A Bundle of Matches

announcements December 2008 | Vol. VII No. 4 One Civilized Reader Is Worth a Thousand Boneheads The Center for the Humanities A Bundle of Matches Advisory Board ven as we bask in the warm I am thinking of a very different fairy tale with 2008–2009 glow of bright promise for an a very different ending this holiday season, the Nancy Berg Associate Professor of Asian and Near Obama presidency, the prospect first Western fairy tale I was taught in China. Eastern Languages and Literatures of a holiday season chilled by The image of the Christmas holiday for Chinese Ken Botnick Associate Professor of Art continuing engagement in two children in the 1950s and early 1960s came from Gene Dobbs Bradford foreign wars as well as a deep- a simple fairy tale, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Executive Director Jazz St. Louis ening economic recession fills Little Match-Seller (1846). I do not remember if Lingchei (Letty) Chen E Associate Professor of Modern Chinese every newscast—and sends shivers through our I read the story first from a textbook or a picture Language and Literature collective household budgets. Perhaps the cur- book, but I can still see the images in my mind: Elizabeth Childs Associate Professor and Chair of rent economic gloom is the Grinch, who finally is a poor little girl, with bare head and naked feet, Department of Art History and succeeding in stealing the consumer fairy tale that roaming the streets while trying to sell matches Archaeology Mary-Jean Cowell is Christmas to so many Americans. The Grinch on the last evening of the year. But this day no Associate Professor of Performing Arts can have that part of the story so long as he takes one had given her a single penny. So, shivering Phyllis Grossman Retired Financial Executive the credit-card debt that with cold and hunger, Michael A. Kahn goes with it. Christmas has As reality sets in, however, the little girl sank down Author and Partner Bryan Cave LLP become a consumer fairy we are forced to admit that between two houses and Chris King tale. But just as fairy tales huddled herself together to Editorial Director both literary fairy tales and The St. Louis American Newspaper uncover our deep-seated keep warm. our consumer identity are Olivia Lahs-Gonzales wishes, needs, and wants Director just stories we tell ourselves She thought burning one Sheldon Art Galleries and demonstrate how they of the matches might help Paula Lupkin can be magically realized, about who we are. Assistant Professor of Architecture to warm her fingers, so she Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts consumer culture enables Erin McGlothlin rubbed one against the Associate Professor of German us to construct an accept- wall. It gave a warm, bright light and it seemed Steven Meyer able identity through the magic of consumption. Associate Professor of English to the little girl that she was sitting by a large Joe Pollack Of course, consumer fairy tales lack the daring iron stove. She felt so warm that she stretched out Film and Theater Critic for KWMU, quests for beautiful princesses or golden treasures Writer her feet as if to warm them, but when the match Anne Posega that literary fairy tales contain, but they do fea- went out, the stove vanished. She rubbed another Head of Special Collections, Olin Library ture materialistic substitutes in the form of highly match on the wall, and where its light fell upon Qiu Xiaolong sought after goods and services in their pursuit Novelist and Poet the solid structure, the wall became transpar- Sarah Rivett of happy endings. As reality sets in, however, we ent and she could see into the room on the other Assistant Professor of English are forced to admit that both literary fairy tales Henry Schvey side. The table was covered with a beautiful cloth, Professor of Drama and our consumer identity are just stories we tell upon which a splendid dinner service was set; a Wang Ning ourselves about who we are. Professor of English, Tsinghua University steaming roast goose rested on a large platter in James Wertsch Marshall S. Snow Professor of Arts and Sciences Director of International and Area Studies Ex Officio Ralph Quatrano Interim Dean, Faculty of Arts & Sciences Zurab Karumidze visit our blog site at http://cenhum.artsci.wustl.edu/publications/blog.html Tbilisi, Republic Of Georgia editor’s notes continued the center. Again when the match called the Communist International. went out there was nothing but the Although we may always harbor hope cold wall before her. She rubbed yet that such a place exists, if not con- another match against the wall and sciously then perhaps subconsciously, found