British Association for American Studies

 Minutes 270th

Minutes of the 270th Meeting of the Executive Committee, held at the University of Manchester on 12^th April 2012 at 10.30am.

1. Present: M Halliwell (Chair), T Saxon (Treasurer), S Currell, D Ellis, J Fagg, G Lewis, P Davies, M Collins, Z Feghali, G Hughes, S Ellis, C Bernier

Apologies:             I Bell, N Bowles, T Ruys-Smith

In attendance: J Gill

2.  Minutes of the Previous Meeting

These were accepted as a true record and will now go on the website.

3.  Matters Arising

None

(a) Action List Review

The Secretary asked the Exec to comment on the status of their Action List duties. All Action List duties will be addressed under the relevant section below.

4.  Chair’s Business (MH reporting)

1. a. Announcements

i. Promotions and Grants

Professor Heidi Macpherson (BAAS Chair, 2007-10) has been appointed to the position of Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse: a position that she will take up in July.

Professor Brian Ward has been appointed as Research Professor in American Studies at Northumbria University from August 2012.

Alan Rice was promoted to Professor at the University of Central Lancashire in February 2012.

Celeste-Marie Bernier will be promoted to Professor at the University of Nottingham from July 2012.

Professor Philip Davies (Director of the Eccles Centre at the British Library) has been elected to the Chair of the European Association for American Studies for a four-year term.

Dr Robin Vandome (Nottingham) has been awarded a $60,000 Mellon Foundation Fellowship at the New York Historical Society for 2012-13.

Professor Bridget Bennett and Dr Hamilton Carroll (University of Leeds) have been awarded £37,000 from the AHRC for a project entitled ‘Imagining the Place of Home’

Dr Vivien Miller (Nottingham) is the PI of an AHRC research network grant in the ‘Translating Cultures’ stream, entitled ‘Translating Penal Cultures’, worth £23,315.

Dr Jarod Roll has been awarded a Princeton University fellowship at the Davis Center for Historical Studies in 2012-13.

Dr Michael Cullinane (Northumbria) has been awarded the Michael Dearborn Fellowship in American History at Harvard University

1. ii. Institutions

University of Northumbria

BAAS welcomes the very good news that Northumbria University are making six new American Studies appointments. The School of Arts and Sciences at Northumbria plans to start a new undergraduate degree in autumn 2013, and are making a significant resource investment in American Studies.

Institute of the Americas

Core staff from the Institute for the Study of the Americas as the University of London’s School of Advanced Study will be moving to UCL in July to form the Institute of the Americas, at which point Professor Iwan Morgan will take up the post of Professor of US Studies at UCL. The new UCL institute will deliver all the postgraduate programmes currently offered at ISA, including the MA in US Studies: History and Politics, while continuing PG students at ISA have the option to transfer to UCL. The new Institute will continue to host seminars, lectures and symposia as part of its mission to facilitate research in the Americas. There will be a public event to launch the new Institute in the autumn.

Institute of the Study of the Americas

The University of London’s School of Advanced Study will continue to operate the Institute for the Study of the Americas in academic year 2012-13. SAS have appointed a new part-time director from King’s College, Professor Linda Newson, a specialist in colonial Latin America. In the press release of 2 April no mention was made of the US Studies element of the ISA’s work; it is unclear whether further appointments will be made, and if so whether any will be in US Studies. ISA is expected to continue its research facilitation activities in 2012-13, but it will not offer postgraduate taught programmes. It is unclear whether the US Presidency Centre will stay at ISA or transfer with Iwan Morgan to UCL. Uncertainty also surrounds the future of the digital projects, ‘Women and US Foreign Policy Interview Project’ and ‘Atlantic Archive: US-UK Relations in an Age of Global War 1939-1945’.

University of Sussex

A proposal for a new American Institute at the University of Sussex is currently being reviewed internally, and it is hoped that the institute will be launched in 2012-13. 

1. b. Invitations

The Chair attended and gave a short talk to promote American Studies at university at the Schools’ Conference on ‘US Politics and Government’ on 6 February, organized by Gareth Hughes and held at Pocklington School, York. Congratulations to Gareth on a very successful event.

He attended a ‘Tracking the 2012 Elections’ half-day symposium organized by the Eccles Centre and hosted by the US Embassy on 10 February.

