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AUTZEN HOUSE OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY SPRING 2014 Wild West hero tied to Nine 2014-15 Fellowships German censorship Awarded

t is a bit of a stretcher—but only he Center Advisory Board a bit—to blame the Wild West’s Thas named nine new Research IBuffalo Bill for German cultural Fellows for 2014-15, all from censorship early in the last century. OSU’s College of Liberal Arts. In 1905, a fictional version of the Fellows are awarded one term of Western hero became a quick hit release from teaching, though they in Germany through an illustrated may keep their offices in Autzen pamphlet series called Buffalo Bill. House for the full academic year. It was so popular that other such The Center also provides computers serialized tales soon appeared, and general office support services. triggering official condemnation of the Applications for 2015-16 new “trash” publications. Fellowships will be invited in the It was the beginning of decades of fall of 2014. Also, please check the censorship that lasted through three Center website for information. political regimes—Imperial Germany, http://oregonstate.edu/dept/humanities/ the Weimar Republic, and the Third Kara Ritzheimer Reich—a tale that will be told in Fellows and their projects: Kara Ritzheimer’s book Buffalo Bill: Ritzheimer’s analysis challenges a Commercial Culture, Censorship, and propensity among historians to view Peter Betjemann National Identity in Early 20th-Century pre-1933 censorship laws through School of Writing, Literature, and Film Germany. the lens of Nazi suppression, in Revolutionary Readers: Early The censorship, Ritzheimer argues, many cases diagnosing Germany as American Literary Painters and the began with local protests against the plagued by a predisposition toward Transnational Imagination cheap publications as well as the authoritarianism or a limp embrace blooming film industry. of democracy. Nabil Boudraa “Regional activists campaigned Germans first encounteredBuffalo School of Language, Culture, and Society against the ‘trash’ and lobbied first Bill stories in stationery stores and Re-Visioning History in North state and then federal authorities watched films in neighborhood African Francophone Literature to create censorship laws targeting cinemas that were often renovated and Film these media,” said Ritzheimer, a shop fronts. Early consumers Center Research Fellow and faculty found the new entertainments to Nicole von Germeten member in OSU’s School of History, be “transformative, particularly School of History, Philosophy, and Religon Philosophy, and Religion. “By the when retailers displayed colorful ‘La que peca por la paga’: Female 1920s, they had achieved their goal and graphically illustrated pamphlet Sexual Agency and Selling Sex in when the Reichstag adopted both a stories in their front window cases the Mexican Viceregal Court film law and a publications law.” (Continued on page 5 (Continued on page 5 Boxing ring redefined Catholic Men