herself sitting under a mag- many of us eventually come to believe nificent Christmas tree. Thousands of that these are just stories. But the un- candles were burning upon the green derlying dream is true. We can slowly branches, and colored pictures, like freeze to death individually or light those she had seen in the show win- our bundle of matches to illuminate dows, looked down upon it all. As she the fact that we are all in this world stretched out her hand toward them, together. the match went out, but the Christmas Dickens puts this thought into lights rose higher and higher, till they the mouth of Scrooge’s nephew Fred looked to her like the stars in the sky. when he says that “I have always She saw a star fall, leaving behind it a thought of Christmas, when it has bright streak of fire. come around…as a good time; as a The little girl’s dead grandmother, kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant the only person she could remember time; the only time I know of, in the loving her, had told her that a falling long calendar of the year, when men star meant someone was dying. She and women seem by one consent to rubbed one last match on the wall, open their shut-up hearts freely, and and in the brightness there stood her to think of people below them as if old grandmother. Realizing that when they really were fellow-passengers to Copyright © 1984 by Crown Publishing Group the match burned out the grandmother the grave, and not another race of crea- would disappear like the warm stove, reached out to take the little girl into tures bound on other journeys.” This is the roast goose, and the Christmas tree, her arms, and they both flew upward in the Christmas that the Grinch, or even she set the whole bundle of matches brightness and joy far above the Earth, the deepest recession, cannot steal. De- ablaze in order to keep her grandmother to a place where there was no cold or spite the reality of pain and suffering there with her. The grandmother then hunger or pain. ahead that many of us may experience before the warfare is concluded and the The author ends the story by de- recession is over, this is the story we Make a Gift to the Center for scribing how the first people to pass should struggle to make real all the rest the Humanities by the next morning found the little of the year. match girl, with pale cheeks and We at the Center oin other donors and supporters smiling mouth, leaning against the to ensure that the Center for the for the Humani- J wall, frozen to death. I was taught ties wish you a very Humanities can continue to fulfill this fairy tale as an object lesson its mission. Help us continue to make happy holiday about the terrible financial secret the humanities a part of public life and season. behind the capitalist West: the poor yours. are so poor because the rich are so Send your check, payable to rich. Everyone was poor in China at Washington University, to: Jian Leng that time, but we all cherished the Associate Director The Center for the Humanities dream of a place where there was no c/o Shannon McAvoy Grass Center for the Humanities Washington University in St. Louis cold or hunger or pain. In Ander- Campus Box 1202 sen’s fairy tale, that place was called One Brookings Drive heaven, and the little girl had gone St. Louis, MO 63130-4899 to join her beloved grandmother in that heavenly kingdom. In my youth, the promised paradise was announcements Speakers for Faculty Fellows Lecture and Workshop Series, Spring 2009 The Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences is pleased to announce its fourth class of faculty fellows and their invited scholars for spring 2009. The Spring 2009 Faculty Fellows are Guinn Batten, Ph.D., as- Poetry (2003) and the Cambridge Companion to the Poetry of sociate professor of English; Andrea Friedman, Ph.D., associate Seamus Heaney (2008). With the support of a Fulbright award professor of history; and Jennifer Kapczynski, Ph.D., assistant to Ireland in fall 2008, she is completing a book on states of professor of German, all in Arts & Sciences. emergency, the ethics of violence, and sexual difference in the poetry of English Romanticism and modern Ireland. January 27–28, 2009 Professor Jennifer Kapczynski’s guest February 24–25, 2009 is Johannes von Moltke, professor of Professor Andrea Friedman’s guest screen arts and cultures at the University is Penny M. Von Eschen, professor of of Michigan. Professor Moltke’s research history and American culture at the and teaching focus is on film and Ger- University of Michigan. Professor Von man cultural history of the twentieth Eschen’s research interests are African century.

Load more