate students structors due to contemporary itself which makes such decisions in the United States and abroad. changes in the Humanities in the on who fills the teaching posi- Many of the professional chal- United States and abroad to in- tions and consequently what gets lenges in constructing a course clude a number of female writers to be taught. Guillory, though, syllabus for an American litera- in their courses because they still believes that having women ture class have to do with choices want to provide a much-needed writers on the syllabus does em- related to the teachers‘ prefer- institutional context for under- power women and minorities to ences, students‘ abilities and the standing narratives of marginali- become agents of change. As for texts‘ appeal. Most instructors are zation, which is in the opinion of most female instructors I have aware of their research interests, many instructors an important encountered in my teaching ca- their students‘ needs, and the element in an American literature reer, the argument about canons cultural values of particular insti- class. is fairly settled and most feel obli- tutions, but still struggle with Other important factors also have gated to include more women choosing American texts for to do with current trends in teach- writers on an American literature classes that are either intended ing American literature world- course syllabus. for a general survey of American wide. Most teachers have realized literature or for more specialized A search on the web as well as that since the late eighties an- courses which focus on a certain the many course syllabi provided thologies have undergone a genre such drama or the short in English departments attest to surge in the number of women story. In addition, there is a diffi- the notion that a number of in- authors who are now canonized culty facing instructors in choos- structors do include female writ- and frequently taught in Ameri- ing literary works from represen- ers in courses dealing with can literature classes in the tative historical periods and who American literature. Furthermore, United States and abroad. The to include as major authors of several important anthologies background to the factors that 16 have a number of female writers Revolt of Mother‘; M. Cutter cal condition called ―hysteria‖ is as part of their selections. A sam- ―Frontiers of Language: Engen- explained in the footnote in The ple of texts which appear fre- dering Discourse in ‗The Revolt of Norton Anthology of American quently in anthologies and are a Mother‘‖; and, Josephine Dono- Literature as a loose word for a great favorite among instructors van ―Silence or Capitulation: Pre- number of symptoms, particular are Mary Wilkin‘s Freeman ―The patriarchal ‗Mother‘ Garden.‖ The to women, and indicated illness Revolt of Mother,‖ (1891) Char- text is especially appealing to (833). Charlotte Perkins Gilman lotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow female students both in the wrote an essay in 1913 explaining Wall Paper, (1913) and Susan United States and Jordan be- the reasons behind writing the Glaspell's Trifles ((1916) as repre- cause motherhood is considered story entitled, ―Why I Wrote ‗The sentatives of American women a universal theme. Students are Yellow Wall-Paper‘?‖ According writers. However, a closer analy- surprised to find out from the to Gilman, her disease was diag- sis of the texts reveals selections nosed by a famous physician as centered respectively on thematic ―hysteria‖ and the medical advice issues of motherhood, madness, she received and obeyed for and murder which have become about three months almost in the opinion of students I have caused her ―mental ruin‖ (844). taught in the United States and Therefore, her purpose is infor- Jordan as synonymous with the mative and ―that it was not in- only topics of interest by Ameri- tended to drive people crazy, but can women writers. to save people from being crazy, and it worked‖ (845). In recent Motherhood medical terminology, the symp- The first choice which frequently toms reveal a condition identified appears on a course syllabus in a as ―postpartum depression,‖ a survey of American literature is condition prevalent among moth- Mary Wilkins Freeman, ―The Re- ers following childbirth. volt of Mother.‖ The short story is The short story received multiple an appealing text found in most reactions and almost all under- anthologies and is usually taught graduate students irrespective of in both general courses focusing year, level, gender, or culture on American literature and in were unanimous in their baffle- some courses emphasizing mod- ment and discomfort with the ern American prose at under- medical detail and discussed graduate level. Generally, most writer‘s biography that Mary Wil- ―The Yellow-paper‖ as a feminist students I taught in the United kins Freeman had not been a text promoting attentiveness to States and Jordan discussed ‗The mother herself and yet mother- women‘s problems or focused on Revolt of Mother‘ as a narrative of hood is an important theme in the story as an example of Gothic a common domestic battle in an her work. As for male students, a literature. Most students re- American family and the dispute general feeling permeates among garded it as an aphorism about over building of a barn as provid- them of being left out of the dis- madness and backed up their ing a rural setting. The short story cussion. In fact, one student tak- analysis by critical works avail- achieved a moderate success be- ing a class in Modern American able on the topic including: John cause a good number of students Prose at a Jordanian university S. Bak, ―Escaping the Jaundiced were eager to point out the the- jokingly pointed out if the choice Eye: Foucaludian Panopticism in matic role of motherhood in fight- of authors was to purposefully Charlotte Perkins Gilman‘s ―The ing male domination in a patriar- exclude male students from any Yellow Wallpaper‖; Carol Marga- chal society. discussion. His remark was reiter- ret Davison, ―Haunted House/ ated after reading The Yellow The literary criticism available on Haunted Heroine: Female Gothic Wall Paper which was the follow- the topic which students often in ―The Yellow Wallpaper‖; M. ing item on the syllabus. bring to class also emphasizes its Delashmit and C. Longcope, thematic concerns of motherhood. Madness ―Gilman's The Yellow Wallpa- The following critical essays re- per‖; Janice Haney-Peritz, The Yellow Wall Paper by Char- veal the story‘s concern with the ―Monumental Feminism and Lit- lotte Perkins Gilman is another role of women: Brian White ―In erature‘s Ancestral House: An- favorite selection in a course enti- the Humble Fashion of a Scrip- other look at ‗The Yellow Wallpa- tled Modern American Prose. The ture Woman‖: The Bible as Be- per‘‖; Beverly A. Hume, text which is usually explained in sieging Tool in Freeman‘s ‗The ―Gilman‘s ‗Interminable Gro- a footnote as dealing with a medi- 17 tesque‘: The Narrator‖; Greg evitably referred to in many arti- Combating negative values Johnson, ―Gilman‘s Gothic Alle- cles as some of the following ex- The inability to escape the gory: Rage and Redemption in amples illustrate: Ein Karen Al- ―narrow‖ topics of interest by ―The Yellow wallpaper‖; Eliza- kalay-Gut in ―Jury of Her Peers: American women writers of The Importance of Trifles‖; Mar- course can be justifiable in light tha C Carpentier‘s ―Susan of understanding the positions of Glaspell‘s Fiction: Fidelity as women in society at varying his- American Romance‖; Suzy Clark- torical stages in America. Stu- son Holstein in ―Silent Justice in dents are aware of women‘s infe- a Different Key: Glaspell‘s Tri- rior status in patriarchal societies fles‖; Phyllis Mael in ―Trifles: The both past and present; therefore, Path to Sisterhood‖; Leonard the literary work by women writ- Mustazza in ―Generic Translation ers becomes an important factor and Thematic Shift in Susan in addressing women‘s inferior Glaspell.‖ Students in their dis- positions. Yet, at the same time, cussion occasionally refer to the one could not but feel remorse on available articles to supplement how literary creativity by women their argument on how the play is by circumstances limited to revolves on acts of murder com- themes of inferiority and conse- mitted by women. Moreover, the quently students find creative biography of Susan Glaspell is work by women as substandard. also referred to by students and shows the impact of Glaspell‘s The sense of disappointment is journalistic career on her literary recurrent among most students I work. Moreover, her commitment taught regardless of their cultural beth Dolan Kautz, ―Gynecologists, to solving social problems that background and they express Power and Sexuality in Modern- face women reveals her enthusi- their feelings concerning Ameri- ists Texts‖; Jeannette King and asm for bringing to the audi- can female writers‘ lack of creativ- Pam Morris, ―On Not Reading ences‘ attention the depressing ity especially when comparing Between the Lines: Models of conditions women face in rural them to other male canonical Reading The Yellow Wallpaper‖; writers on the syllabus who show and, Shawn St. Jean, ―Hanging a myriad of thematic concerns. ‗The Yellow Wallpaper‘: Femi- Even when established writers in nism and Textual Studies.‖ The the American literary canon such result of discussing madness as a as Hemingway, who gained an major theme of the very popular international status, write about short story leaves most students male prowess, the topic attracts with a certain feeling of both male and female students. In ―depression.‖ fact, one female student stated that she enjoyed reading his work Murder more than the other writers on The third recurrent theme in crea- the syllabus of Modern American tive works written by American Prose because it was painful to female authors, or so it seems, is read the other selected female murder as most instructors authors, which included Mary choose to discuss Susan Wilkins Freeman and Charlotte Glaspell‘s Trifles in courses sur- Gillman. Her observation is not a veying American literature. The new one and I have often heard it domestic drama, Trifles is a favor- America. However, for most stu- many times before by both male ite among both teachers and stu- dents of literature, Susan and female students in the United dents and appears frequently in Glaspell‘s play leaves readers States and Jordan. most anthologies. The play‘s ab- with a feeling of women writers As a female instructor, however, I sent protagonist is a case of how as emotionally involved with feel obligated to include women domestic violence and female women as being inferior in soci- writers in my courses and at the bonding develop among women. ety and their literary creativity is same time find it difficult to ex- Numerous criticisms of the play sort of ―locked up‖ in a limited pect undergraduate students to cover a wide range of topics, but array of thematic concerns as understand the necessity of ex- at the same time the play‘s the- writers. posing them to female authors matic concern with murder is in- 18 without denying the fact that the the ideological emphasis on deci- not also forget that the recent range of topics offered by Ameri- sions to focus on male canonical incantations of inclusion by many can women writers serves to pro- writers. Furthermore, the empha- female instructors have almost mote negative feelings and sis on choosing texts endorses a coexisted with a policy of exclu- seems centered on topics related faculty member‘s sense of their sion of the near past. Therefore, to women. However, one can not role in shaping their institution teaching texts by female authors underestimate the responsibility and in creating a sense of affilia- is a way of seeking recognition of including female authors which tion with the school, colleagues and respect and provides a tool is an asset to many instructors and students, and it also provides against discrimination. The de- working in English Departments. a ground for a truly liberating mand on instructors to be more intellectual project where there pragmatic and to aspire for more The sense of obligation to include would be rare chances of dichoto- comprehensive ideally diverse American women writers preva- mies and unanimous decisions subjects by women writers is part lent among female instructors to would be implemented to include of that struggle. Nevertheless, include women writers in courses American women writers. one should remain optimistic in literature has brought with it about the positive outcomes of teaching American literary works American literary texts written produced by women writers. Af- ter all, if literary texts by women by women should be included in writers impart a thematic per- sonal devastation in a sullen any American literature class mood, we as readers are forced to look on the dreadful stories and reexamine their value in their even though they leave the lack of appeal to undergraduate students irrespective of level or students with the disappointed cultural background. Therefore, the choice of texts becomes an notion of female writers having ambitious and labor intensive act presenting a set of challenges few themes in their creativity and it begins with exposing the unappealing thematic concerns as a step in initiating a dialogue compartment. on the works of women writers. positive changes in colleges and Therefore, being part of an insti- In conclusion, American literary universities. It spawns a growing tution that promotes including texts written by women should be awareness of the need to include women as instructors, I feel a included in any American litera- a diverse body of previously ne- sense of accountability in choos- ture class even though they leave glected literature. It also casts ing texts written by women be- the students with the disap- lights on challenges that have not cause choices spawn a self ex- pointed notion of female writers been successfully addressed in amination on the teacher‘s role of having few themes in their crea- social and political institutions in shaping conceived notions. First, tivity compartment. Most stu- the United States and abroad. as instructors we should not dents eventually do become After all, the increase in the diver- evade our responsibility in con- aware of how such ―limited‖ con- sity of the faculty and its inclusion sidering texts produced by Ameri- cerns are beyond a writer‘s con- of women instructors does not can women writers as integral trol and the dissatisfaction with prevent negative attitudes and and not renegade and the process the topics only reinforces the im- prejudice towards them from fes- of choosing texts as an emancipa- pact of marginalization on the tering. In fact, the choice of texts tory vision of a potentially liberat- creative process. The frustrations by female instructors and the in- ing exercise for both the instruc- are real and as a female instructor, clusion of neglected types of lit- tor and students. Therefore, in- I cannot but help sense that the erature is an important indicator stead of feeling as a mentor hav- selections do point to themes of how negative attitudes can ing a strident voice bewailing the which I grouped as ―motherhood, quickly become a point against inevitable current throes of preju- madness, and murder.‖ The most them. Therefore, female instruc- dice, one could become an active commonly selected works by fe- tors should not dismiss the works member in combating values that male authors in courses in Ameri- by female writers as not worthy were until recently discredited can literature in a general survey of attention especially in light of and considered unfit. One should course or a more specialized