He was an external assessor for a Portfolio Review at the University of Sussex (which included American Studies along with three other subjects), 29 February-1 March.

He attended the Douglas Bryant Lecture at the British Library, presented by Gary Younge, on 26 February. (There he met the Eccles Centre’s Writer in Residence, Naomi Wood, at the meal at the British Library after the lecture: Naomi is author of The Godless Boys and is currently working on a novel on Ernest Hemingway’s four wives).

He gave a keynote at the recent European Association for American Studies Conference on ‘The Health of the Nation’ at Ege University in Izmir, Turkey.

1. c. Correspondence and Meetings

The Chair has had correspondence with the REF Area Studies Subpanel Chair, Professor Peter Gatrell, about encouraging more American Studies units to submit to the Area Studies subpanel in 2013, and asked Executive colleagues to pass this on to their Heads. He has also suggested two possible names from the American Studies to replace Heidi Macpherson on the Area Studies subpanel from the summer.

He has been in correspondence with Maxine Molyneux and Iwan Morgan about the developments at the University of London, as reported above.

He met Professor Ted Ownby at the University of Mississippi in March to discuss the new UM/BAAS GTA in Southern Studies. I am very pleased that Professor Ownby will be at the Manchester conference and will be able to confer the GTA award on Jodie Free (University of East Anglia) at the conference banquet.

He has had further discussion with the IAAS Chair, Philip McGowan about the possibility of Queens Belfast hosting (or co-hosting) the 2016 BAAS Conference. We do need to consider the proposal to have a reciprocal arrangement with IAAS, such that each year BAAS sponsors two postgraduates to attend and present at (i) the main IAAS conference (April) and (ii) the IAAS postgraduate conference (January), with a bursary for a BAAS PG student for each conference. The IAAS will sponsor an IAAS PG student to attend each of the two BAAS conferences.

He has corresponded with Richard Martin about the BAAS American Studies, 2000-2010 Project. John will report on this in his Development Subcommittee Report.

He has had recent discussions with American Studies colleagues in France and Algeria that might lead to future initiatives.

4. AOB

For discussion:

1. PD added some observations re. the ISA’s move to UCL. MH noted the importance of BAAS offering support to the new institute while also maintaining a good relationship with the former organisation. MH will write to new organization in due course to affirm support. MH, PD, and Simon Newman are all on the advisory group for ISA; their next board meeting is 17^th May. PD will report back.

1. We welcome the joint position statement released by the British Academy and the University Council of Modern Languages on 27 March 2012. Would it be useful to write to the British Academy specifically about year abroad on AS programmes?

1. At the last Executive meeting we agreed to add a dedicated Early Career Scholar to the BAAS Executive, and we are proposing the following text:

This is a 2-year term on the BAAS Executive for early career scholars with an institutional affiliation working on any aspect of American Studies. To be eligible candidates must be within three years of successfully completing their PhD. Former BAAS Postgraduate Representatives are eligible for election, but all candidates must have submitted the final post-viva version of their PhD two weeks before the BAAS AGM in order to stand. This Early Career Scholar position is a single non-renewal term; the individual would be eligible to stand for a full 3-year BAAS Executive position at the end of their second year.

The proposal was agreed and will be taken to the BAAS AGM for approval.

1. We propose to create a BAAS brochure to be launched at the 2013 conference, which will showcase a range of research projects across the BAAS community with emphasis on interdisciplinarity, impact case studies, and knowledge exchange.

SC suggested adopting a thematic approach focusing on some key case studies but also drawing on a number of other supplementary examples.

The Exec noted the importance of keeping the proposed booklet free of dates. The aim is to produce a detailed draft by June (using a BAAS intern) with finished copy by Jan 2013 and printed copies in time to launch at the BAAS Conference (18^th – 21^st April 2013) – provisionally at the customary BLARS slot (first Thurs pm) under the label “Impact, Public Engagement and Knowledge Transfer”. The Exec also agreed to produce an online / web version (via a tab or blog section on the website).