he sport of boxing made managed to rise to his feet.” “American men” out of While the ethnic origins of TCatholic males and opened champion boxers tended to their way to social whiteness and correlate closely with patterns of middle-class respectability, all ethnic succession in the church, while affirming their connection to connections between the sport the church. and Catholic identity were rarely In short, pugilism was a powerful this simple, said Koehlinger. force within the American Catholic “Whereas boxing sharpened ethnic community from 1880 through components of identity inside much of the twentieth century. Catholic enclaves, in the larger In her book Rosaries and Rope culture the sport served as the Burns: Boxing and Manhood vehicle for Catholic aspirations for in American Catholicism, Amy economic and social assimilation.” Koehlinger will argue that boxing By mid-century, the importance of reinforced Catholic ideas about Amy Koehlinger boxing to Catholics plummeted, in the redemptive value of physical part because the sport was tarnished suffering while offering an effective in church boxing clubs, fundraisers, by organized crime but also in means of assimilation to male sermons, education programs, and response to changing aspirations Catholic immigrants. A Center Catholic periodicals. toward American assimilation. Research Fellow and faculty member Catholics took pride in devout “Catholic writing and sermons at in the OSU School of History, titleholders like Rocky Marciano and the turn of the century touted the Philosophy, and Religion, Koehlinger Floyd Patterson, while priests served sport’s capacity to instill public is the author of The New Nuns: Racial as trainers at all levels, some working virtues like masculine vigor and Justice and Religious Reform in the with such legendary champions as ethical discipline in practitioners. 1960s (Harvard UP, 2007). Sonny Liston and Joe Louis. As boxing’s status declined, and as Boxing was long among the Catholics rapidly joined the ranks most popular sports in the United uite apart from its social of the middle class in the 1960s, States, right up there with baseball Qpotency, the sport’s appeal an increasingly strong voice in drawing crowds and media had deep roots within Catholic emerged in the American Church attention. “Though the American devotional culture. challenging the compatibility of obsession with boxing was present “For Catholics formed within the sport with Catholic principles in most classes and immigrant a religious economy that equated of peace and the Christian groups,” said Koehlinger, “it physical suffering with spiritual prohibition against murder.” was especially popular among redemption, a boxing match enacted immigrant Catholics.” the central spiritual mysteries of In contrast with longstanding the faith. The ‘imitatio Christi’ anti-Catholic stigmas that personified in a boxer’s willingness The sport instilled associated Catholic manhood to endure suffering for a greater with feminization, passivity, and cause. The Stations of the Cross in public virtues like deviance, the sport of boxing his perseverance through round after masculine vigor and offered Catholic men opportunities round of punishment. The stigmata to participate in a form of manhood in the gashes and abrasions that ethical discipline that was not only culturally collected on his body. Christological sanctioned but omnipresent in the death and resurrection recreated each church. Parishioners encountered it time a boxer was knocked down and 2 When literary animals ‘refuse’ to follow the plot

idalgo County, New nonhuman point of view? How can Mexico, 1941. Young Billy writers lend animals a full-blown HParham traps a pregnant subjective agency when writing wolf that has crossed the border into from a human perspective?” this country after the last resident For answers, Malewitz looks gray wolf has been killed. Rather outside Animal Studies to “thing than shooting the wolf, which has theory,” a complex way of trying attacked his family’s cattle, Billy to understand human-object heads for the border to return the interactions. Stated simply, objects— animal to the wild. Things do not go including animals—become most well on this mission. clearly evident when they break free The setup is from Cormac from their expected position or role, McCarthy’s The Crossing, a novel at or “stop working for us.” the center of Raymond Malewitz’s A broader form of this view, investigation of the nature of animal Malewitz suggests, employs the literary agency. notion of “misuse” or repurposing. In Ray Malewitz “I address a central question in other words, “an animal might gain the new interdisciplinary field of a temporary agency and legibility campaign to eradicate the gray wolf. animal studies,” said Malewitz, a at the moment when it has ceased After trapping the pregnant wolf, Center Research Fellow and faculty to function as a useful entity. . . by Billy Parham “misuses” it through member in the OSU School of refusing to participate in productive his ill-fated attempt to return it to the Writing, Literature, and Film. “How human work or, in the case of wild, thereby causing the shift in the might humanists view, understand, literature, by refusing to advance wolf’s expected role. and engage with the animal world in some anthropocentric plot.” “For the father, the wolf ways that break from conventional Animal subjects in literature represents an economic problem. anthropocentric perspectives?” often begin by exhibiting an For Billy, the wolf symbolizes In a movement spurred by such anthropomorphized character that wildness. As for the wolf, it becomes prominent thinkers as Donna then changes during the narrative increasingly domesticated despite Haraway and Jacques Derrida, some to take on some other—but still Billy’s determination to keep it contemporary cultural theorists have anthropocentric—value. The wild.” begun to step away from traditional crucial moment, said Malewitz, The “energy” in this quandary, humanities perspectives that see is the point of change in the story Malewitz argues, comes from the absolute division between human when the animal is in as-yet- narrative’s failure to resolve the and non-human subjects. For these undefined transition between the two conflicting values ascribed to the scholars, said Malewitz, the division anthropomorphic states. wolf. The disjunction between “obscures both the biotic continuities how Billy perceives the world between animals and humans and alewitz hopes to test the and how the narrator describes the the ways in which animals express Mstrengths and weaknesses of wolf suggests that “the conflict that their own agencies as they enter this model of animal literary agency generates literary animal agency is into dynamic networks with other through his analysis of McCarthy’s visible only when the wolf resists its humans and non-human actors. The Crossing, which dramatizes function as a symbol of wildness. I “But given our status as human the conflict between the industrial will conclude that literary animals, beings embedded within a deep and agricultural development of the like their real-world counterparts, tradition of humanism, how can American southwest and the natural assume agency whenever they we collect and share information wildness such development displaces. cannot be resolved into stable human about nonhuman agents from a The conflict is framed through the systems of value.” 3 Animal ‘performance’ tells human truths