19 course invoke some students to Works Cited Holstein, Suzy Clarkson. ―Silent suggest that a course syllabus Justice in a Different Key: Alkalay-Gut, Karen. ―Jury of Her should probably avoid having Glaspell‘s Trifles.‖ Midwest Quar- Peers: The Importance of Trifles.‖ terly 44. 3 (2003): 282-291. many female authors on the list Studies in Short Fiction. 21. 1 since most of the anthologized Hume, Beverly A. ―Gilman‘s (1984): 1- 9. names are unappealing. The chal- ‗Interminable Grotesque‘: The lenges are to combat conceived Bak, John S. ―Escaping the Jaun- Narrator.‖ Studies in Short Fic- diced Eye: Foucaludian Panopti- tion, Fall91, Vol. 28 Issue 4: 477- notions voiced by undergraduate cism in Charlotte Perkins Gil- 485. students both male and female man‘s ―The Yellow Wallpaper.‖ Johnson, Greg. ―Gilman‘s Gothic who propose a course should Studies in Short Fiction. predominantly include ―white, Allegory: Rage and Redemption 31.1 (1994): 39-47. in ―The Yellow Wallpaper.‖ Stud- dead males‖ of American litera- ies in Short Fiction 26. 4 (1989): ture because the writers are more Carpentier, Martha C. ―Susan 521-530. diversified in their topics and Glaspell‘s Fiction: Fidelity as their themes are more appealing American Romance.‖ Twentieth Jospehine, Donovan. ―Silence or Century Literature. 40.1 (1994): 92 Capitulation: Prepatriarchal to undergraduate students both -114 ‗Mother‘ Garden in Jewette and in the United States and abroad. Freeman.‖ Studies in Short Fic- Cutter, M. J. ―Frontiers of Lan- tion 2.1 (1986): 43-49. guage: Engendering Discourse in ‗The Revolt of Mother.‘ ‖ Ameri- Kautz, Elizabeth Dolan. can Literature 63. 2 (1991): 279- ―Gynecologists, Power and Sexu- 292. ality in Modernists Texts. Journal of Popular Culture 28. 4 (1995):81- Davison, Carol Margaret. 91. ―Haunted House/Haunted Hero- ine: Female Gothic Closets in ‗The King, Jeannette; Morris, Pam. Yellow Wallpaper.‘ ‖ Women‘s ―On Not Reading Between the Studies 33. 1 (2004): 47-75. Lines: Models of Reading in The Yellow Wallpaper.‖ Studies in Delashmit, M. and C. Longcope. Short Fiction (1989) 26.1 :22-32. ―Gilman‘s The Yellow Wallpa- per.‖ Explicator, Fall91, Vol. 50 Mael, Phyllis. ―Trifles: The Path to Issue 1: 32-33. Sisterhood.‖ Literature Film Quar- terly 17.4 (1989): 281-284. Freeman, Mary Wilkins. ―The Re- volt of Mother.‖ Baum, Nina. The Mustazza, Leonard. ―Generic Norton Anthology of America Translation and Thematic Shift in Literature. Vol.C. New York: Nor- Susan Glaspell‘s ―Trifles‖ and ―A ton, 2003. Jury of Her Peers.‖ Studies in Short Fiction (1989) 26.4: 489-496. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. ―The Yellow Wall-paper.‖ Baum, Nina. St. Jean, Shawn. ―Hanging ‗The The Norton Anthology of America Yellow Wallpaper‘: Feminism and Literature. Vol.C. New York: Nor- Textual Studies.‖ Feminist Stud- ton, 2003. ies 28. 2 (2002): 397-416. Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Char- Templin, Charlotte. ―Canons, lottesville, Va.: University of Vir- Class, and the Crisis of the Hu- ginia Library, 1996. manity.‖ College Literature (1995) 22. 2: 151-157 Guillory, John. Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon White, Brian. ―In the Humble Formation. Chicago: Chicago Uni- Fashion of a Scripture Woman‖: versity Press, 1995. The Bible as Besieging Tool in Freeman‘s ―The Revolt of Haney-Peritz, Janice. Mother.‖ Christianity and Litera- ―Monumental Feminism and Lit- ture 58. 1 (2008): 81-93. erature‘s Ancestral House: An- other look at ‗The Yellow Wallpa- per.‖ Women‘s Studies 12. 2 (1986):113-129.

20 the Bush administration to inte- grate Guantánamo‘s camps into an otherwise secret archipelago Why Obama can’t of such US internment camps, but to do so in a highly disturbing different way: openly. It cleared the way for the imposition of ex- close Guantánamo ecutive power over the camps, following Cheney‘s argument that By R. J. Ellis, University of after 9/11 the President‘s author- ity needs to be ‗effective … in the Birmingham national security arena‘. Conse- quently a military order was intro- One of President Obama's promises at his duced in November, 2001 dictat- ing that the US military at inauguration was to close the detention camp Guantánamo had the right to de- at Guantánamo Bay. Three years later, it tain inmates indefinitely, to de- remains open. Professor Dick Ellis explains prive them of access to civil courts, and to try them for war why. crimes by a military commission. 2003 George W. Bush of- Errachidi explains, he was ‗sold‘ Additionally, the Geneva Conven- In fered a black and white to a middleman acting for the tions were suspended, allowing depiction of the detainees held USA, literally, ‗becoming his‘, like Rumsfeld to introduce interroga- within Guantánamo Bay. Having a slave. tion techniques going beyond removed all their legal and consti- Geneva‘s provisions. However, Bush particularly tutional protections and imposed wanted to evade the legal de- Such an assumption of absolute an absolute executive authority, bates stirred up by the controver- executive authority eliminated Bush baldly asserted that they sial lease the US imposed after any need to negotiate controver- were ‗bad people‘. Yet, ironically, helping Cuba gain independence sial legal precedents, such as by reducing them thereby to bare from Spain in the 1890s. Intended were long debated during the so- existence, Bush also visited upon to last indefinitely, this lease was called ‗Insular Cases‘ of the early the USA both dilemmas and terminable only by a establishing 1900s. These debates had estab- threats that Barack Obama still a mutual consent that was lished that the US Constitution struggles to resolve. unlikely to materialize, given need not follow the US flag into In part Bush‘s actions sought to Guantánamo Bay‘s dominance of its unincorporated territories, but render Guantánamo‘s ground key Caribbean shipping lanes. did this on the basis of a racist suitably neutral, by defusing the The base was simply too impor- argument: that these unincorpo- controversies which tant to the USA for it ever to be rated territories‘ populations were Guantánamo‘s long and che- given up. ‗unfit to receive‘ such constitu- quered history and recurrent in- tional rights – an uncomfortable vasions had generated, starting Chop-logic echo of how the Dred Scott with Columbus‘s second Ameri- Nominally functioning as judgement had removed African can voyage in 1494 and including Guantánamo‘s tenant, the US Americans from constitutional a British incursion in 1741 (during secured an imperious power over protection before the American the War of Jenkins‘ Ear against this part of Cuba. Effectively Civil War, by arguing that African Spain), intended to preserve Brit- leased in perpetuity, the base Americans were ‗not … ―citizens‖ ain‘s dominance of the transatlan- could only be held to remain un- within the meaning of the Consti- tic slave trade. Disturbingly, in der Cuban sovereignty by sleight tution‘ and so were ‗not entitled this respect, Guantánamo con- of rhetoric. But this arrangement to sue in that character in a court tains an undetermined number of enabled the Bush administration of the United States‘. In other detainees who had literally been to elide Guantánamo‘s awkward words, they could be held as sold into captivity (as if into slav- historical legacy by arguing that slaves. ery) to secure $5000 bounties the base, though under US con- offered by US agents to anyone trol, lay beyond the reach of Con- A hybrid network capturing those that could be stitutional protection, as it was Under Bush, this racist legal argu- held to be suspicious foreigners not part of the USA but belonged ment did not need to be revived. along the Pakistan-Afghanistan to Cuba. His executive control of border. As one of these, Ahmed Guantánamo eliminated the need This chop-logic not only allowed 21 to make this argument – an elimi- all forms of digital communica- http://www.ingentaconnect.com/ nation symbolically marked by tion. Because of understandable content/maney/ freely allowing the media to take fears about mass surveillance, cas/2010/00000008/00000003/ photographs of the detainees in Congress removed the IAO‘s art00002 Camp Delta during its very first funding in 2003, but the fact that My thanks to the editor, Nick days. The message was that all some of its projects continue indi- Selby and to Maney Publications was open and above board. But cates the executive‘s awareness for permission to reprint this this transparency disguised how, of the original project‘s potential shortened version. as one anonymous CIA source to secure ‗Total Information observed, in 90% of cases the Awareness‘ by monitoring all e- detainees were not ‗dangerous‘ at messaging. This ought to have all but ‗people that don‘t have led to some understanding of the anything to do with it‘. If we ac- network stimulated by the cept this figure of 90%, we are Guantánamo camps‘ existence. talking of circa 680 people. All of But this does not seem to have them had lost any access to a been the case. Nor was there an Court of law. apparent exit strategy, as Obama Yet the Bush administration‘s has been discovering. Bush‘s as- search for black and white cer- sumption of executive power, tainty by performing these strate- rendering detainees stateless, gic manoeuvres failed. Sympto- created intractable problems matically, the administration about their relocation: unable to came to regret the open access be rehabilitated within the USA first granted to media photogra- without severe legal conse- phers. The Guantánamo camps‘ quences and with repatriation left detainees, rendered stateless and as a near impossible and some- deprived of all human rights, times dangerous option. Obama‘s could only recuperate their hu- first proposal was to devise a new manity via other external contacts, internal system of justice to han- outside of the US controlled dle their cases. Predictably, its Guantánamo camps. So the introduction has proved so con- camps inevitably become the hub troversial that, ironically, it could of an ever-more complex network, not operate within the territory of taking in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States. Faced with the Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Haiti, the UK, likelihood of successful charges Spain, Jamaica, the Philippines, of torture being levelled, the US Canada, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, executive will almost necessarily Diego Garcia, Turkistan, China, decide that some of the camps‘ Russia, Chechnya. detainees must for the present remain in suspension, or at best Bush thereby created in the be released into unexpected com- Guantánamo camps a hybrid net- pliant locations, such as Bermuda, work. It had the capability of ex- where Guantánamo‘s Uighurs panding rapidly out across the were sent in June 2009. Such a world. Yet it also possessed a choice of destination well illus- compactness, organised around trates how Guantánamo poses the central hub of Guantánamo‘s intractable problems. Bush‘s camps. This makes it a highly search for black and white execu- dynamic yet robust corner-stone tive certainty has ensured that of both growing international Guantánamo will not readily go protest and global terrorist ex- away. Nor will its dynamic, hybrid pansion. Ironically, the US should network, as Obama is discovering. have been aware of such poten- tial. In 2002, Bush had established Acknowledgment the Information Awareness Office This is a much shortened and under John Poindexter, aimed at edited version of an article that countering asymmetric threats – appeared in Comparative Ameri- terrorist threats and the like – by can Studies. To read the full ver- developing expert monitoring of sion, visit the journal‘s website: 22 Why Teach

American Studies Carol is currently a Peace Corps Volunteer assigned to Azerbaijan State in a CIS Country? Agricultural University, where she taught an By Carol Orme-Johnson American Studies class last fall.

here are three good reasons and the richness of its resources. develop under a government bur- T to teach American Studies in They knew a little history and had dened by corruption and intoler- a former Soviet country: to pro- heard of George Washington and ant of dissent. The Azerbaijani vide accurate information and Abraham Lincoln. They knew, for education system emphasizes correct misapprehensions about example, that Lincoln freed the rote memorization, and the stu- the United States; to show how a slaves but really had no idea how dents had little or no experience democratic government can be slavery worked. They knew that analyzing, much less criticizing, held accountable to its citizens; to President Barack Obama is Black events or ideas or policies. The teach critical thinking. I had the but had no understanding of the conservative society outside the good fortune to teach a 39-hour road Black people had traveled in capital city in Azerbaijan limits American Studies class to second the US between the end of slav- options for ordinary people. For year university students in Ganja, ery and his election. Teaching example, though women do not Azerbaijan, in 2010, and I accom- American history, physical and have to cover themselves as in plished these three goals in that human geography, and govern- strict Muslim countries, they are class. ment helped fill in some of the still subservient to men. A man is gaps. The class covered the fol- always served first at the table At the beginning of the class, the lowing subjects, in this order and is expected to make the deci- students had more information through the semester sions for the family, often without about the United States than I (see Table 1) consulting his wife. A woman expected, but had many gaps in who is not married by the age of their knowledge. They had seen Azerbaijani education twenty five is considered pathetic, American movies and advertise- Azerbaijan is a secular Islamic, and unmarried motherhood is ments for American products, post-Soviet country struggling to incomprehensible. When they some of which they owned. Much of what they knew about the United States came from Table 1 - Semester topics popular music and censored news reports. Most of the stu- Hours Subject dents I taught had never traveled outside the country or met an 6.0 Physical and economic geography, especially agriculture American before (though they subsequently met Fulbright 7.5 American history 8,000 BCE to 1980 Scholars who came to our univer- 4.5 Population: immigration, religion, race sity). Classifying America as big, but being from a country the size Government, including Constitution, 3 branches, elections, of the state of Maine, the students 9.0 major Supreme Court decisions, and Watergate scandal really had no concept of its scope