5.  Secretary’s Business (JG reporting)

• I have dealt with routine correspondence.
• I have produced a draft membership leaflet which can be tailored for particular audiences and reproduced in short print runs for particular events (conferences etc). This will now be professionally designed and made available via the Exec to appropriate events.
• I have worked with IFAB, SE, and Louis Cunningham (Keele) and in liaison with PD to administer the BAAS and related awards.
• I have also been continuing to work with Paul Williams, Sinead Moynihan and others at Exeter in organising BAAS 2013.
• I will attend the CCUE (Council for College and university English) Annual Conference in Oxford on 20/21^st April on BAAS’s behalf.

6.  Treasurer’s Business (TS reporting)

a. Membership:

Fully Paid up as at April 2012: 304 (102 postgraduate). With no change to SO from last year: 406 (123 postgrad). By comparison: Fully Paid up as at April 2011: 302 (104 postgraduate); with no change to SO from last year: 424 (130 postgrad).

Analysis: Those who not yet updated their standing orders need to be chased. An email has been sent specifically. But we should also note that membership needs careful monitoring, as standing orders get cancelled without reference to the database administrator and we run the risk of sending out Journals to cancelled members.

Gift Aid claim for £1651.90 has been paid.

c. Analysis:

TS noted the need to keep an eye on expenses – print, postage and travel/subsistence are all on the increase as costs of fuel etc have risen. She suggested several options: capping expenses; meeting less frequently (some sub coms may only need to meet a couple of times a year); consider online options (e.g. renewals – would save £400 – but emails (like addresses) are not always updated. This should be revisited consistently to maintain healthy finances.

1. 7. Development Subcommittee (JF reporting)

JF reported on Development Sub-com support for conferences organised by allied organisations. He noted the increase in expenditure on such “small grants” and mooted the need to keep this under review and control:

Further to agreement reached at a previous BAAS, two new bursaries have been awarded to PGs planning to attend EAAS (£200 each).

SCHOOLS LIAISON (GH reporting)

GH reported on the BAAS Schools Event held at Pocklington School in February focusing primarily on students on A2 Government and Politics. 120 students attended (at £13 per head) thus there was a small surplus. The event generated very positive feedback and GH now has interest from several other schools in hosting similar events. He will pursue these possibilities. In future, it would be best to advertise rather earlier (i.e. by the end of the school summer holidays). GH noted that schools are interested in attracting expert speakers; the list of appropriate speakers initiated by a former Exec member was mentioned. JG will seek this out with a view the Development Sub-com updating the list for display via the Schools tab on the website. PD mentioned the Eccles Centre’s own successful annual “Congress to Campus” events (provisionally w/c 26 Nov 2012 and w/c 4 March 2013).

• RICHARD MARTIN (INTERN) REPORT

RM will present a 10 minute summary of the findings of his American Studies 2000-2010 report to the BAAS AGM on 13^th April 2012. A draft of the report will be circulated to those who have contributed for checking prior to publication on line by the end of May. SC will check the draft to ensure that Sussex are properly represented.

1. 8. Postgraduate Business (ZF reporting)

Plans are going well for the BAAS PG Conference in Leicester on 24 November 2012. A PG lunch was planned for the following day at the present conference. Several PGs expressed an interest in standing for election for the post of BAAS PG Rep.

1. 9. Publications Subcommittee (GL reporting)

• BRRAM: There was nothing to report

• ASIB: The latest edition of ASIB had carried the first of the planned series of BAAS Fellows’ interviews, with Professor Helen Taylor. Two other BAAS Fellows have already confirmed their willingness to be interviewed for future editions.

• U.S. Studies Online: The new web address for USSO has been confirmed as usstudiesonline.com. Issue 20, the post-graduate conference issue, will help to launch that site when it goes live at the end of April. Three of the four journal articles for Issue 20 have been received and edited; the fourth is due on 20 April.

• JAS: It is hoped that the JAS report will have been received in time for the AGM. Martine Walsh at CUP has confirmed that two of the five board members whose terms expire at the end of this year, Marjorie Spruill and Richard Crockatt, have agreed to serve for another term. GL and the editorial team agreed to seek replacements for the three others with specialists in similar fields.

• Website: MJC reported on a problem with the “join” tab which is currently under review. TS suggested making all fields of the form “Mandatory” as this may overcome the glitch. MJC and TS have renewed the http://cc.webspaceworld.me/new-baas-site domain name.