eferring to an aging female bring other creatures closer to their tortoise as a “kept woman” own understanding of experience,” Ris the sort of touch that said Passarello. “Wittgenstein is makes Elena Passarello’s essays probably right in assuming that crackle with originality. if a lion could talk we would not The tortoise in question is Harriet understand it, and this is perhaps who sailed—or maybe did not why it is more delicious to do the sail—on the Beagle with Charles talking for the animals via the Darwin. At the time she was constructs of fame that we devise for known as Harry. According to one them.” account, Harry/Harriet traveled The thirty famous animals on to England from the Galapagos Passarello’s list may include, among Islands, then to Australia on a others, an elephant, a cloned sheep, transport ship, then survived two a giraffe, a tiger, a sperm whale, floods and a few decades on the a rooster, and a pair of penguins. grounds of a mental hospital before The animals occupy many different Elena Passarello ending up in a zoo on the Gold pockets of human experience: Coast to finish out her venerable politics, the 1940’s sideshow circuit, was used not just to prove 175 years. the 19th-century French court, the Harriet’s connection to Darwin “My essay takes these ‘wonky’ whaling industry, behavioral science but to reposition her as the facts of the Harriet timeline further, labs, outer space. central character in an essayistic pairing them with even more “Though the pieces will vary melodrama—as a ‘kept woman’ research from related areas,” said widely in tone and approach, each who, in her travels from the Passarello, a Center Research draft begins with a named creature, Galapagos to London to Australia, Fellow, faculty member in the one well-documented in human develops her own revolutionary College of Literature, Writing, record,” said Passarello. “This theories on science and love.” and Film, and author of the essay beginning leads to research into the Just as the essays in her first collection Allow Me to Clear My biological facts of each animal and book began with an infamous voice Throat. Her book-in-progress, the historical realities surrounding that then led to an exploration of Up,Simba! will include essays on its fame. These known facts, both a particular moment of popular thirty famous animals, like Harriet, human and animal, then serve as culture, the current collection will that have captured attention scaffolding to create the unknown, use information about each animal through work, rescue, or spectacle. the much more speculative or lyrical to examine the cultural space it There is Barry, a dog that saved viewpoints that fuel the music and inhabits. the most human lives of any scope of each essay.” “In working through the ways dog at St. Bernard’s Monastery The essay about Harriet appeared in which we discuss, and later and is now stuffed and mounted last year in Passages North. In remember, the ‘performances’ in a Swiss museum. There is testing the claims made by the zoo of animals, we see more of a Mike, a headless chicken that is that ended up housing the tortoise, reflection of ourselves than of the commemorated by its hometown Passarello reconstructed scenes from species that fascinate us. I want of Fruita, Colorado, with a statue Darwin’s letters and autobiography, the essays to use the particular made of axe blades. There is Jiggs, fleshed out the sea voyages with facts of each animal’s famous the chimpanzee that played Cheeta facts about how tortoises fared on moment to highlight this transferred to Johnny Weismuller’s Tarzan and shipping and whaling boats, and understanding, and I hope the lived to be 80. explored accounts of the great lyrical nature of the prose will “I see this project as a lyrical Bisbane floods. amplify those unique places where study of how humans use ‘fame’ to “This discrete course of research facts and imaginative spaces meet.”