1.5 Daily life CIS The Commonwealth of Arts: watch ―West Side Story,‖ read ―Gift of the Magi,‖ Independent States, is a loose 9.0 read ―Death of a Salesman‖ and view slides of decorative confederation of the former arts and architecture republics of the Soviet Union. 1.5 9/11: precursors 1979-2001, events of 9/11/2001, aftermath 23 marry, many couples continue to widowed parents, married people various conspiracy theories about live in the same house or very choosing not to have children, 9/11, for instance, the US govern- near the husband‘s family, and people having children without ment was actually responsible for parents continue to have great marrying, blended families with the hijackings. It was not until influence over their married chil- step-parents and half-siblings, they learned about the evidence dren‘s lives. Also, children care single sex couples with or with- proving al Qaeda responsible for for their aging parents in their out children, and older people the hijackings and resulting homes. Azerbaijan is over 93% living alone – gave a greater un- deaths and about the previous Muslim (1), and the majority of derstanding of what the diverse events from 1979 onward that non-Muslims live in the capital society is truly like in the United they could understand why some city or in tight enclaves. Most States. This variety of family Americans disliked or mistrusted people in the outlying regions structures is very different from Muslims. They could begin to know only a very small number of the traditional society in Azerbai- see that American hostility is, at people of other religions. In gen- jan and was new to the students. least partly, the consequence of eral, opportunities for educational the actions of a few radical Mus- Religious diversity was harder for and professional advancement lims, not government brainwash- the students to understand than depend entirely on personal con- ing. racial and ethnic diversity. They tacts and influence, not on indi- were very surprised to learn that, Focusing on the history of the vidual achievement. Obviously, although the majority of Ameri- Civil Rights Movement gave the Azerbaijan is quite different from cans are Christian, all the world‘s students an example of how the United States. religions are represented there. rights on paper are meaningless Human diversity When religion was discussed in without the means of enforce- relation to a 2007 study by the ment and how the people them- I chose to devote time in this Pew Forum on Religion and Pub- selves could transform their soci- class to a discussion of human lic Life (3), which found that 44% ety and their laws. The students diversity in the US in order to of adult Americans have changed learned that although slavery offi- highlight the contrast to the much their religious affiliation from that cially ended in 1865, severe dis- more homogeneous society in of their childhood, one student crimination against African Azerbaijan, and to reveal the expressed his surprise: ―You Americans was legal for the next cross-currents underlying Ameri- mean that you can change? You 100 years, until the Civil Rights can society. Of course, any de- can change your religion?‖ Meet- Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act scription of the diversity of the ing a teacher who had changed of 1965, and major Supreme American population includes her own religious affiliation in her Court decisions of the 1950s and statistics about the large and forties was itself a radical experi- 1960s. It was the actions of Afri- growing percentage of non-White ence for these students. can Americans themselves, Americans, but statistics do not through protests, voter registra- tell the whole story. The assorted Background to 9/11 tion, and court cases that brought mixture of people from many Students were unaware of the about change (4). By the late different places is part of the pic- background leading up to 9/11 twentieth century, they had ture. Repeated reference during and had surprisingly little factual achieved equality under the law the history section to the waves information about the events of and substantial improvement in of immigrants from different that day. Today‘s students were the everyday life of the average parts of the world at different not alive in 1979 when the Iran Black person (5). Their actions times, supplemented with photo- Hostage Crisis began and did not influenced both the views of nu- graphs of various ethnic groups, understand the hostility that merous White Americans and the was designed to explain the ten- event provoked among Ameri- decisions of members of Con- sions among the groups in the cans against Iran and other radi- gress to pass important new leg- rapidly growing country in the cal Muslims. A review of Osama islation, displaying democracy in nineteenth and twentieth centu- bin Laden‘s ―jihad‖ against the action. The role of the independ- ries. U.S. and attacks against Ameri- ent Supreme Court in requiring The United States is not really the can embassies and military tar- some unpopular changes in the way it seems in so many adver- gets overseas in the 1990s, with way Black people were treated tisements. For instance, the 2- repeated headlines about radical demonstrated the strength of the parent-2-child nuclear family is no Muslims killing Americans three separate branches of gov- longer the norm (2). A descrip- around the world – for no reason ernment and the centrality of indi- tion of the various family struc- except that they were American – vidual rights in American govern- tures prevalent now – including helped to set the stage for 9/11. ment. unwed mothers, divorced/ Some students had been taught

24 Human rights ity of reporters from the Washing- ported, and to try to protect ton Post and other papers to per- against the undesirable elements. The concept that a right given on sist in digging for information In keeping with the goal of teach- paper but not allowed in practice about what really happened in ing critical thinking, the class is not a real right was a new con- the Watergate break-in, followed should clearly portray the aspects cept for these students. (The by a thorough investigation by of American government and Azerbaijani government takes the the legislative branch of actions culture that need improvement. opposite position, that people by the executive branch, demon- Teaching students thus to take a have great freedom, on paper, strates how a truly free press hard look at the world outside and anyone who protests that the makes it possible to hold the gov- gives them a new ability to ana- rights are not real can get in seri- ernment accountable. Students lyze their own society. Imparting ous trouble.) Students saw that living under a repressive regime that new ability is alone reason only when enforcement of that had no previous understanding enough to teach American right became possible did the that holding the government ac- Studies abroad. right become actualized. countable to the people is a basic Opportunities to encourage criti- element of democracy. Notes cal thinking occurred throughout Teaching American Studies is not the class. When discussing the Central Intelligence Agency, World a vehicle for boosterism. Stu- government, students described Fact Book: Azerbaijan, https:// dents in Azerbaijan and in many the US as the model of democ- www.cia.gov/library/publications/the other CIS countries are eager to racy and mentioned that the Azer- -world-factbook/geos/aj.html, ac- learn about the United States. baijani Constitution is based on cessed 6 June 2011. Things American, from music to the American one. When asked, jeans to university degrees are Encyclopedia of American Studies. however, what the disadvantages tremendously popular, infusing Web. http://eas-ref.press.jhu.edu/ of democratic government are, American Studies with that not only could the students not view? ―cool‖ factor as well. Students imagine any, but they were aid=493&from=browse&link=browse may want to copy much from shocked by the implication that %3Fmethod%3Dalpha%26letter% American culture, but it is not democracy, as it is found in 3DF%26type%3D, accessed 12 possible to import only the posi- America, is not perfect. In the October 2010. tive aspects. Some rich out- arts section they learned to look growths of American culture, U.S. Religion Landscape Survey, for deeper meanings. For exam- such as gospel music, are too Pew Forum on Religion and Public ple, immigrating to the United rooted in the locality to replant Life, 2007. Web. http:// States appears rosy but has been elsewhere without major muta- very difficult for some peoples, as religions.pewforum.org/reports, ac- tion, and some weeds, such as illustrated by the movie West cessed 3 November 2010. the materialism that accompanies Side Story. Arthur Miller‘s play capitalism, will inevitably sneak in. U.S. Department of State, “Outline Death of a Salesman exposes the American sellers try vigorously to of American History.” Web. http:// flaws in the great American market their products abroad, usinfo.org/oah/ch12.htm#civil, ac- Dream of economic prosperity. In whether appropriate for the for- cessed 9 November 2010. this way, students learned that eign society or not. Students fiction can reveal societal truths. Thomas N. Maloney, “African must learn to identify what Americans in the Twentieth Cen- Critical thinking should and can be copied or im- tury” Economic History Association. In the US, critical thinking can be Web. http://eh.net/encyclopedia/ applied to the actions of the gov- article/maloney.african.american, ernment itself. Public outcry was accessed 7 June 2011. partly responsible for ending the Boosterism: A tendency to Vietnam War. Slides showing the ‗boost‘ or seek to raise the esti- graphic, unflattering presentation mation of (oneself, one's town, of the war in the media and de- product, etc.) by praise; the picting the major protests across expression of chauvinism. the country against the war dem- OED.Com onstrated the force of public opin- ion contrary to a matter of na- tional policy. This is an example of how in a true democracy the government is subject to the will of the people. Similarly, the abil- 25 experienced by those in subordi- nate racial categories. Rappin’ on Racial Chuck D: raising awareness If the continuation of racial subor- Dualism dination was disputed during the 1990s, rap music is one place where American racism was By Ashleigh P. Nugent openly and regularly addressed. One rap group that had the dis- cussion of racism high on their n his 1993 article ‗Racial Dual- temporary America is a ‗color- agenda is Public Enemy. In 1990 I ism at Century‘s End‘, Howard blind‘ society has become almost Public Enemy released their third Winant adapts W.E.B. Du Bois‘s hegemonic.[3] The ‗color-blind‘ album, Fear of a Black Planet. The concept of racial dualism.[1] Wi- rubric purports that race is no final track on that album, ‗Fight nant explains that racism is still a longer linked to social mobility.[4] the Power‘, was used on the prevalent feature of contempo- However, the existence of white soundtrack of Spike Lee‘s film Do rary American society, and uses privilege and black subordination the Right Thing (1989). In the sec- racial dualism as a theoretical has not been surmounted. [5] ond verse Chuck D, the group‘s tool with which to explore divi- Rather, American racism operates lead vocalist, asserts: sions between and within black as structural or institutionalised It‘s a start, a work of art and white racial groups. The fol- racism. That is to say, a racial To revolutionize, make a lowing article employs ‗Racial hierarchy has become deeply change nothing‘s strange Dualism‘ as a lens through which embedded in the state institutions to explore the racial significance and general mindset of the popu- People, people we are the of American rap music from the lace via accumulative inequality same 1990s onwards. Specific reference passed on through generations. No we‘re not the same is made to the rappers Chuck D, [6] So, white racial domination ‗Cause we don‘t know Ice Cube, Yo-Yo and now seems ‗natural‘ and operates the game[8] Eminem. These artists candidly under a kind of invisibility.[7] Here, Chuck D aims to use rap to discuss race and racism and shed ‗Color-blindness‘ overlooks struc- ‗revolutionize‘ by increasing light on the divisions that consti- tural racism and the inequality tute racial dualism. In drawing attention to racial dualism, these rappers have arguably allowed some ‗fusion‘ to develop.

