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| Devil: "Pull away, Pull away my son, don't fear, I'll give you all my assistance." Thomas Jefferson: "Oh, I fear it is stronger rooted than I expected but with the assistance of my old friend and a little more brandy, I'll bring it down." |
Monday, October 31, 2011
Mad Tom
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Invisible Bullets
The title of this entry refers to Stephen Greenblatt's seminal essay of the same name (not this) in which Greenblatt discusses the Theory of Subversion and Containment (shout out to my Shakespeare classmates from last spring!). As I was reading Richard D. Brown's chapter "The Revolution's Legacy for the History of the Book," I was struck by the following passage:
A light bulb that (for the most part) barely flickers and produces just enough light for neurons to find each other in the dark, suddenly gave off so much light that it was impossible for me to think about anything else. I was blinded by subversion and containment. As we've read (in Starr, Davidson, Gross, and now Brown), the dissemination of information and knowledge through the ever-increasing access to texts enabled the population of the Early Republic: "Ultimately, the Revolution's most powerful legacies were the uncapping of social aspirations and the opening of the republic of letters to diverse voices" (70); additionally, Brown states that this newly educated population, "not only brought government into the open buy also expanded participation in the public sphere" (59). There are some great benefits of this early print republic; education and literacy is tough to argue against. However, Brown touches on some ugly aspects of the formation of an American ideology (and by extension the formation of any ideology used to construct a national identity).
Brown states that, "the political upheaval of the Revolution subverted, without entirely supplanting, the social and cultural hierarchy that had sustained a significant measure of aristocracy and patriarchy in the colonial era" (60, emphasis mine). The general public was given access to knowledge and the ability to keep their representatives in check, which fostered a change from the colonies to the Republic. Step one: subvert ... check. However, the places where this knowledge was disseminated were set up by the same individuals who the the public was supposed to keep an eye on. Step two: contained ... check. The very idea that the Founders wanted to create a republic of letters is subversion and containment. Give the people access to something they were previously denied, but make sure that it's what we want them to know. I understand the Founders' intentions, but understanding of something without acknowledgement for the consequences is dangerous.
Now it's time for the I'm not un-American disclaimer: I'm not a proponent of anarchy and I see how subversion and containment was deemed necessary to facilitate a national identity and create unity among the states; however, it is always important to note that the foundations of the United States are not constructed of pure concrete. Sometimes, the builders had to spread the lime thin so there are parts that aren't as strong as they would have liked; in recognizing this, my positive view of the United States does not wain. Rather, I feel better for having a more complete understanding of this nation's history and the ability to recognize it's faults without tearing down for which it stands.I like to think that perhaps the Founders (at least some of them) really did have the citizens' interest in mind and cared about them.
Yet a republic of letters in which the radical works of Paine and of Mary Wollstonecraft ... circulated freely posed risks to liberty and threatened social stability, in the opinion of many gentlemen. It was imperative to create a correctly informed citizenry, and to this end prominent figures in the governing class set about creating new education institutions. (68, emphasis mine)
A light bulb that (for the most part) barely flickers and produces just enough light for neurons to find each other in the dark, suddenly gave off so much light that it was impossible for me to think about anything else. I was blinded by subversion and containment. As we've read (in Starr, Davidson, Gross, and now Brown), the dissemination of information and knowledge through the ever-increasing access to texts enabled the population of the Early Republic: "Ultimately, the Revolution's most powerful legacies were the uncapping of social aspirations and the opening of the republic of letters to diverse voices" (70); additionally, Brown states that this newly educated population, "not only brought government into the open buy also expanded participation in the public sphere" (59). There are some great benefits of this early print republic; education and literacy is tough to argue against. However, Brown touches on some ugly aspects of the formation of an American ideology (and by extension the formation of any ideology used to construct a national identity).
Brown states that, "the political upheaval of the Revolution subverted, without entirely supplanting, the social and cultural hierarchy that had sustained a significant measure of aristocracy and patriarchy in the colonial era" (60, emphasis mine). The general public was given access to knowledge and the ability to keep their representatives in check, which fostered a change from the colonies to the Republic. Step one: subvert ... check. However, the places where this knowledge was disseminated were set up by the same individuals who the the public was supposed to keep an eye on. Step two: contained ... check. The very idea that the Founders wanted to create a republic of letters is subversion and containment. Give the people access to something they were previously denied, but make sure that it's what we want them to know. I understand the Founders' intentions, but understanding of something without acknowledgement for the consequences is dangerous.