4 German censorship. . . (continued from page 1) Awards. . . (from page 1) and early movie theaters transformed appropriate, societies articulate Michelle Inderbitzen the urban landscape of communities and defend key norms and values,” School of Public Policy large and small.” said Ritzheimer. But censorship Changes Come from Within: Rather than obliterating regional is also a vehicle by which the Coming of Age in Prison identities, said Ritzheimer, pulp state can further social agendas. fiction and film helped to reinforce For example, anti-trash activists Stephanie Jenkins them, in part by providing successfully pushed for stricter School of History, Philosophy, and Religion entrepreneurial filmmakers and regulation as a form of youth Disabling Ethics: A Genealogy of Ability cinema owners with an effective protection. marketing tool, and in part by “In limiting what youth could Tim Jensen encouraging proponents of stricter consume, censorship proponents School of Writing, Literature, and Film regulations to find a solution at the hinted that state authorities might Our Common Sensorium: Rhetoric, regional level. influence their maturation into Pathē, and Movements of the Social “Because Germany’s strong hard-working and appropriately system of federalism permitted gendered citizens.” Jon Lewis municipal and regional authorities Censorship also emerged as a School of Writing, Literature, and Film to develop a regulatory response, tool for reviving Germany’s moral Mapping the Hollywood Transition, critics worked hard to identify center following defeat in WWI, 1947-1967 ‘trashy’ films and commercial fiction and in the construction of national as a local problem requiring a local identity. Christopher Nichols solution.” “Censorship advocates School of History, Philosophy, and Religion In other words, censorship characterized state regulation of Republican Revival: Ike, Taft, the enjoyed wide support in German the film and print industries as a Election of 1952, and the End of society, both prior to and after means by which Germany could Conservative Isolationism WWI, because proponents resuscitate its reputation as a succeeded in characterizing state ‘kulturstaat,’ present itself as a Ehren Pflugfelder regulation as a form of social global pioneer in youth protection, School of Writing, Literature, and Film protection rather than a violation of and nurture a new identity rooted Communicating Mobility and civil liberties. in traditional definitions of Technology: Advancing a “In identifying that which is masculinity and femininity.” Kinaesthetic Rhetoric

Center Advisory Board 2013-14 Harman took close look at Latour’s latest In February, influential writer and philosopher Graham Harman explored a Neil Davison Tara Williams recent shift in thinking by prolific French theorist Bruno Latour as part of The English English Critical Questions Lecture Series at OSU. Harman is Distinguished University Professor at the American University in Anita Guerrini Ex-officio History Cairo and the author of many books, most recently Bells and Whistles: More David Robinson Speculative Realism. His OSU lecture examined principal features of a new Jacob Hamblin Center Director philosophical system as detailed by Latour in his recent book An Inquiry Into History Modes of Existence. Wendy Madar Latour’s influence within the social sciences is extensive, and with this new work Joseph Orosco Associate Director he has solidified a growing presence within philosophy as well. Harman’s lecture Philosophy focused, in part, on whether Latour’s new theory also carries implications for various other fields touched by his work. The lecture was sponsored by OSU’s School of Rorie Solberg Writing, Literature, and Film, the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion, the Political Science Horning Foundation, and the Center for the Humanities. 5 Recent books by Center Fellows

Nicole von Germeten, History Faculty, OSU Violent Delights & Violent Ends: Sex, Race, Barbara Loeb, Art Faculty, OSU and Honor in Colonial Cartagenas de The Woman Who Loved Mankind: The Life Indias. (University of NM Press, 2013) Stacey Smith, History Faculty, OSU of a Twentieth-Century Crow Elder. Freedom’s Frontier: California and (University of Nebraska Press, 2013) the Struggle Over Unfree Labor, Emancipation, & Reconstruction. (University of NC Press, 2013)