In explaining how racial dualism manifests in contemporary American society Winant says:

There are now two ways of looking at race, where pre- viously there was only one. In the past…everyone agreed that racial subordi- nation existed…But today agreement over the exis- tence of racial subordina- tion has vanished…Indeed, the very idea that ‗race matters‘ is something which today must be ar- gued, something which is not self evident.[2]

With overt white supremacist racism now being a stigmatised ideology, the opinion that con- 26 awareness of the fact that ‗we are vidual acts of racism. naive to assume that songs can not the same.‘ This statement be influential enough to end ra- Chuck D‘s tirade is intended to cism. Their message can, how- addresses the disparity between shock the listener by portraying ever, open up a dialogue and en- those who do and those who celebrated white male heroes as courage critical thinking regard- don‘t know ‗the game‘, or those antagonists. This shock tactic en- ing the issues raised: ‗It‘s a start, who control ideas and behaviours tices the listener, so accustomed a work of art.‘ (state institutions) and those who to Elvis being hero worshipped, are controlled (the general popu- to sit up and listen. White Amer- The listener as voyeur ica did listen. The Fear album lace). In asserting that ‗we don‘t Some critics, for example, David reached number ten in the US know the game‘, the collective Samuels, have viewed rap‘s mes- billboard charts and certified ‗we‘ arguably addresses both the sage, and its popularity, with platinum sales. In accomplishing black community and the wider cynicism. In his essay ‗The Rap mainstream appeal, rap music community who may believe that on Rap – The Black Music that now invited listeners of all races race is no longer a salient issue. isn‘t Either‘ (2004), Samuels claims that Public Enemy‘s ‗white During the 1990s, rap music listeners became guilty eaves- droppers on the putative private conversation of the inner city.‘[13] [was] one place where American According to Samuels, white sub- urban listeners can only ever lis- racism was openly and regularly ten to black protestations of ra- cism as outsiders, confined to the addressed. role of voyeur through their con- sumption of Public Enemy‘s mes- sage. Moreover, Samuels points Chuck D goes on to elaborate the out that Public Enemy are also nature of the ‗game‘ in the next to consider and discuss the insti- outsiders to the urban black verse: tutional racism at work in Ameri- cause because of their middle- can society. Elvis was a hero to most class suburban backgrounds. But he never meant shit to me In explaining why he choose you see ‗Fight the Power‘ as the sound- Straight up racist that sucker track for his film Do the Right was Thing, Spike Lee explains that Simple and plain[9] ‗Public Enemy first started out identifying the problems. ―Fight Racism in the media the Power‖ [however] was start- The ‗game‘ that Chuck D exposes, ing to move into solution based then, is the racism at play in rap.‘[11] Chuck D suggests that America‘s media industries, the knowledge that he expounds which manifests as the recurring may act as a solution to end black representation of white males as repression. In ‗Fight the Power‘ the archetypal heroes. In his 1997 he asserts: book Fight The Power, Chuck D What we need is awareness explains that ‗the attack was di- We can‘t get careless… While voyeurism may indeed mo- rected towards the institution of Mental self-defensive fitness tivate some rap fans, this is a lim- Elvis…I was dealing with racist [12] ited viewpoint since it overlooks America portraying that Elvis in- the way in which those outside a vented that level of quality soul, These lyrics suggest that Chuck D situation can take a sincere and bluesy rock ‗n‘ roll singing when wanted to inspire his audience to active interest in it. Being middle there were brothers before overcome their naivety regarding class and working alongside him.‘[10] So, what Chuck D aimed the structural racism that sustains whites does not invalidate a black to illuminate is media-based racial disparity. Popular music group‘s opposition to structural structural racism that places unites people across racial and racism that places all blacks in white males at the top of the hier- other boundaries in the act of subordination to whites, regard- archy whilst disregarding cultural appreciation. Angry, shocking or less of class. Furthermore, the input from non-whites. His main polemical lyricism entices the idea that one must adhere to bi- focus, therefore, is institutional- listener to think about what is nary thinking regarding who are ised racism as opposed to indi- being said. It would, of course, be 27 insiders and outsiders can be un- They just send another nigga certed action that division…tend helpful when trying to overcome to the morgue[16] [s] to preclude.‘[18] Of course, a disparities based on just such rap song cannot fix these divi- Ice Cube illustrates the futility of binary categories: black/white, sions, but Ice Cube and Chuck D solution-based rap in the face of urban/suburban and so on. A mu- intend to play their parts: ‗It‘s a institutionalised racism, which sic fan should not be expected to start.‘ takes shape, in this instance, in restrict their listening to music the form of police brutality. He In ‗The Rap‘, David Samuels over- made by those in the same racial maligns rappers that talk about looks the complexities in Ice and class-based group as them- peace and by accusing them of Cube‘s album and reduces it to selves. ‗livin‘ large‘, he aims his rebuke at pushing ‗the limits of rap‘s ability On another album released in black, middle-class rappers and to give offence.‘[19] He goes on 1990, Chuck D asserts: ‗The term middle-class critics of gangsta rap. to state that, ‗the ways in which they apply to us is a nigger. ... Whereas they may be able to live rap has been consumed and Same applies with a PhD.‘ Chuck well, as an urban youth Ice popularised speak not of cross D shows here that race is a more insidious category than class, for The disparity between the life whatever blacks achieve socially and economically, they are still experiences and expectations of undermined. Chuck D makes this statement on ‗Endangered Spe- cies‘, a song on which he features the black middle class and the as a guest of the renowned gang- sta rapper, Ice Cube. Gangsta rap black poor is wider than it was is a term that came into popular usage in the late 1980s and first during the era of segregation. appeared in an American broad- sheet, the Los Angeles Times, following the success of Niggaz Cube‘s character feels compelled cultural understanding…but of with Attitude (NWA) [14], a group to take on the gangsta role to sur- voyeurism and tolerance with for which Ice Cube was formerly vive. racism.‘[20] He believes that con- the chief lyricist.[15] sumption of negative stereotypes Cleverly, Ice Cube voices these of the black community is evi- On his 1990 debut solo album, allegations on the very song that dence of the consumer‘s complic- AmeriKKKa‘s Most Wanted, features Chuck D, a renowned ity with racism. For Samuels, which went platinum within five pioneer of solution-based rap and white youths are maintaining weeks of release, Ice Cube con- a middle-class rapper. The juxta- their supposed supremacy over fronted racism in different terms position of these two rappers, the blacks by their consumption of to Chuck D. Rather than offering politically conscious and the these stereotypes. I would contest solutions and playing the role of gangsta, suggests that those in that the mainstream audience educator, Ice Cube played the role the black community with differ- have long been consumers of of the angry, young, black male, ent opinions can work to- degrading and violent imagery which is a stereotype synony- gether. The two artists, therefore, played out by whites and, more- mous with gangsta rap. offered a creative solution to Wi- over, Ice Cube does tie in his hos- ‗Endangered Species‘, actually nant‘s concept of black racial du- tile narratives with genuine social denigrates the growing trend in alism. Black racial dualism de- commentary. That is not to say contemporary rap music to offer scribes ‗The divergent experi- that everything portrayed by Ice solutions. Ice Cube rages: ences of the black middle class Cube is a positive or even a help- and the black poor [which] make Peace, don‘t make me laugh ful representation of the black a unitary racial identity seem a All I hear is motherf***ers community. Ice Cube is more distant dream indeed.‘[17] Winant rappin‘ succotash concerned with clearly illuminat- points out that the disparity be- Livin‘ large tellin‘ me to get ing problems, rather than with tween the life experiences and out the gang offering solutions. Such is the expectations of the black middle I‘m a nigga gotta live by the method that he adopts when ad- class and the black poor is wider trigger dressing the issue of black male than it was during the era of seg- How the f*** do you figure privilege. regation. Winant suggests that That I can say peace and the the circumstance of racial ine- ‗Racial Dualism‘ also exposes the gunshots will cease? quality demands that the black fact that ‗black men‘s and Every cop killer gets ignored community forge ‗a level of con- women‘s experience probably 28 differ more significantly today Ice Cube: Women, they good the black community that is of than they did at any other mo- for nothing, no maybe one interest here, not the validity, or ment since the time of slav- thing otherwise, of Ice Cube‘s opinions. ery.‘[21] The black community To serve needs to my ding-a- His voice represents the opinions has become more entrenched in ling held by many of his contemporar- American society, which Winant I‘m a man who loves a one- ies, yet the appearance of Yo-Yo describes as a Herrevolk democ- night stand allows the oppositional female racy, where only white men are ‗Cause after I do ya, Huh, I voice to be heard. In typical Ice accepted as full citizens with the never knew ya… Cube style he addresses the prob- rights pertaining to such.[22] In lem, but pronounces no solution. Yo-Yo: Hell no because to me this society, each man holds a you're not a thriller Early gangsta rap voiced the ten- position of privilege over every You come in the room with sions felt by many contemporary woman. Male privilege within your three-inch killer urban black youth who faced di- America is therefore, at the very Thinking you can do damage minishing employment prospects. least, as rife in the black commu- to my backbone Young blacks also faced rising nity as it is in the white commu- Leave your child in the yard levels of incarceration, along with nity. until it's full-grown the proliferation of negative im- Ice-Cube vs Yo-Yo: I'm a put it like this my man ages of black youths in the news Misogyny challenged Without us your hand would and other mainstream media be your best friend [23] throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Ice Cube addresses black racial These circumstances all fed into dualism in terms of gender with This song articulates black racial the narratives of gangsta rap.[24] another song on AmeriKKKa‘s dualism as it manifests along Post-industrialisation and cut- Most Wanted in which he plays gender lines. It is evident that Yo- backs in government funding for the typically gangsta role of mi- Yo does not persuade Ice Cube to inner city areas also had a dispro- sogynist. In ‗It‘s a Man‘s World,‘ see women as equals through the portionately profound effect on he featured Yo-Yo, a female rap course of the track. He recognises black communities.[25] White artist. The result is a comical rap her skills as a rapper: ‗Yeah I ad- communities were also affected, battle style scenario where Ice mit you can flow‘, but that is as however. The disenfranchisement Cube‘s sexist assertions and put close as he gets to forfeiting his of growing numbers of young downs are repeatedly met with male privilege and acknowledg- whites during this era may be one scathing retorts from Yo-Yo: ing gender equality. It is the ar- reason why so many white ticulation of the gender divide in youths developed an affinity with rap music and its anti- establishment rhetoric and repre- sentations of disenchanted youth.

Samuels claims that ‗rap‘s pri- mary audience is white and lives in the suburbs‘.[26] The idea that white suburban kids are rap‘s ‗primary audience‘ is one con- tested by some, including author, social commentator and ex-editor of the Source magazine, Bakari Kitwana. He highlights the unreli- ability of the music purchase re- cording systems which Samuels refers to, and the proliferation of mix tapes and other untraceable ways in which rap saturates black communities.[27] Either way, there is no doubt that rap has a large following amongst white youths, and this allows them to become engaged in dialogues regarding the significance of race and racism.

29 In ‗Racial Dualism‘, Winant points However, it may be said that the who is vying for respect from the to the discrediting of white su- success of Eminem is evidence of local hip-hop community. During premacy since the civil rights era white privilege. Eminem is not local rap battles black competi- as a contributory factor to white unaware of the irony of his posi- tors make disparagements based racial dualism.[28] He explains tion. In his song ‗White America‘, on his race. Lyckity Splyt raps: that some have forged ways to released in 2002 he says: maintain white supremacy Take some real advice Look at these eyes, baby blue through covert forms of neo- And form a group with Vanilla baby just like yourself conservative racism, whereas Ice… If they were brown shady others have embraced antiracism This guys a hillbilly, this aint loose, Shady sits on the through a number of forms, in- Willie Nelson music… shelf… cluding ‗popular cultural forms‘, You‘ll get dropped so hard Lets do the math, if I was notably rap.[29] As Winant points that Elvis‘ll start turning in his black I would‘ve sold half[32] out, though, ‗none of these grave[33] [sources] is free of ambiguity and Here, Eminem recognises the B-Rabbit is put down here via contradiction.‘[30] structural racism affords him a comparisons with famous white position of privilege. He is aware artists. These associations are Eminem: of the fact that being a member of intended to align him with the the paradox of white rap the dominant race makes him a institutional racism prevalent in more viable commodity than In a sense, white rapper Eminem, American media, which, as men- black artists. His success belies who came to mainstream promi- tioned earlier, rappers, such as Samuels‘, aforementioned as- nence with the release of his sec- Chuck D have illuminated. In an- sumptions regarding rap con- ond album The Slim Shady LP in other battle another antagonistic 1999, is an embodiment of the sumer‘s voyeuristic racism. Of black rapper, Lotto, states: paradoxes present in white in- course, it could be said that volvement in rap. Eminem‘s Eminem‘s ‗white trash‘ persona ‘ll spit a racial slur honkey, adept usage of the urban black exploits yet another subjugated sue me lexicon ubiquitous in rap shows demographic, deeming the white This is a horror flick that whites not only consume hip- underclass the subject of the But the black guy doesn‘t die hop culture, but also develop white middle-class consumer‘s in this movie[34] voyeuristic gaze. The fact that their own identities through it. Lotto wins support from the al- rappers know how to exploit the Frantz Fanon has said that ‗a man most completely black audience audience‘s desire for hard-luck who possesses a language conse- by referring to the racism repre- stories and voyeurism is evi- quently possesses the world ex- sented and reproduced in Ameri- dent. However, what is pertinent pressed and informed by that can movies, thereby correlating to this article is how Eminem‘s language.‘[31] So, language has the white rapper with institutional success illuminates racial dualism the power to promote cross- racism and in turn questioning B- whilst simultaneously allowing cultural exchange. As Eminem Rabbit‘s validity as a contributor for greater unity and understand- has made evident to the main- to the rap genre. stream audience, whites are not ing across racial boundaries. merely consumers of rap music Eventually, B-Rabbit wins the fi- In the 2002 film 8 Mile Eminem but also architects of the culture. nal battle, against Papa Doc, by portrays a young rapper, B-Rabbit, way of his outstanding ability and willingness to mock his own ‗white trash‘ background. This is, then, a narrative of hope where racial boundaries are overcome and cultural alliances are prompted through skill as op- posed to race. One of the put downs in B-Rabbit‘s winning rap states:

You went to Cranbrook, that‘s a private school… This guys a gangsta but his real name‘s Clarence And Clarence‘s parents got a real good marriage[35]

30 By pointing out that his opponent dle class rappers playing the role References comes from a privileged back- of the disadvantaged. The mes- [1] W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black ground and has had good educa- sage is not ‗free of ambiguity and Folk (Boston: Paperview, 2005) pp 9- tional opportunities, B-Rabbit contradiction‘[37] but unity is the 12 embarrasses the antagonist and end result in the narrative, and its [2] Howard Winant, ‗Racial Dualism at questions his authenticity as a rap willingness to address issues of Century‘s End‘. In The House that artist aligned with the gangsta race, class and duality encourage Race Built (New York: Vintage Books, image. So, race is used against critical discussion on these topics. 1997) p. 88 the white rapper, showing racial dualism, and class is used to dis- Conclusion 3] Howard Winant, ‗Racism Today: Continuity and Change in the Post- connect the black rapper from the Rappers are not necessarily com- Civil Rights Era‘ In Ethnic and Racial audience, showing black racial munity leaders. Moreover, rap- Studies Vol. 21, no 4 (1998) http:// dualism. These rap battles, there- pers‘ and rap fans‘ opinions are www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/winant/ fore, illuminate racial dualism and as much a product of America‘s what_is_racism.html p 6 show that integrity can overcome structural racism and sexism as [4]Winant, ‗Racism Today‘, p 6. In this racial duality and also that disin- any other citizen, regardless of article, Winant describes the two sides genuousness, as in Papa Doc‘s race. The significance of rap with of color-blindness: ‗[T]he claim, first gangsta posturing, may maintain made in 1896 and recently elevated to respect to racial inequality is duality. nearly hegemonic jurisprudential therefore ambiguous, and some- doctrine, that ―our Constitution is This narrative, however, could times contradictory. On one hand, color-blind,‖ can in fact be under- also be read as an allegory for it has helped united fans of differ- stood in two ways. It can mean, as ‗whiteness as disadvantage,‘ Justice Harlan evidently intended in ent races in mutual, cultural ap- which, as Winant explains, is a his ringing dissent in the Plessy case, preciation and expression. On the product of the neo-conservative and as the early civil rights movement backlash against anti-racist poli- other hand, rap may at times sup- clearly understood it as well, that the cies. Elements of the white work- port racist ideology by reproduc- power of the state should not be used to enforce invidious racial distinc- ing class community have been ill ing black stereotypes, as in gang- tions. But it can also mean that the sta rap. However, when rap high- informed that declining living power of the state should not be used standards, under deindustrialisa- lights racial dualism in a ‗color- to uproot those distinctions either.‘ tion, are a result of welfare state blind‘ era, it performs the func- [5] Winant, ‗Racial Dualism‘, p. 88 handouts and affirmative action tion of provoking discussion, policies. This feeds into the idea thereby allowing for direct scru- [6] Howard Winant, ‗Dealing with Racism in the Age of Obama‘, http:// that whites have become Amer- tiny of structural racism. In this ica‘s last priority, and that they www.huffingtonpost.com/howard- sense, rap has the ability to serve are disadvantaged by such poli- winant/dealing-with-racism-in- as an illuminating and unifying th_b_141634.html cies. Though there is ‗almost no force in American society. Finally, evidence‘ for this ‗imaginary [7] Patricia Williams, ‗The Emperor‘s white disadvantage‘, the idea has then, rap has encouraged dia- New Clothes‘ In Seeing a Colour Blind ‗achieved widespread popular logue and cultural understanding Future: The Paradox of Race (London: Virago, 1997) p. 398 credence.‘[36] Indeed, the 8 Mile by uniting fans and performers narrative shows a young white across racial boundaries: ‗It‘s a [8] Public Enemy, Fight the Power: For man placed in a position of disad- start, a work of art‘. full lyrics, see http:// vantage, who finally overcomes www.publicenemy.com/index.php? this adversity (in terms of cultural page=page5&item=3&num=74 [accessed November 2011]. acceptance) by pointing out the disingenuousness of black, mid- [9] Public Enemy, Fight the Power. [10] Chuck D, Fight the Power – Rap Race and Reality (Edinburgh: Payback Press, 1997) p 196

[11] Alex Ogg with David Upshall, The Hip Hop Years – A History of Rap (London: Channel 4 Books, 1999) p 98

[12] Public Enemy, Fight the Power.

[13] David Samuels, ‗The Rap on Rap‘: The Black Music that Isn‘t Either‘. In That‘s The Joint (New York: Routledge, 2004) p. 150

31 [14] Eithne Quinn, ‗Black British Cul- p.106 Kitwana, Bakari. Why White Kids Love tural Studies and the Rap on Gangsta‘ Hip-Hop (New York: Perseus Books, In Black Music Research Journal, Vol. [31] Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, 2005) 20, No. 2, European Perspectives on White Masks (London: Pluto Press McIntosh, Peggy ‗White Privilege: Black Music (Chicago: University of Limited, 1986) Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack‘ In Illinois Press, 2000) p 195 [32] Eminem, ‗White America‘. Working Paper 189 – ‗White Privilege [15] Joel Mciver, Ice Cube – Attitude For full lyrics, see http:// and Male Privilege: A Personal Ac- (Surrey: Biddles Ltd, 2002). www.sing365.com/music/ count of Coming to See Correspon- dences through Work in Women‘s [16] Ice Cube, Endangered Species. lyric.nsf/white-america-lyrics- Studies (Wellesley: Wellesley College For full lyrics, see http:// eminem/ Centre for Research on Women, 1998) www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/ ccbd36d256a2cd6348256bbf002e4 Endangered-Species-Tales-From-the- 0f4 Mciver, Joel. Ice Cube – Attitude Darkside-lyrics-Ice- (Surrey: Biddles Ltd, 2002)Ogg, Alex Cube/8804BAAD1540A74F4825719000 [33] 8 Mile. dir. Curtis Hanson. For with Upshall, David. The hip hop 083D2A [accessed November 2011] full lyrics, see http:// Years – A History of Rap (London: Channel 4 Books, 1999) [17] Winant, ‗Racial Dualism‘, p. 100 www.stlyrics.com/songs/e/ eminem1371/8milebattlevslyckity Quinn, Eithne. ‗Black British Cultural [18] Winant, ‗Racial Dualism‘, p.100 splyt267932.html Studies and the Rap on Gangsta‘ In [19] Samuels, ‗The Rap on Rap‘, p. 151 Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 20, [34] 8 Mile. dir. Curtis Hanson. For No. 2, European Perspectives on Black [20] Samuels, p 153 full lyrics, see http:// Music (Chicago: University of Illinois www.stlyrics.com/songs/e/ [21] Winant, ‗Racial Dualism‘, p Press, 2000) pp 195 – 216 eminem1371/ 100 Rose, Tricia. Black Noise (Middletown: brabbitvslotto2ndbattle- Wesleyan Press, 1994) [22] Winant, Racial Dualism‘, p98 from8mile638976.html Samuels, David. ‗The Rap on Rap: The [23] Ice Cube, It‘s a Man‘s World. [35] 8 Mile. dir. Curtis Hanson. For Black Music that Isn‘t Either‘ In That‘s For full lyrics, see http:// full lyrics, see http:// The Joint (New York: Routledge, 2004) www.sing365.com/music/ www.stlyrics.com/songs/e/ pp 147-153 lyric.nsf/It's-A-Man's-World-lyrics- eminem1371/8milebattlevpapado Williams, Patricia ‗The Emperor‘s New Ice- c267931.html Clothes‘ In Seeing a Colour Blind Fu- Cube/9B58F645E1D1F2EC482568 ture: The Paradox of Race (London: [36] Winant, ‗Racial Dualism‘ p. D9000CEB65 [accessed Novem- Virago, 1997) pp 391 - 398 104 & 105 ber 2011] Winant, Howard ‗Dealing with Racism [37] Winant, ‗Racial Dualism‘ p [24] Bakari Kitwana, The Hip-Hop in the Age of Obama‘ cited http:// 106. Generation (New York: BasicCivi- www.huffingtonpost.com/howard- winant/dealing-with-racism-in- tas Books, 2002) p 38 Bibliography th_b_141634.html 8 Mile, dir. Curtis Hanson, 2002 [25] Tricia Rose, Black Noise Winant, Howard. ‗Racial Dualism at (Middletown: Wesleyan Press, Chang, Jeff. Can‘t Stop Won‘t Stop – Century‘s End‘ In The House that Race 1994) p 30 A History of the Hip-Hop Generation Built (New York: Vintage Books, 1997) pp 87-115 [26] Samuels, ‗The Rap on (2nd ed. St Martin‘s Press, 2007) Rap‘, pp 147-153 D, Chuck. Fight the Power – Rap Race Winant, Howard ‗Racism Today: Con- and Reality (Edinburgh: Payback tinuity and Change in the Post-Civil [27] Bakari Kitwana, Why White Press, 1997) Rights Era‘ In Ethic and Racial Studies Kids Love Hip-Hop (New York: Vol. 21, no 4 (1998) http:// Perseus Books, 2005) p 124 Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/winant/ Folk (Boston: Paperview, 2005) what_is_racism.html [28] Winant, ‗Racial Dualism‘ pp. Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White 102-103 Winant, Howard ‗Race and Race The- Masks (London: Pluto Press Limited, ory‘ In Annual Review of Sociology [29] Winant, ‗Racial Dualism‘ pp 1986) Vol. 26 (2000) pp 169 - 185 103 & 106 Kitwana, Bakari. The Hip-Hop Genera- tion (New York: BasicCivitas Books, [30] Winant, ‗Racial Dualism‘ 2002)

32 newly renovated eastern half of Letter from New York by Lenny Quart Washington Square Park, and observing the scene. Everything appears serene - in the new oval seating areas a man strums a Facts and Intuitions guitar to himself, a jazz group plays for some tourists sitting on here are many ways to get a remain underrepresented politi- benches, and pass the hat after T handle on the city. One of cally with two members of the their set, and I read an English them is by flaneuring, either by City Council, and one in a city- novel. There are also people lying setting off to take notes on what I wide post, the comptroller, John on the freshly planted grassy observe, or just drifting without a C. Liu. Their median per capita lawns that now look infinitely purpose about different neighbor- income remains well below the better than before the renovation, hoods and casually picking up the city‘s average, and they have the because they include a variety of illuminating detail. Another is by highest rate of linguistic isolation. plantings and an array of flowers scouring newspapers for urban So, despite, all the high achievers, including black-eyed susans, hy- facts, and demographic trends. and the ―model minority‖ stereo- drangea, and purple and white type, there are many Asian echinacea. Besides the usual drug In the last month or so I read vari- Americans in need. As a result, dealers—fewer in number, but ous news pieces that alter one‘s there is a push for broad coali- still very present— the park has image of the city. I find that the tions among diverse Asian ethnic suffered a summer invasion of latest statistics from the 2010 cen- groups by leaders of a younger young tattooed, grimy, nose- sus suggest that Manhattan has generation to provide them with a ringed, dreadlocked young men become a magnet for younger political voice commensurate and women wearing backpacks families - the only borough, it with their numbers. and clothes so stiff with grit that turns out, to register gains in both they are known as ―crusties.‖ children under 5 and in its 15-to- If the Asian American population These loud seasonal nomads 34-year-old population. These are has increased, the city‘s African leave their garbage (many beer families who are sufficiently well American population has de- cans) on the Park‘s lawns and off to afford living in Manhattan. creased by 5% in the last census. underneath the benches. It‘s New The increase in high-income fami- In fact, New York State‘s African York, so it‘s implausible that any lies means intense competition Americans make up the largest park could be idyllic. and accompanying anxiety about percentage of migrants from the entry into high status nursery and East and Midwest to the South - a On another day I go to the Met. private primary and high schools. reversal of the Great Migration After years of visiting I take pride It‘s also why so many affluent from the agrarian South to the in finally having mastered my white families are evident picnick- industrial North that took place way through its many additions ing with their children in Central from WW1 to the 1970s. Many of and labyrinthine turns. This au- Park on a summer weekend. Yet, the migrants are middle class, gust, bountiful museum has al- despite this influx of families, and they go back to the South to ways felt like home to me. There nearly half of Manhattan still con- find better jobs as well as return are rooms and small-unheralded sists of people living alone. to their cultural roots. exhibits that I blunder into that often turn out to be revela- The city also sees the arrival of Finally, I‘m always struck by how tions. So though a swarm of peo- many new immigrants, among subways on weekends are subject ple wait on line for the late fash- them Asian Americans (from to interminable delays and by- ion designer‘s Alexander South and East Asia), who trace passed stations due to construc- McQueen crowd-pleasing, block- their roots to dozens of countries, tion. Since, weekend ridership buster display, I drop in on the and who speak more than 40 lan- has doubled over the past twenty minimally visited small exhibit of guages and dialects. New York‘s years, it makes for cars crammed night photography whose sub- Asian population has been by far with passengers, and innumer- jects range from Steichen‘s misty the fastest growing group over able complaints. woods to Brassai and Brandt‘s the last ten years - with a 32% These statistics offer one signifi- photos of Paris and London‘s increase. They now are over a cant way of perceiving the city. night life, and Robert Frank‘s million people - 13% of the city‘s But another way of seeing derives Coney Island at night. population (and many remain from merely sitting on a radiantly uncounted). Nearly half of all Still, the city is too intricate and sunny, breezy day in the Asians in New York are of Chi- mystifying to be truly understood nese descent - the second largest Flaneuring: sauntering; merely by gleaning facts and ab- being of Indian descent. They wandering aimlessly sorbing experiences. 33 Book Reviews An American legend revisited Will Kaufman is a leading exponent of the life and works of Woody Guthrie, and has kept them alive through his performances in Britain and the United States. He has now written a biography of Woody, which is reviewed for us by Michael Paris University of Central Lancashire.