Now it's time for the I'm not un-American disclaimer: I'm not a proponent of anarchy and I see how subversion and containment was deemed necessary to facilitate a national identity and create unity among the states; however, it is always important to note that the foundations of the United States are not constructed of pure concrete. Sometimes, the builders had to spread the lime thin so there are parts that aren't as strong as they would have liked; in recognizing this, my positive view of the United States does not wain. Rather, I feel better for having a more complete understanding of this nation's history and the ability to recognize it's faults without tearing down for which it stands.I like to think that perhaps the Founders (at least some of them) really did have the citizens' interest in mind and cared about them.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Hey CNN!
I got your new motto right here: "From realms far distant and from Climes unknown, we make the Knowledge of [Hu]Mankind your own" (qtd. in Gross 6). How awesome would the news cycle be if every thirty minutes, James Earl Jones recited the quote listed above? On a more serious note, my feelings regarding our reading for today echo some of my fellow classmates, in that there is a lot here that we have seen before. However, there is some information that we haven't come across yet. I wonder how much all of our opinions regarding the reading will change once we get into the book; in other words, how much does the fact that what we read for today is an introduction to an extensive collection of essays (that cover a variety of different topics and perspectives) play into our beliefs. Of course there is going to be some overlap, but I think that Robert A. Gross does a substantially better job at presenting a more well-rounded approach to print culture of the Early Republic than Cathy N. Davidson or Paul Starr. Not that Davidson or Starr are without their merits, but by nature of what he has to accomplish in his introduction, Gross points to a number of different ideas that are ignored or slightly discussed by Davidson and Starr.
The first of these is geography and its role in shaping print culture in the United States. Whereas Starr claims that what developed was the result of American Exceptionalism, Gross cites the need to send information quickly across the expansive tracts of land now part of the burgeoning nation. The South is not treated as a stupid sibling of the North and Gross provides a logical and acceptable explanation for the lack of print culture below the Mason-Dixon. The sparsely populated South simply did not have the infrastructure present to facilitate the transmission of goods; moreover, it was not profitable for Norther booksellers to attempt to sell print goods to Southern readers. For Gross, it appears that geography was at the center of the print explosion that occurred during the Early Republic. Geography also serves to explain how decentralized the American printing industry became when compared to the British; this is a characteristic that (if I remember correctly, and I probably don't) Starr and Davidson fail to explain in an great detail.
Reading Gross, we get a larger sense of print culture in the Early Republic. Subjects such as children's literature, the progression of the novel, the rise of full-fledged publishers, the formation (or lack thereof) of a national identity, the role the telegraph played in the transformation of print culture, the rise of the penny press, and the influence of European culture on the American identity. All of these topics are discussed with more clarity by Gross than by either Davidson or Starr. With that said, I am sure that all of these topics are discussed in greater detail in the collection of essays that follows Gross's introduction, so he needed to at least touch on them to some extent in his introduction. However, I am already more interested to read on to discover whether or not I am correct than I have been with our previous readings.
The first of these is geography and its role in shaping print culture in the United States. Whereas Starr claims that what developed was the result of American Exceptionalism, Gross cites the need to send information quickly across the expansive tracts of land now part of the burgeoning nation. The South is not treated as a stupid sibling of the North and Gross provides a logical and acceptable explanation for the lack of print culture below the Mason-Dixon. The sparsely populated South simply did not have the infrastructure present to facilitate the transmission of goods; moreover, it was not profitable for Norther booksellers to attempt to sell print goods to Southern readers. For Gross, it appears that geography was at the center of the print explosion that occurred during the Early Republic. Geography also serves to explain how decentralized the American printing industry became when compared to the British; this is a characteristic that (if I remember correctly, and I probably don't) Starr and Davidson fail to explain in an great detail.