Linda Leavell, English Faculty, Oklahoma State University. Holding on Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore. (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2013)

Nancy Rosenberger, Anthropology Faculty, OSU. Dilemmas of Adulthood: Japanese Women and the Nuances of Long-Term Resistance. (University of Hawai’i Press, 2013)

Adam Rome, History Faculty, University of Delaware. The Genius of Earth Day: How a Nancy Rosenberger, Anthropology 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Faculty, OSU. Seeking Food Righs: Green Generation. (Wang and Hill, 2013) Nation, Inequality and Repression in Uzbekistan. (Wadsworth/Cengage, 2013) 6 David Bernell, Political Science Faculty, OSU. Constructing U.S. Foreign Policy: The Curious Case of Cuba. (Routledge, Gary Ferngren, History Faculty, OSU 2013) Mina Carson, History Faculty, OSU Medicine & Religion: A Historical Ava Helen Pauling: Partner, Activist, Introduction. (Johns Hopkins UP, 2014) Visionary. (OSU Press, 2013)

Sebastian Heiduschke, Foreign Languages Faculty, OSU. East German Cinema: DEFA and Film History. (Palgrave Macmillan, Tracy Daugherty, English Faculty, OSU 2013) Just One Catch: A Biography of Joseph Peter Betjeman, English Faculty, OSU Heller. (St. Martin’s Press, 2011) Talking Shop: The Language of Craft in an Age of Consumption. (Univeristy of Virginia Press, 2011)

7 Fellows’ books. . . (continued from page 7) Mark Porrovecchio, Speech Communication Faculty, OSU. F.C.S. Schiller and the Dawn of Pragmatism. (Lexington Books, 2011)

Tara Williams, English Faculty, OSU Inventing Womanhood: Gender and Language in Middle English Writing. (Ohio State UP, 2011)

William Uzgalis, Philosophy Faculty, OSU The Correspondence of Samuel Clarke and Anthony Collins, 1707-08. (Broadview Press, 2011)

Keith Scribner, English Faculty, OSU The Oregon Experiment. Marjorie Sandor, English Faculty, OSU (Knopf, 2011) The Late Interiors: A Life Under Construction. (Arcade Publishing, 2011)

Aaron Wolf, Geosciences Faculty, OSU Reaching Across the Waters: Facing the Risks of Cooperation in International Waters. (Wiorld Bank Publishing, 2012)

Andrea Marks, Art Faculty, OSU Writing for Visual Thinkers: A Guide for Artists and Designers. (New Riders, 2011) 8 Karen Holmberg, English Faculty, OSU Marisa Chappell, History Faculty, OSU Jon Lewis, English Faculty, OSU Axis Mundi, poems. The War on Welfare: Family, Poverty, Essential Cinema: An Introduction to Film (University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2013) and Politics in Modern America. Analysis. (Cengage Learning, 2013) (University of Pennsylvani Press, 2011)

Nabil Boudraa, French Faculty, OSU Francophone Cultures Through Film. Susan Rodgers, English Faculty, OSU (Focusing Publising/R. Pullins Inc., 2013) Evan Gottlieb, English Faculty, OSU Ex-Boyfriend on Aisle 6. Walter Scott and Contemporary Theory. (Press 53, 2012) (Ashgate Publishing, 2013)

Rebecca Olson, English Faculty, OSU Arras Hanging: The Textile That Determined Early Modern Literature and Drama. (University of Delware Press, 2013)

Julie Green, Art Faculty, OSU The Last Supper: 500 Plates. (Exhibition Catalog: Corvallis Arts Center, 2013) 9 Peter J. Copek Fund