Woody Guthrie: American Radical by Will Kaufman, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2011 pp.304, Illus. $29.95. ISBN 978-0-252-03602-6

nyone interested in Ameri- company of folk heroes like Hud- can roots music will be fa- die Ledbetter, Pete Seeger and A none of this national recognition miliar with the Woody Guthrie Cisco Houston. He served in the did Woody any good for he died legend. Born in Oklahoma in 1912, Merchant Marine in World War in 1967. Yet his songs and his Woodrow Wilson Guthrie lived Two, made a number of re- spirit live on through the work of through the hard times of the cordings for Stimson and Folk- his many disciples most notably Depression years, in company ways and in the early 1950s was Rambling Jack Elliott and Bob with thousands of migrant work- diagnosed with the degenerative Dylan, and in his songs, many of ers looking for work, he bummed disease Huntington‘s Chorea and which have become classics. The across the country singing on hospitalised. During the ‗sixties legend of ‗America‘s favourite street corners and in bars and folk boom many of his 3000 or so balladeer‘, the ‗Walt Whitman of union halls for nickels and dimes compositions became embedded Song‘ has been told and retold in and writing songs that related the in the roots music repertoire articles, books, and documentary experience of Depression Amer- while some, like This Land is Your films but in the cleaned-up, patri- ica until, in the early 1940s, he Land and Grand Coulee Dam be- otic folk hero version much has finished up in New York in the came American anthems. Sadly been left out. His politics, for ex- ample, somehow got lost in the folk boom when This Land was popularised and turned into an alternative anthem by the Peter, Paul and Mary folkies. Everyone was so busy getting rich off the back of the author no one remem- bered that he had written it in protest at Irving Berlin‘s saccha- rine God Bless America, and no one ever sang the verse that went

In the square of the city, in the shadow of the steeple By the relief office I‘d seen my people As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking Is this the land made for you and me? Will sings Woody at the Liverpool John Moores University in 2008 34 Guthrie had always been a politi- Debs, through Mother Jones and home grown, balladeer he was cal animal, ‗I was born to be a the International Workers of the judged respectable, or at least his reddical‘, he wrote in 1952. But World, the ‗Wobblies‘, (the old songs were. As the radical folk- the comment was typical of his ‗Singing Union‘ of Joe Hill) to lorist Irwin Silber caustically outspoken politics and showed a Paul Robeson. He had particularly noted of Guthrie‘s transition to healthy contempt for the forces of respect for the Wobblies and the 1960s folk hero ‗They‘re taking a reaction that held sway over manner in which they used song revolutionary and turning him American politics at that time. as a political weapon to ‗Fan the into a conservationist‘. But what- Kaufman forcefully makes the Flames of Discontent‘, as it boldly ever his affiliations, Woody songs point that Guthrie was driven by a proclaimed on the cover of the spoke for those who lived deep anger at the social inequali- ‗Little Red Song. He was particu- through dark days and hard ties he had seen in his travels larly taken with the songs of Joe times; they are direct, provocative through Depression America and Hill, who almost certainly influ- and still have resonance today. particularly at the often brutal enced his own writing. But radi- Will Kaufman‘s timely study is treatment of the migrant workers calism, even the home grown based on a deep familiarity with in California. So deep did his an- kind, was somehow twisted into Woody‘s music and a thorough ger run that he was committed to something subversive and un- examination of the material in the the overthrow of capitalism. De- American during the inter-war Guthrie Foundation and Archive, spite his attachment to Stalin, years and by the time the Cold the Broadcast Music Industry there is no evidence that he was War witch-hunters like Senator Foundation and a host of private ever a member of the Communist Joe McCarthy came to dominate collections as well as the usual Party. The author once told me American politics any taint of published sources. It‘s provoca- that he doubted whether the radical opinions was the kiss of tive, extremely well-written, witty Party would ever have let him in death for an artist. and well-informed and relocates for Woody was far too wild and But by the 1960s Guthrie‘s popu- Woody Guthrie back within that undisciplined to follow the Mos- larity with the young could not be long tradition of American radi- cow line. Rather he was part of a denied but his radicalism could calism. It will be absolutely com- long line of independent-minded and somehow his dangerous pulsory reading for anyone inter- American radicals reaching back opinions were airbrushed out of ested in roots music and Ameri- to the prairie socialism of Eugene the picture and as an apolitical, can politics.