Reading Gross, we get a larger sense of print culture in the Early Republic. Subjects such as children's literature, the progression of the novel, the rise of full-fledged publishers, the formation (or lack thereof) of a national identity, the role the telegraph played in the transformation of print culture, the rise of the penny press, and the influence of European culture on the American identity. All of these topics are discussed with more clarity by Gross than by either Davidson or Starr. With that said, I am sure that all of these topics are discussed in greater detail in the collection of essays that follows Gross's introduction, so he needed to at least touch on them to some extent in his introduction. However, I am already more interested to read on to discover whether or not I am correct than I have been with our previous readings.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
The Ultimate Question of Literacy, Education, and the Reader
It occurs to me as I sit down to write this post, that all of my posts bare little resemblance to the title of this blog. The catalyst for my posts are conversations with classmates, discussions in class, and the reading. There is actually very little discussed about early national periodicals in this blog, but I can't make myself change the awesome design of this blog. Oh well, onward and upward. I seem to harp on change and the humanities (or something like it) in almost every post, so why should this time be different? As I read for my classes, plan lessons, and interact with students it becomes more evident that George Santayana is right: "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained ... infancy is perpetual." Ahh, yes. Everyone likes this quote. If you don't, your un-American. Just kidding, but only a little.
As we have discussed in class many times, the younger generations read differently than we do; they are capable of reading like us, but their literacy has adapted to their social needs. It seems that the early Republic went through something similar: "[T]he novel threatened not just to coexist with elite literature but to replace it, and its critics knew full well that changes in the primary reading of an increasingly greater number of people presaged far more than a faddish redeployment of leisure time" (Davidson 105). This new type of literacy threatens our discipline and with it the type of critical thinking we do about culture and the arts that gives depth to society and enables us to better understand who we are as a people.
Davidson goes on to discuss the quality of early Republic novels that (I think) corresponds to the new literacy emerging today: "[T]he early novel spoke to those not included in the established power structures of the early Republic and welcomed into the republic of letters citizens who had previously been invited, implicitly and explicitly, to stay out" (150). We are partly to blame for our current situation, in that we compartmentalized our discipline to such an extent that our knowledge was perceived by the outside world as esoteric. Esoteric is fine, but when your discipline acquires a label like that, it becomes difficult to survive. This misconception of our discipline keeps those new-literate generations at arms length. With our knowledge base out of reach, the new-literate will find the path of least resistance and most inclusion.
As literacy changes, we have refused to change with it. I'm not saying that we all have to stop reading Moby Dick and tweet ourselves to death; rather, I believe we need to become literate in the same way as our students. This is where Santayana comes in: retentiveness. If we allow a new type of literacy to completely supplant literacy as we knew it, then how can we hope to leave the world in a better position than when we found it? We must become multiliterate in order to transmit the knowledge (and the means to acquire it) to future generations. If we remain stubborn and stagnant, then all is lost and we leave future generations the grim prospect of rediscovering what we already know. We can get angry when someone calls into question the existence of our discipline and tell them that we're valuable; however, the time will come when we must justify our existence and simply telling someone won't do. We'll have to show them.
As we have discussed in class many times, the younger generations read differently than we do; they are capable of reading like us, but their literacy has adapted to their social needs. It seems that the early Republic went through something similar: "[T]he novel threatened not just to coexist with elite literature but to replace it, and its critics knew full well that changes in the primary reading of an increasingly greater number of people presaged far more than a faddish redeployment of leisure time" (Davidson 105). This new type of literacy threatens our discipline and with it the type of critical thinking we do about culture and the arts that gives depth to society and enables us to better understand who we are as a people.
Davidson goes on to discuss the quality of early Republic novels that (I think) corresponds to the new literacy emerging today: "[T]he early novel spoke to those not included in the established power structures of the early Republic and welcomed into the republic of letters citizens who had previously been invited, implicitly and explicitly, to stay out" (150). We are partly to blame for our current situation, in that we compartmentalized our discipline to such an extent that our knowledge was perceived by the outside world as esoteric. Esoteric is fine, but when your discipline acquires a label like that, it becomes difficult to survive. This misconception of our discipline keeps those new-literate generations at arms length. With our knowledge base out of reach, the new-literate will find the path of least resistance and most inclusion.
As literacy changes, we have refused to change with it. I'm not saying that we all have to stop reading Moby Dick and tweet ourselves to death; rather, I believe we need to become literate in the same way as our students. This is where Santayana comes in: retentiveness. If we allow a new type of literacy to completely supplant literacy as we knew it, then how can we hope to leave the world in a better position than when we found it? We must become multiliterate in order to transmit the knowledge (and the means to acquire it) to future generations. If we remain stubborn and stagnant, then all is lost and we leave future generations the grim prospect of rediscovering what we already know. We can get angry when someone calls into question the existence of our discipline and tell them that we're valuable; however, the time will come when we must justify our existence and simply telling someone won't do. We'll have to show them.
Monday, October 3, 2011
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