During Peter J. Copek’s sixteen years as the founding director of the Center, he regularly made Center money available to support cultural events on campus. In addition to conferences, music festivals, and film series, the Center supported many special and unusual lectures and programs, including visits to OSU by Gore Vidal, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and venerable South African township jazz singer and film star Dolly Rathebe. The level of support for such events has always depended on the state of the Center’s finances from year to year. After Peter died suddenly in June, 2001, there was much discussion of how best to keep his name alive so that his impact on OSU intellectual life would not be forgotten. What resulted is the Peter J. Copek Fund, intended to provide more regular and stable support for the same kinds of cultural events that he sponsored through the Center. More recent examples of efforts that have received support from the Fund include OSU’s Asian Studies Program and the Center for Latin@ Studies and Engagement (Cl@se), the annual Magic Barrel reading to raise money to combat hunger, and the OSU Holocaust Memorial Program.

PLEASE JOIN US IN SUPPORTING THE PETER J. COPEK FUND For information on how to contribute, please see the Center’s website and click on “Make a gift” http://oregonstate.edu/dept/humanities/ You may also send a check, made out to the OSU Foundation, Peter J. Copek Fund, to: Center for the Humanities 811 S.W. Jefferson Avenue Corvallis, OR 97333-4506 Gifts made in response to this solicitation are tax deductible to the amount permitted by law, depending on individual donor tax situations.

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WINTER & SPRING CALENDAR Art Exhibits: January-March, Drawings & Collages, by Jamie Newton April-June, Theatre Design, Barbara Mason and George Caldwell curators Lectures are at 4 p.m. at Autzen House

February

10 Questions of Resistance in Neoliberal Society: Organic Farmers in Japan Nancy Rosenberger, Research Fellow, Anthropology Faculty, School of Languages, Culture, and Society, OSU.

17 Biography and the History of Science. Mary Jo Nye, Center Guest, Professor Emerita of History, School of History, Philosophy, and Religion, OSU.

March

3 Reclaiming Women’s History: Patricia Burke Brogan’s Eclipsed and the Ongoing Story of the Magdalene Laundries. Charlotte Headrick, Center Guest, Theatre Arts Faculty, School of Arts and Communication, OSU.

10 How the Duel of Honor Attenuated Violence and Promoted Civility in Western Europe. Robert Nye, Center Guest, Professor Emeritus of History, School of Language, Culture and society, OSU.

April

14 Up, Simba! A Famous Bestiary. Elena Passarello, Research Fellow, English Faculty, School of writing, Literature, and Film, OSU.

21 Can Literary Animals Have Agency? Raymond Malewitz, Research Fellow, English Faculty, School of Writing, Literature, and Film, OSU.

May

5 Rosaries and Rope Burns: Boxing and Manhood in American Catholicism, 1880-1970. Amy Koehlinger, Research Fellow, History Faculty, School of History, Philosophy, and Religion, OSU.

12 A Nation Lacking Its Moral Center? Censorship and National Identity in Post-WWI Germany. Kara Ritzheimer, Research Fellow, History Faculty, School of History, Philosophy, and Religion, OSU.

19 Objects of Correction: How the Book Fashioned the Household in Late Medieval England. Myra Seaman, Center Guest, Professor of English, College of Charleston.

11 The Center for the Humanities Non-Profit Org Autzen House U.S. Postage 811 S.W. Jefferson Avenue, PAID Corvallis, OR 97333-4506 Corvallis, OR Permit No. 200 (541)737-2450

The Center for the Humanities The Center was established in 1984 as an outgrowth of the Humanities Development Program, which had been creating innovative interdisciplinary courses since 1977. The Center’s focus has broadened to a concern for improving the quality of humanities research as well as teaching at OSU. This is accomplished through the awarding of resident research fellowships to both OSU and visiting scholars as well as by supporting initiatives such as the Asian Studies Program, and sponsoring conferences, seminars, lecture series, art exhibits and other events. The Center occupies Autzen House, 811 S.W. Jefferson Avenue, Corvallis, OR, 97333. David Robinson wendy Madar Joy Futrell Director Associate Director Office Coordinator