Culture

American Moderns: Bo- and culture anywhere in the hemian New York and world. In emphasising how this the Creation of a New exciting new community arose within an ill-defined period in Century by Christine American history, Stansell proves Stansell, Princeton: that American bohemianism was Princeton University not a pale imitation of its more Press, 2010 famous counterparts in Europe, but in actual fact was often a 420 pages. much more progressive force, ISBN 978-0-691-14283-8 particularly with regard to gender Reviewed by Richard Martin, Birk- relations. In so doing, she pro- pathy, but no lack of critical rig- beck, University of London vides a hugely enjoyable account our, about their intoxicating de- termination to live modern and istories of urban modernity of how Greenwich Village be- progressive lives. She pays atten- at the dawn of the twentieth came such an iconic site and how H tion to important political schisms century habitually turn to Paris, New York emerged as America‘s within New York (for example, London, Berlin or Vienna as the pre-eminent city. the debates between anarchists exemplary sources of bohemian In the book‘s most compelling and socialists) and to its latent life. In this updated edition of a passages, she paints vibrant por- inequalities (such as the exclu- study first published in 2000, traits of the era‘s leading radical sion of black Americans from bo- Christine Stansell demonstrates figures, including the anarchist hemian circles). As such, she of- that between 1900 and 1920 New Emma Goldman, the journalists fers a more sophisticated and York‘s Greenwich Village was the John Reed and Louise Bryant, nuanced treatment of this cultural stage for some of the most in- and the critic Randolph Bourne. scene than the overtly romantic triguing developments in politics Stansell writes with evident sym- 35 portrayal seen in Warren Beatty‘s Carter, Dale (ed). Marks rogations of theories and notions film Reds (1981), which focuses of Distinction: American of exceptionalism from within the its attention on Reed and Bryant‘s Exceptionalism Revisited. angles of ―Departures,‖ turbulent relationship. ―Cultures,‖ ―Technologies,‖ (Aarhus: Aarhus Univer- ―Institutions,‖ ―Laws,‖ and It is feminism that constitutes the sity Press, Dolphin Series, ―Returns,‖ Marks of Distinction period‘s greatest achievement for [32], 2002, PB £18,00). provides a set of apt readings of Stansell. She claims that the essentialism embedded in the ―nowhere in Europe – or indeed Pp. 339. ISBN: 8772883839. ‗city upon a hill‘ vision. the world, for that matter – did Reviewed by Adriana Neagu, modern culture orient itself to the Adopting in the main a double, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj- New Woman as its defining figure Napoca diachronic and synchronic posi- as it did in America.‖ The new tion, the articles examine the as- space that was carved out for sumptions underlying the con- gender relations was not without cept, on the one hand as an im- its complications and contradic- pressionistic belief, part of the tions, as Stansell acknowledges. popular ethos of the US, on the Nevertheless, this was an envi- other, as based in historical, po- ronment where friendship, con- litical and social science scholar- versation and sexual relations, as ship, as a national credo well as reading and writing, were grounded in the ideas of Euro- all considered important political pean Enlightenment. One of the activities in which women led the major strengths of the collection way. Indeed, Stansell suggests lies in the well-balanced perspec- that the origins of the sexual tives on and rationales of the ex- revolution that took place in emplariness of the concept that it ne in a continuing series of America later in the century lie in contributes. As well as a seminal radical critiques to come out the behaviour of these Greenwich O model informing the agendas of in the field of American Studies Village bohemians. policy makers throughout US after 9/11, the collection of arti- history, legitimating the urge to American Moderns ends on a sad cles under review tackles the ide- refashion the world in the image note, with America‘s participation ologies of American exceptional- of the US, the notion of a divinely in World War I creating a climate ism, engaging the thesis of the favored nation is equally a ro- of oppression and censorship that distinctiveness of America at vari- manticized self-image, and an smothered progressive politics. ous interpretive and disciplinary idea fuelled by European projec- By 1920, both Reed and Bourne levels. Subject to vivid re/ tions. American exceptionalism were dead, Goldman had been deconstructions in the multifari- as a construct of Eurocentric vein, deported to Russia, while Green- ous contexts of literary and cul- it follows from the volume, is a wich Village lay at the mercy of tural studies, de Tocqueville‘s theme of meditation of equal rele- tourists and property speculators. post-revolutionary definition of vance today. Reflections of Mani- This is not to detract from the America‘s special status among fest Destiny, the ways in which it inspirational legacy this cultural nations has in recent years come shaped American imagination milieu left behind. Stansell‘s book under the conjoint fire of histori- and influenced the process of will certainly appeal to all those cal, social and political science nation building as symptomatic wishing to know more about radi- discourse alike. While differing in manifestations of the neo- cal politics in America, and its perspectives and purport, the imperialistic propensities of the relationship with art and domes- approaches contributed in the US, have sparked abundant con- tic life. Illustrated with numerous present volume share an analyti- troversy, most notoriously during photographs and cartoons, this cal focus on the doctrinaire con- the George W. Bush Administra- book serves as a fascinating re- tent of exceptionalism, viewed as tion. Past what has been dubbed minder of New York‘s vital leftist myth and grand narrative of the ‗the era of identity‘, enquiries tradition in the early twentieth US. The teleological vision under- such as Marks of Distinction, rep- century and its immense contri- pinning American exceptionalism resent a timely effort toward the bution to the nation as a whole. is thus observed in its reverbera- reconceptualisation of the US, in tions on the formation of Ameri- an attempt to recover a sense of can studies, literary production the historical diversity of America and reception, as well as its re- at the close of the ‗American cen- percussions upon American judi- tury‘. cial activism. Structured into six chapters corresponding to inter- 36 voices, and by Isaac‘s clarifica- History Native Strangers: Beach- tions of and reflections upon combers, Renegades & Rhys Isaac, Landon Carter‘s stories. This strategy puts Castaways in the South Carter‘s Uneasy King- the reader far more completely into Carter‘s world than the diary Seas, by Susanne Wil- dom: Revolution and Re- alone could possibly do, includ- liams Milcairns. Auck- bellion on a Virginia ing the perceptions, especially land: Penguin Books, Plantation, Oxford Uni- difficult to capture convincingly 2006. versity Press, 2005 because of the evidentiary prob- 288 pages. £12.92. ISBN lems, of the slave population 448 pgs. ISBN 0195189086 0143020153 (careful, persuasive use is made Reviewed by Finn Pollard Lec- of the WPA Narratives). Reviewed by Daniel McKay, Uni- turer, Lincoln University versity of Canterbury Through Carter‘s diary we are immersed in the medical, agricul- tural, philosophical and political mindset of his world. The heart of the narrative though, comes from Carter‘s daily grappling with the problem of maintaining his patri- archal authority, particularly in his relations with his family and his slaves. Carter longed to be a benevolent patriarch, was persis- tently challenged in that role, and found that benevolence and the cruelty necessary to maintain real saac states that the diaries of power in constant conflict. The Virginia planter Landon Carter I narrative chronicles Carter‘s ris- nyone who recalls Tom provide ―a most revealing record ing frustration, as his inferiors A Hanks‘ relentlessly literal of his momentous times‖ (xvii). It persistently resist those benevo- portrayal of a luckless Fedex em- is the strength of the book that lent intentions. The master is ployee-turned-solitary islander in the revolution is but a facet of shown almost as much a prisoner Robert Zemeckis‘ film, Castaway that record. Rather through the on the plantation as his subjects, (2000), may find it hard to imag- diary, Isaac recreates a whole a problem which became more ine marooning oneself voluntarily. world down to, so far as words acute as the national polity strove Ragged clothing, sunburned skin, augmented by many choice illus- to break its own prison in revolu- rock hard coconuts, and caveman trations may conjure them, its tion. The book both captures the dwellings, to say nothing of the sounds and smells. That detail parallel anguish occasioned by want of public health services, gives fresh illumination both to both conflicts, and highlights the can hardly strike many people as the complexities of that world way in which Carter‘s personal desirable. We have come a long and the painful trauma of its col- traumas reflect the dark possibil- way from the romanticism of lapse into revolution. ity beneath the optimism of that nineteenth-century sailors and The book employs both an un- Revolution - could those tyran- gentlemen, for whom Pacific Is- usual narrative structure and a nies really be broken? lands constituted a welcome ref- complex of narrative voices, the uge away from encroaching in- The Washington Post Book World latter effectively illustrated by use dustrialism back home. At its is quoted on the cover as stating of different fonts. The chronology best, island life in those days was that the book describes a world jumps around. We begin with the thought to offer a return to self- so different from ours ―as to be most traumatic moment in the sufficiency, peaceful contempla- almost unimaginable‖. Isaac‘s breakdown of the old order, when tion, and the virtues of primitiv- telling conclusion is that those eight of Carter‘s slaves run off in ism. That, at least, was the idea. tyrannies are not wholly broken, response to Dunmore‘s Proclama- In a luxuriantly nostalgic book, that that world of sexual and ra- tion in 1776, before going back to Susanne Williams Milcairns cial slavery is uncomfortably the first diaries of 1756 and their draws on published accounts of close to our own. Our sympathy somewhat more idyllic world. beachcombers, renegades, and for the dying, somewhat flawed Vocally, the dominant voice of the castaways (the terms are largely old man, is tempered by the rec- diarist is challenged by travellers‘ interchangeable) to see just how ognition that his flaws are also accounts, newspapers, and slave well reality matched up to expec- ours. tations. This she accomplishes 37 by peeling back the layered my- the author‘s strength in profiling desired to be. thology of famous literary figures, her sources lapses into overde- Cornog traces Clinton's rise from from Robinson Crusoe to the pendence at times. Whenever a his first position as Secretary to HMS Bounty mutineers, all of point seems to trail off, she falls his uncle George Clinton, when which served to (mis)inform back on character description and the latter was Governor of New those who ‗crossed the beach.‘ categorical statements that effec- York, through service as a jour- tively watering down individual The American sources draw par- neyman activist in the newly chapters in a verbose and repeti- ticularly on Hermann Melville‘s formed Democratic-Republican tive eulogy. Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), party, to his years of power in though Milcairns sees beach- The book will interest those stu- New York City (as mayor) and comber life as leveling the dents and members of the gen- New York State (as governor). boundaries between Anglophone eral public whose interests cover Retelling the political evolution of nationalities and thus there is no travel writing, Pacific literature, the early United States enables ‗American‘ experience as such. nineteenth-century studies, and Cornog to illuminate afresh three Social class gets considerably things nautical. It is unlikely to main areas: the permanently frac- more attention in her work, as provide any substantial help in tious world of New York state does race. Beachcombing did not academic writing and research. politics with its ever shifting alli- always involve permanent exile, Read it for the yarns. ances, the problematic New York- but if white men ‗went native‘ Virginia alliance within the De- entirely (getting tattooed and for- Evan Cornog, The Birth mocratic-Republican party, and getting the English language, of Empire: DeWitt Clinton the gradual displacement of a among other things), they be- and the American Experi- deferential eighteenth century came social pariahs thereafter. ence, 1769-1828 (1998). style of politics with nineteenth The English-speaking world made century mass participation. Again clear that it could not abide any- ISBN – 0-19-514051-6. xii + 224 and again, Cornog's Clinton is a pgs. one who turned their back on the man whose attempts to success- social, cultural, and aesthetic ide- Reviewed by Finn Pollard, Lec- fully navigate these shifting politi- als of their home country; white- turer, Lincoln University cal currents are frustrated by his ness carried with it certain obliga- vanity and lack of flexibility. tions. But islands continued to While much of this study is, as throw up inverse Man Fridays, Cornog acknowledges, a story of which meant that they became what might have been, Clinton sites of racial slippage and did play a leading role in two key changefulness for white men, a developments of the early nine- fascinating phenomenon that teenth century. During his brief Milcairns ought to have explored service as a U.S. Senator he in more depth. helped to pass the Twelfth Most of the benefits of reading Amendment to the Constitution, this book will be found by weigh- designed to prevent a repeat of ing the breadth and depth of the the horse-trading of the 1800 source material rather than in the election. Of greater significance, author‘s observations. One is his was the vision and political guaranteed, for example, to come eWitt Clinton, nephew of force which brought the Erie Ca- away with an enticing sense of D revolutionary hero George nal project to fruition, with trans- just how many seafaring (thence Clinton, and leading New York formative effects for the future of islandfaring) stories were circulat- politician for over 30 years is his state as Cornog ably demon- ing throughout the nineteenth- probably best remembered for strates in his penultimate chapter. century. Given the individualism running what Henry Adams once This is an important study of a that was implied in the experi- described as 'the most discredit- second-tier politician of the early ence, Milcairns can afford to take able campaign' for the presidency national period, yet Cornog is us on a tour, of sorts, through the in American history in 1812. Evan ultimately hampered by a prob- types of personality involved and Cornog's new biography demon- lem beyond his control – the thin- still keep our attention. The first strates the broader significance of ness of Clinton's paper record. three chapters profile some well- Clinton's career, which touched The book is marked by frequent known beachcombers, and the most aspects of American devel- admissions - ―Clinton left little rest chart the step-by-step stages opment in the early national era, record of his feelings about of the beachcomber‘s journey in but ultimately shows that he was Washington‖ (45); ―his letters and roundtrip fashion. Regrettably, not the great statesman he so 38 diaries are so lacking in introspec- and a failure to integrate contrary adultery (a private failing) while tion‖ (56). Clinton's self- views of Adams (notably by C. denying corruption (a public fail- concealment ultimately keeps Bradley Thompson). ing) and thus preserve his public him out of the first political tier in role, while Jefferson, through the Trees‘ Jefferson, ―imagining true death, as his other failings kept 1790s, could project his private Americans as linked in harmoni- him out of it in life, despite Cor- ideal of friendships as the central ous ties of affection‖ (15), clarifies nog's skills of recovery. characteristic of his public role. Jefferson‘s vision of one true Trees‘ conclusion argues for a people in the 1790s and after. Andrew S. Trees, The firm change marked by the publi- Founding Fathers and the But analysing its key text, a 1799 cation of Weems‘ Life of Wash- Politics of Character, letter to Elbridge Gerry, and the ington, which placed Washing- Princeton University famous, unsent, reconciliation ton‘s private morality centre Press (2004), letter to Adams of 1796, Trees stage. Franklin‘s Autobiography emphasises these texts as evi- had done much the same thing, 232 pgs. ISBN 9780691122366 dence of a shining belief in friend- but is unmentioned, and the chro- Reviewed by Finn Pollard, Lec- ship rather than of Jefferson‘s nology of change is confused turer, Lincoln University capacity to adopt duplicitous (especially as no date for first masks. His Jefferson‘s darkest publication of Weems is given, consequence is subsequent dis- and its changing editions barely union, rather than the exclusion noticed). Weems book is held to of contemporary opponents from mark the displacement of the the polity. politics of character by party poli- tics: in fact, two parties were far Hamilton appears as an elitist more clearly in operation before politician: his personal honour, 1800, and the second party essen- defended by recourse to the elite tially ceased to exist for some ten honour code, the safeguard for years after 1816. his public position, is a stance undermined because too many The preface elegantly acknowl- readers no longer comprehended edges the ambiguity of the foun- that code. Madison attempted, in ders‘ character creation. Else- he parameters of this study The Federalist Papers, to be an where, Trees seems to want them T are admirable and impor- impartial judge of that debate, contained and manageable, but tant: that the national character of removing all personal characteris- his subjects persistently burst the America and Americans remained tics from the equation. Contradic- bounds within which he encloses imperfectly defined after the tions abound: Madison‘s charac- them. This would have been a far Revolution; that the founding fa- terless impartiality emerges as stronger book if that contradic- thers were key exemplars in the sometimes just another mask; tory evidence were thoroughly quest for a definition; and that neither Hamilton‘s contribution to probed, and a greater receptivity politics was the crucial arena of The Federalist, nor Madison‘s to alternative interpretations debate. more partisan pieces of the 1790s shown. are sufficiently confronted. Finally, Four founders are examined, additional insistence on Hamil- Colin G. Calloway. The each in relation to a particular ton‘s elitism, that his newspaper Scratch of a Pen: 1763 quality of character: Jefferson – essays of the 1790s ―had been and the Transformation friendship; Hamilton – honour; directed mainly at convincing key Adams – virtue; Madison – justice. of North America. New congressmen‖ (66) and that his Their personification of each is York: Oxford University 1800 attack on Adams was aimed demonstrated through a at a tiny elite are not given evi- Press, 2007. ―particularly revealing textual dentiary support, and a footnote xix + 224 pages. £10.00 (paper), performance‖ (4) (personal letter, on the latter (178, ftnote.111) ac- ISBN 978-0-19-533127-1. defence pamphlet, diary, anony- tually suggests an alternative in- mous newspaper article), com- Reviewed by Christopher F. Minty terpretation. Ph.D. candidate University of Stir- bined with a rapid survey of their ling other writings. Despite flashes of The muddled relationship be- illumination, these essays suffer tween private and public charac- he Seven Years‘ War is an from the insistence on a single ter is central to these individual T event that rarely achieves different quality per founder; a explorations. Extremes are pre- the same attention as the War of dual tendency to ignore ambigui- sent at different times, so that American Independence. Yet, one ties and to evade the evidence; Hamilton, in 1797, could admit may accurately suggest that the 39 seeds of Revolutionary discontent quired huge amounts of territory Calloway was awarded the were planted in the Treaty of in North America, rather than Choice Outstanding academic Paris of 1763, long before the retaining previously conquered book for 2007 for The Scratch of Boston Tea Party and a general colonies such as Guadeloupe, the Pen. He demonstrates the named Washington. Colin G. which arguably would have been importance of the Peace of 1763 Calloway, author of White People, more valuable to Britain, certainly, and how it shaped the course of Indians, and Highlanders (2008), in the short-term. The French American history. The 1760s de- has produced a compelling ac- were forced to relocate to terri- fined the United States of Amer- count in an attempt to understand tory normally under Spanish con- ica and gave many people a new ―the enormous changes gener- trol and the Spanish departed for identity but to those Indians who ated by the Peace of Paris‖ (p. 14) the Caribbean. As the balance of already held a distinct identity the and the impact it held upon an power in North America grew 1760s presented them with an entire continent. increasingly difficult to compre- external threat that would hend and manipulate leading to threaten their very existence and Pontiac‘s Rebellion, an event Calloway restores their signifi- Calloway refers to as the ―First cance. War of American Independ- ence‖ (pp. 66-91), Indians were Literature presented with increasingly omi- nous overtones. Bret Easton Ellis: Ameri- Britons saw endless possibility; can Psycho, Glamorama, acquiring all French territory east Lunar Park, edited by of the Mississippi, the chances for growth seemed never-ending. Yet Naomi Mandel, Contin- the Peace of 1763 made no refer- uum International Pub- ence to the Indian peoples who lishing Group, 2011 had inhabited North America long ISBN 978-0-8264-3562-0, 178 In this short text, Calloway con- before the social and political pages. veys a significant amount of in- invasion of European powers. As formation in a succinct fashion, Calloway states, ―Indian interests Reviewed by Graeme Humphrey, but in doing so forcefully explains were sacrificed to imperial agen- University of Strathclyde the complex networks, communi- das‖ (p. 169). It is a sad tale that ties and relationships that were Calloway emotively describes. formed on the North American The one criticism of The Scratch interior. Historians have all too of the Pen is that in order to suffi- often been magnetically drawn to ciently cover the nature of the the infamous riots and non- North American continent and the importation agreements that ac- subsuming troubles of 1763, cumulated across what would Calloway ignores the political become the United States. What legislation thrust upon the Ameri- Calloway has achieved in this text can Colonies by King George III is that he pulls us away from this and his government, led by Wil- and demonstrates that from 1763 liam Grenville. A series of finan- Indians were presented with nu- cially expedient but politically merous threats from numerous naïve measures would eventually merging as a part of the liter- nations, mainly Britain, and that shape the course of American E ary ‗brat pack‘ of the late in order to protect their way of history with the first shots of the 1980s, Bret Easton Ellis‘s texts life they had to be prepared for American Revolution being fired remain somewhat elusive, sitting barbarity and conflict. on 19 April 1775 at Lexington and somewhere between the post- Written in a style that allows the Concord, and if Calloway had modern literary canon and popu- reader to jump across Indian na- included some information on lar fiction. Considering the promi- tions and Colonial settlers with parliamentary legislation it would nence of such postmodern liter- relative ease, The Scratch of the have strengthened his text. But ary techniques as meta-fiction Pen allows the reader to travel this was not Calloway‘s objective and narrative ambiguity in Ellis‘s through 1763 and comprehen- and the positives attained by fiction, this position was perhaps sively understand the complex reading his work far surpass this appropriate for Ellis in the post- events that would soon begin to minor point. modern hey-day of the 1990s. gather momentum. Britain ac- Times have changed, however, 40 and Naomi Mandel‘s Bret Easton that do not always agree. Most are somehow less significant than Ellis: American Psycho, notably, Michael P. Clark and the novels discussed throughout Glamorama, Lunar Park is firmly Elana Gomel interpret different the book and it is this which concerned with reinforcing the significances from Patrick Bate- gives rise to its second problem. decision of many universities to man‘s obsession with faxing the In dismissing Ellis‘s pre-American include Ellis in their syllabi and to blood of one of his victims to her Psycho texts, Bret Easton Ellis: finally cement his place in the work in American Psycho. And American Psycho, Glamorama, literary canon. similarly, both Henrik Skov Neil- Lunar Park, ironically, once again son‘s and James Annesley‘s con- characterises Bret Easton Ellis as The book is split into three sec- tributions to the Lunar Park sec- ‗the author of American Psycho tions, – the first focusing on tion focus on authorship in the and other books,‘ which is exactly American Psycho, the next on book but while the former fo- the position that Mandel aims to Glamorama and finally Lunar cuses on the novel as autofiction, get away from. Of course, these Park – each consisting of three the latter uses the notion of au- are problems posed by the limits essays and an introduction by thorship in the text to explore set by the Continuum series but, Mandel herself, in which the ma- Bret Easton Ellis as a brand. Yet, as is made clear throughout the jor themes of the upcoming es- ironically, in utilising such varia- book, with an author as self- says are highlighted. Also a brief tion, Mandel has in fact allowed referential as Ellis, privileging background of each text is given, the book to reach a single argu- some books over others removes allowing the reader an under- ment. Rather than being a collec- one of Ellis‘s greatest strengths. standing of the novel‘s context in tion of essays on what Ellis‘s nov- both culture and Ellis‘s catalogue. These are small issues though, els mean or even why they In doing so, Mandel gives equal and overall Naomi Mandel‘s Bret should be read, the book is in- attention to all, avoiding simply Easton Ellis: American Psycho, stead a collection of essays which labelling Ellis ‗the author of Glamorama, Lunar Park is a brave demonstrate the ability to ap- American Psycho and other and admirable attempt at finally proach Ellis‘s works as canonical books.‘ Of course, the issue of bringing Ellis‘s work into the liter- texts. American Psycho‘s controversy ary canon. The quality and the does appear in the book (it would The book is not without its flaws, variation of the contributions be nearly impossible for it not to) though. In keeping with the se- makes the collection not only and it is quickly dealt with in ries‘ theme of analysing only post valuable to scholars and students Mandel‘s introduction. However, -1990 North American fiction, concerned with Bret Easton Ellis the scandal surrounding the neither of Ellis‘s pre-1990 books is and American literature, but it novel is left as a matter of contex- discussed. This poses two prob- also provides a detailed and in- tualising the critical essays that lems for the book: while the es- formative account of postmod- are the main draw of the book. says are split into sections con- ernism as a whole. Overall then, The essays themselves are con- cerning each novel, many of them the book overwhelmingly suc- cise, accessible and clear and draw Ellis‘s novels together in ceeds in its goal of presenting references to theory are kept re- order to better explore their re- Bret Easton Ellis‘s work as de- freshingly contemporary. While spective themes. Indeed, in order serving of a place in the American references to Baudrillard, Lacan to investigate Ellis‘s famous tech- literary canon. and Lyotard are hardly surprising, niques of self-referencing and re- they are discussed side-by-side using of characters and subjects Frank Christianson, Phi- with Slavoj Žižek‘s notion of sub- in different contexts, references lanthropy in British and jective and objective violence in to his other works must be made. American Fiction: Dick- David Schmid‘s ―The Unusual However, without any critical at- ens, Hawthorne, Eliot Subjects‖ as well as Arthur Red- tention given to Less Than Zero and Howells Edinburgh: and The Rules of Attraction, the ding‘s reference to Lentricchia University of Edinburgh and McAuliffe‘s link between writ- brief overviews that Mandel gives ers and terrorists in ―Glam Ter- of the novels in her general intro- Press, 2007, rorism and Celebrity Politics.‖ duction are the only understand- £45.00. Pp. 256. ISBN 978 0 7486 ing that a reader new to Ellis will 2508 6. The real strength of the book, have of them. Yet, these over- however, is in the variation of the views merely give the reader an Review by Dr. Lisa Rüll, Univer- sity of Nottingham essays. Rather than selecting a idea of what the novels are about number of essays that all point and are not given enough space hristianson‘s book explores the reader towards a single argu- to give any real critical comment C the shift from sentimental ment, Mandel has opted to put on Ellis‘s early work, perhaps benevolence to more politically together a collection of essays leaving the impression that they and economically informed altru-