MJC and JG reported on an approach from a recruitment agency to pay for advertising space on the site; we agreed to continue to post relevant jobs as a service to members, but instead of charging a fee to ask for voluntary donations where appropriate. JG to check with Charity Commission about what’s permissible.

• Mailbase: nothing to report.

10. Conference Subcommittee (TRS reporting)

TR-S was unavoidably delayed; items of note are covered in his Annual Report.

11. Awards Subcommittee (JG and SE reporting)

The Awards Sub-com has administered the usual BAAS, Eccles Centre, Ambassador’s and Arthur Miller Centre Awards and will be awarding certificates to those able to attend at the BAAS Conference Banquet. GTA Awards have been offered to Jodie Free (Mississippi) and Myles Oldershaw (Virginia). A double-sided list of all 2012-13 Awards, with closing dates, has been inserted in the conference packs.

. Libraries and Resources Committee (DE reporting)

DE reported on new additions to the sub-com, Susan Reid (Dundee) and Jane Rawson (RAI, Oxford), bringing the complement to 11 members excluding a BAAS representative. The BLARS 2012 conference panel is to be on Intellectual Property and in 2013 (provisionally) a joint panel on impact, public engagement and knowledge transfer. DE reported on ongoing discussions re the funding of the Resources in American Studies journal and on progress with the proposed consortium negotiations with Proquest (for Historical Newspapers) including the Universities of Birmingham, Nottingham, and Cambridge.

The role of American Studies Today and its relation to BAAS was raised. The Exec took the view that if there was a specific proposal to discuss, this might best be considered by the publications sub-com at their next meeting.

13. EAAS (PD reporting)

The EAAS meeting in Izmir was a success, and the Chair of BAAS delivered an excellent plenary lecture, sponsored by the Eccles Centre. Numbers were down on recent years, possibly reflecting the non-central location and tightening academic budgets, but the international turnout was still good and the quality of workshops was high. Conferees seemed pleased with the conference (and the pleasant weather, picturesque location and fine sea food of Izmir may all have helped).

The Rob Kroes prize winner was announced (Frank Mehring) and the ASN Book Prize winner (Brigitte Dawes). The EAAS Board confirmed Jenel Virden (Hull) as joint Senior Editor of the European Journal for American Studies and John Dumbrell (Durham) as an associate editor. The Association for American Studies in South East Europe was accepted as a new member of EAAS. Adina Ciugureana (Romania) was elected Treasurer, and Philip Davies (BAAS) elected President, both for four year terms. The next conference of EAAS will be held in The Hague from Friday 4th to Monday 7th April 2014. The call for workshop proposals will be made later this year.

13. UKCASA / Academy of Social Sciences

Nothing to report

15. Any Other Business

MH noted that John Fagg and Iwan Morgan would be leaving the Exec at the AGM and thanked them for their contribution during their terms of office. He also expressed his thanks to Phil Davies who would be leaving the post of BAAS rep to EAAS in order to take up the role of EAAS President. The Exec wished him well in his new post. On the Exec’s behalf, MH also thanked Theresa Saxon for her hard work as Treasurer.

16. Date of next meeting

The next meeting will be held at the University of Leicester on Fri 8^th June 2012; 10.30 am sub-coms with the Exec to follow. Thereafter, the September meeting will be held at the University of Oxford, RAI. Date TBC.

or jo.gill@baas.ac.uk / Office Phone: (01392) 264256.

British Association for American Studies

Minutes 269th

Minutes of the 269th Meeting of the Executive Committee, held at the University of Exeter on 21^st January 2012 at 1pm.

1. Present:        M Halliwell (Chair), I Bell (Vice Chair), J Gill (Secretary), T Saxon (Treasurer), S Currell, D Ellis, J Fagg, G Lewis, I Bell and T Ruys Smith, P Davies

Apologies:   M. Collins, Z Feghali, G Hughes, S Ellis, C Bernier

In attendance: J Gill

2.  Minutes of the Previous Meeting

These were accepted as a true record and will now go on the website.

3.  Matters Arising

None

(a) Action List Review

The Secretary asked the Exec to comment on the status of their Action List duties. All Action List duties will be addressed under the relevant section below.

