Teaching Eighteenth-Century French Literature: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Eighteenth-Century Modernities: Present Contributions and Potential Future Projects from EC/ASECS (The 2014 EC/ASECS Presidential Address) by Christine Clark-Evans It never occurred to me in my research, writing, and musings that there would be two hit, cable television programs centered in space, time, and mythic cultural metanarrative about 18th-century America, focusing on the 1760s through the 1770s, before the U.S. became the U.S. One program, Sleepy Hollow on the FOX channel (not the 1999 Johnny Depp film) represents a pre- Revolutionary supernatural war drama in which the characters have 21st-century social, moral, and family crises. Added for good measure to several threads very similar to Washington Irving’s “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” story are a ferocious headless horseman, representing all that is evil in the form of a grotesque decapitated man-demon, who is determined to destroy the tall, handsome, newly reawakened Rip-Van-Winkle-like Ichabod Crane and the lethal, FBI-trained, diminutive beauty Lt. Abigail Mills. These last two are soldiers for the politically and spiritually righteous in both worlds, who themselves are fatefully inseparable as the only witnesses/defenders against apocalyptic doom. While the main characters in Sleepy Hollow on television act out their protracted, violent conflict against natural and supernatural forces, they also have their own high production-level, R & B-laced, online music video entitled “Ghost.” The throaty feminine voice rocks back and forth to accompany the deft montage of dramatic and frightening scenes of these talented, beautiful men and these talented, beautiful women, who use as their weapons American patriotism, religious faith, science, and wizardry. The second television program that plunges viewers into its interpretation of the eighteenth century and legends of the American founding fathers is TURN: Washington’s Spies. An AMC television series, TURN is a political and war drama about the propertied farmers and trades people who were radicalized by the harsh rule of the occupying Redcoats. The “New” Americans are driven to “turn” into enemy spies under the nose of British troops. With things not being at all what they seem in the televised “New” York, this small group of childhood friends and relatives was recruited and eventually trained into an organized espionage network that is skilled enough to pass precious, detailed intelligence for Washington, who is revered by rebellious colonials as a leader of men and an expert military strategist fighting for a righteous cause. From Televideography to Research and Theoretical Concerns, Or What the Present Has Brought, What the Future Might Bring* Based on Alexander Rose’s Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring (2007), TURN follows the group who became historically known as the Culper or Culpepper Ring, which in 1776 and 1777 helped General George Washington after his recently defeated army had lost Long Island, Staten Island, and Setauket, New York. Setauket was the location of a battle that had divided neighbor against neighbor and was the setting in the concluding episode of the first television season—insurgents versus loyalists. Abraham Woodhull 2 The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer, March 2015 historically a leading member of Washington’s Culper Spy Ring and the main character in the television series, is a farmer turned insurgent and spy, under the leadership of Continental Army Major Benjamin Tallmadge, though Woodhull’s father is portrayed as remaining a prominent Loyalist. Sleepy Hollow, premiering in 2013, received good reviews and high enough ratings to have been renewed for a second season, so a demographically mixed, mostly young, audience will see it again. The magic and mystical special effects and the supernatural, walking-dead-like demons are entertaining, even humorous, and remove any reason for the viewers to look for historical consistency. It is best to go with the comic tone of some of the more violent scenes as the main characters travel between time periods and find themselves menaced by otherworldly creatures. Though at first understandably culture- shocked, the Ichabod Crane character readily adapts to “modernity,” as he himself calls it, especially when it comes to weapons and electronic technology. Lieutenant, called “Leftenant,” Abby Mills and Ichabod show friendly affection for one another and the loyalty of comrades-in-arms with just a hint of sexual tension between the handsome white Brit and the lovely African-American woman police officer. TURN, however, is consistently a suspenseful war drama; and, the dramatic tone as well as the understated period décor, costumes, and sets make it very much a realistic political thriller. It shows New York in the 1770s to be a very dangerous place to live, though there are obviously still no small numbers of anachronisms that can jar a dix-huitièmiste’s attention. While dedicated to his cause, the Woodhull character leads a very lonely life hiding his radical views and other feelings from all those around him: his wife, his father, his neighbors and friends, and the infant son who needs a father’s protection and guidance. Eighteenth-Century Modernities: Ironies, Tensions, and Controversies in the Plural These two examples should give us all a brief pause about how popular the representation of the 18th century has become in today’s media. However, these two television series should also make us think more seriously about what we ECASECSers are doing presently and how gratifying it is to pursue our scholarship with focus and energy as we have here in Newark, Delaware. But could looking at the work presented in this year’s meeting, collectively and individually, suggest future directions of 18th-century modernities? While we have many new members and conferees, whom we are delighted to have join us and hope will return to participate in other ECASECS meetings, the papers and the programmed activities remind us of the authoritative and imaginative scholarly work we have come to respect so highly. First, reflection on this conference reminds us of our role as the political, cultural, literary, and philosophical historians, critics, researchers, writers, and scholars we have become. And second, the impact of ECASECS members’ scholarship presented at meetings contributes fundamentally to creating our community of scholars, scholars who become friends based on our mutual respect, affection, and honor. ECASECS can lay claim to the formidable juggernaut of a dix-huitièmiste publication that is The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer, which serves to inform us so well—from regional, national, and international conferences held by The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer, March 2015 3 colleagues in related disciplines, to funding sources, to available collections, archives, and seminars, and to reviews, analyses, and informative articles. Also the prominent place of women and gender studies has been seen in ECASECS officers and Executive Board, panel topics, papers presented, plenary speakers, and conference organizing committees. The C18-L, the Eighteenth-Century Interdisciplinary Discussion Bulletin Board, is our electronic site to debate with colleagues and raise crucial issues in our fields. Since 1990, this international forum has provided the means for discussing all aspects of 18th-century studies and the opportunity to learn from diverse perspectives and contexts. Participation of international colleagues as panel organizers and officers also distinguishes our regional society. And launched in 1998, our very newly enhanced website has given us a rather heightened and attractive digital profile. One of ECASECS’s best and yet least known accomplishments is the integration of our member graduate students as colleagues whom we mentor and accept in our ranks as intellectuals and professionals: we take pleasure in receiving graduate student members on conference panels, the S. Eric Molin Award we present for the best paper delivered by a student at the annual conference, and more recently the leading role of graduate students on conference organizing committees in 2011 at Penn State and here in 2014 at Delaware. But as dix-huitièmistes we accept that to best apply current theoretical approaches, albeit in diverse interdisciplinary projects, most of us look at our research with a view toward the “long eighteenth century,” the period from 1660 to 1830, beyond the Judeo-Christian hundred year cycles, to discover what was happening at the time not only politically and economically, but socially and intellectually, ethically and aesthetically, for a Foucauldian take on the archeology and genealogy of knowledge. This expanded paradigmatic perspective on history and culture has moved beyond scholars and into the wider society over the last forty-five years and could continue to be influential for possibly another decade or more according to how our world changes—and it will change. Taking an example from an even earlier early-modern view of change and scholarly perspective, “That By Various Means We Arrive at the Same End” is the title of Chapter 1, Volume I, of the Essays by Montaigne. Our fields have weighed for some time what modernity means, including debates on the “early modern,” the “high modern,” the “late modern,” and the “post-modern” contexts. So the focus on modernity in recent years has attempted to develop a more problematized viewpoint and to consider more than what people in advanced industrial, European or Northern Hemispheric countries

Load more