41 ism; in doing so he links the disci- but more especially at the aes- (not least around the unspoken plines of history and culture, us- thetic language of the texts in impact of the Civil War and more ing a framework that highlights embodying social ideas and prac- broadly of slavery). Moreover, the relationship between philoso- tices. the role of religion and contem- phical and moral ideas in the con- porary religious debates about What Christianson does in analys- text of political economies. Its empathy and social philanthropy ing and situating these selected exploration of philanthropy and amongst different cultural groups texts in this way is clearly driven the representations and meaning feel under-explored. The by critical theory, demonstrated of this concept within British and ‗Coda‘ (194-6) may declare that when he declares towards the American 19th century realist 19th century philanthropy end of Chapter One that the work literature therefore seeks to de- ―synthesises the ostensible con- is velop the existing scholarship tradictions between religious and surrounding these topics (notably ―building on a post- secular moral rationalities‖ (195), Amanda Claybaugh and Cath- Foucauldian cultural stud- but there was a clear evangelical erine Gallagher, and earlier ies tradition which empha- zeal underpinning this philan- sizes methodologies that Dorice Williams Elliot). thropy, especially at the start but can adequately account for the complex and shifting also at the end of this period in nature of cultural phenom- both nations. A greater acknowl- ena‖ (63). edgement of the ongoing role religion played would have im- From this it is possible to argue proved this nevertheless valuable, that lay readers or even under- if densely written, study. graduates will be excluded from engaging in this study of how ―philanthropy was embedded in its nineteenth-century con- text‖ (62), and how traditional gift -exchange theory is insufficient for analysing more than motive. Christianson‘s target audience is Christianson selects four authors therefore firmly fixed as post- to explore as his case studies for graduates and academics. this analysis, a number that he This is perhaps befitting of the feels allows for ―specificity and book‘s place within the series breadth‖ (18). He largely dedi- ‗Edinburgh Studies in Transatlan- cates a chapter to each of his cho- tic Literatures‘. Using a compara- sen authors and alternates be- tive rather than nation-based ap- tween British and US writing. proach to the topic, Therefore, we find the first ‗pair‘ Christianson‘s study explores the of chapters focus on Dickens and shifting tones of sentimentalist to Hawthorne respectively: Chapter realist writing in the twin cultures 2 looks at A Christmas Carol of 19th century Britain and Amer- [1843], and particularly Bleak ica, examining how such writing House [1852-3], whilst chapter 3 articulates the attitudes of the considers The House of Seven time in these two nations regard- Gables [1851] and The Blithedale ing poverty, social and economic Romance [1852]. This leaves the change, and moral ethics. How- final two chapters to examine ever, his ―composite picture of later realist strategies and con- Anglophone cultural transforma- texts in the form of pairing Eliot tion in the North Atlantic‖ (19) is and Howells: Chapter 4 looks at not always fully convincing. Middlemarch [1871-2] and Daniel Those with an interest in the nu- Deronda [1876], whilst Chapter 5 ances of race and class identities tackles the more problematic ex- and how they affect forms and amples of Annie Kilburn [1889], A experiences of poverty and phi- Hazard of New Fortunes [1890] lanthropy across the two nations and finally A Traveller from Altru- during this extended period are ria [1894]. These chapters look likely to find lacunae in the cri- not only at narrative storylines, tique ultimately presented here 42 An American Trilogy Mapping America: Mapping New York: The American Urban exploring the Continent, Duncan McCorquodale. Reader: History & Fritz C. Kessler and Frank London: Black Dog Theory: edited by Steven Jacobs. London: Black Publishing H. Corey and Lisa Dog Publishing ISBN 978-1-906155-82-7 Krissoff Boehm. London: ISBN 978-1-907317-08-8 Routledge, 2011 ISBN 978-415-8039898-4

Reviewed by Dr Robert Macdonald Architect, Reader in Architecture, Liverpool John Moores University.

his review concerns a trilogy are all fascinating subjects for Beck‘s London Underground Map. T of books about American maps of natural hazards. Social In terms of contemporary maps Mapping: The American Urban and ethnic issues are also de- there are maps of active Hate Reader, Mapping America: Ex- scribed: Indian reservations, Groups, Keep America Healthy ploring the Continent and Map- tribes and settlements are and City to City Internet Maps. ping New York all trace the for- mapped and featured. The final map in Mapping Amer- mation of the USA through di- ica is the famous ‗View of the In the winter of 1947-48 Jack Ker- verse essays and maps. World from 9th Avenue.‘ ouac made his memorable jour- The maps ney ‗on the road.‘ The route is The American Urban Reader is a illustrate recorded by his self-annotated book about the history of the con- the devel- map. Eisenhower‘s Interstate Sys- tinent from the dawn of the19th opment of tem is mapped in the style of H. C. century when the Island of a British colonial backwater into a global and cultural super-power. Mapping America and Mapping New York are di- vided into thematic chapters that cover the issues of discovering, describing, navigating and imag- ining the continent and the city. These three books will be of inter- est to academic dedicated cartog- raphers and casual readers with an interest in maps and mapping. The medium of the map is an effective canvas on which to transpose a nation‘s diverse physical, social and cultural his- tory. The extended introductions provide many different perspec- tives on the mapping of the USA and New York. The maps include traditional historic maps as well as maps of electronic superhigh- ways. The night-time and sky views of the continent are spec- tacular. (See illustration on front cover). Landforms, tornado activ- ity, seismic hazards and floods ―North Dakota is the centre of North America‖ from Mapping America pg 97 43 Aerial view of Ground Zero and the Financial District.© Library of Congress 2001.from Mapping New York pg 57

Manhattan was a largely bucolic verse scholarship and primary Gans defines urbanism and sub- spread of farms, woods, fields, sources. The concept of the urbanism as ways of life. In con- country houses and villages American city is presented trast, Mike Davies, in Beyond sprinkled amid dells. The Ameri- through a collection of classic Blade Runner discusses why so can Urban Reader is a mix of di- essays covering a 400-year his- many Americans fear cities. tory. This book will be of interest to students of planning, urban studies and history. Given the era of President Barack Obama, aris- ing out of urban Chicago, The American Urban Reader is very timely. Few urban theorists have achieved the status of Jane Ja- cobs, for ‗The Death and Life of Great American Cities‘ is arguably the most influential book ever written on the subject. Herbert J

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