4.  Chair’s Business (MH reporting)

(a) Announcements

Joy Porter (Swansea University / now at the University of Hull) has received an AHRC Research Fellowship for the project on ‘The American Indian Poet of the First World War: Modernism and the Indian Identity of Frank “Toronto” Prewett 1893-1962’ (£51,417) and a British Academy Mid-Career Fellow for the project ‘The American Presidency and Tribal Diplomacy in the 20th Century’ (£113,950).

Carol Smith (Director of American Studies at Winchester University) has been awarded a Senior Fellowship in Learning and Teaching.

(b) Invitations

MH attended an ESRC Festival of Social Sciences event at the British Academy on 3 November 2011: David Willetts and, Paul Boyle (the CEO of the ESRC) were the speakers.

MH attended a reception in Kensington for the new Cultural Attaché, Monique Quesada, on 9 November 2011, and had a follow-up meeting with Monique and Sue Wedlake at the US Embassy in London on 1 December.

MH attended the 2011 BAAS Postgraduate Conference at the University of Birmingham, 12 November, and spoke on the closing plenary panel.

MH attended the Institute for the Study of Americas Council Meeting on 17 November.

On 3 December 2011 MH spoke at the CCUE OGM on the subject of ‘English in the post-Browne World: Opportunities, Dangers, Strategies’

MH gave a keynote at the inaugural IAAS/BAAS Postgraduate and Early Career Conference on ‘Transgressive and Transgression’ at Trinity College Dublin, 13-14 January 2012.

MH was invited (but could not attend) the retirement event for Pete Messent (Nottingham) on 29 September, and sent Pete and Susan Castillo (King’s) retirement cards on behalf of BAAS.

(c) Correspondence and Meetings

MH attended a REF Consultation at the British Academy on 28 September 2011, along with Sue Currell (the Chairs of REF Panels C and D, Janet Finch and Bruce Brown, presented). This was significant as it flagged up two issues that the REF has publically revised: (i) the issue of maternity leave and (ii) allowing Panel C submissions to include a fourth/reserve item for individuals that have double-weighted outputs. (The finalised REF criteria will be published at the end of January 2012).

MH had a meeting with Brian Ward and Ian Scott about the 2012 Manchester Conference (October 2011).

MH has been working with Gareth Hughes and John Fagg on the inaugural BAAS Schools Conference to be held in Pocklington School, York on 6 February 2012 on the subject of Politics and International Relations. The speakers will include John Dumbrell (Durham), Scott Lucas (Birmingham) and Iwan Morgan (ISA). John, Sue Wedlake and MH will also attend. MH expressed his thanks to the speakers.

Philip McGowan (IAAS Chair) and MH had a meeting in Dublin (January 2012) to discuss current developments and possible future initiatives between BAAS and IAAS, including:

• A biennial postgraduate and early career conference, alternating between Ireland and the UK. The next event would be early 2014 in the UK. (This has already been agreed, but we may want to consider that this joint conference takes the place of the BAAS Postgraduate Conference in every even year). Discuss with new PG rep (at June meeting)
• Concessionary subscription rate to Journal of American Studies for IAAS members. (Agreed with the Editor of JAS in summer 2011).
• The possibility of Queen’s University Belfast hosting the 2016 BAAS Conference. This would link into other events commemorating the centenary of the Easter Uprising; it might be possible to have a linked event, with part of the conference in Dublin. Philip McGowan will discuss with colleagues at QUB and the Irish consulate and give me some feedback in April, with a view to making a bid this summer. (If this does not prove possible, then QUB may look to host the BAAS conference in 2017 or 2018).
• The proposal to have a reciprocal arrangement, such that each year BAAS sponsors two BAAS postgraduates to attend and present at (i) the main IAAS conference (April) and (ii) the IAAS postgraduate conference (January), with a bursary for a BAAS PG student for each conference; the IAAS will reciprocate by sponsoring an IAAS PG student to attend each of the two BAAS conferences. To be considered in more detail in April with regard to cost implications, and a more detailed evaluation of the rationale for the proposal; TS and PD suggested tying the bursary in with e.g. a report to the newsletter. TS and MH to discuss and then for the Exec to return to the issue at the April meeting.

(d) AOB

For discussion:

1. The proposal to add a dedicated Early Career Scholar to the BAAS Executive, possibly with the distinct role of maintaining the BAAS website. The pros and cons of adding this additional position to the current committee structure was debated at length, as was the possibility of attaching a web-maintenance responsibility to the role. The proposal to add an early-career post (up to 5 years post-PhD) was put to the vote (7 for; 2 against; 3 abstentions). MH and JG will agree the detail and formalise a draft proposal for the AGM.

1. The proposal to publish a BAAS brochure in 2013 – to be launched in April 2013 – presenting a range of research projects from across the BAAS community (PG, early career, senior scholars) with an emphasis on interdisciplinarity, impact case studies, and knowledge exchange. (For the ESRC equivalent see http://www.esrc.ac.uk/impacts-and-findings/features-casestudies/case-studies/index.aspx). MH thought it might be produced inexpensively perhaps by using a student intern; the readership would be wider members of the academic community, VCs, funders and stakeholders and would be a profile-raising tactic. NB suggested liaising with e.g. US and Canadian embassies and the British Academy in order to build a coalition to defend the public good of American Studies. NB further suggested meeting with Adam Roberts and Barbara Stevenson. MH and NB to discuss. MH suggested inviting Adam Roberts to a launch at Exeter. To be discussed at the BAAS Conference in April and again in due course. PD suggested Dr Stephen Benn (has an MA in American Studies and is the Director of Parliamentary Affairs for the Society of Biologists); possible meeting later in the year at the RAI.

5.  Secretary’s Business (JG reporting)

JG reported that she has arranged the printing and distribution of the BAAS Awards posters for 2012. She has also worked with IB and SE to select, interview and appoint candidates for the 2012 GTA posts.

She attended a “Public Engagement in the Arts and Humanities” Training Day (AHRC-organised) in London on 27^th Oct and circulated a report on the day to BAAS Exec.

JG dealt with routine correspondence, and sent a card on behalf of BAAS to MC on the occasion of his wedding, and sent a card and gift to former secretary, Catherine Morley, on the birth of her baby son.

She has liaised with Graeme Thompson and MC with regard to mailing list and website updates.

She is currently updating publicity materials for potential members for distribution at conferences and similar events.

6.  Treasurer’s Business (TS reporting)

(a) Membership

Fully paid-up as at Jan 2012: 229 (52 postgraduate); With no change to SO from last year: 300 (75 postgrad). By comparison: Fully paid-up as at Jan 2011: 296 (122 postgraduate); with no change to SO from last year: 424 (154 postgrad).

Analysis: 86 postgraduates were members in 2011, and have not yet renewed for 2012; 40 FPU were members in 2011 and have not yet renewed for 2012.

Jan is often a quiet month in terms of membership. Nevertheless, TS sees this as quite a significant drop in PG membership. JG will tailor a membership leaflet by end-Feb for distribution via departments / Universities across the country to their PG students – perhaps flagging up forthcoming Manchester and Leicester PG conferences. JG to check re. Victorian Studies Association figures for a comparison of renewals / PG membership etc.

Gift Aid claim for £1651.90 has been submitted.

(b) Conference income and expenditure: TS reported a surplus from last conference of £5000 which has gone back into BAAS coffers. Honorarium has been awarded to conference organisers.

(c) Payments: Two payments made to support students on EAAS bursaries – new award.

TS expressed a note of cautious optimism (despite slight drops in membership): Bank accounts looking healthier this year.

1. 7.     Development Subcommittee (JF reporting)

(a) Schools Liaison

Gareth Hughes’s Schools Conference (6^th Feb. see above) looks very promising. The Exec thanked GH for his hard work in preparing this. TR-S and  MH will discuss with GH the plans for a teachers’ event at the Manchester Conference.

(b) Postgraduates

The sub-com discussed and recommends University of Leicester’s proposal for the 2012 PG Conference (with a provisional date of 24 Nov 2012). The conference has an organizing team headed by Robert W. Jones II. Catherine Morley will be the named mentor.

(c) Richard Martin (Intern) report on American Studies 2000-2010 Project

Richard Martin reported on his continuing progress with his study and will present a 10-minute report at AGM before finalising report in June.

(d) Conference Applications

6 applications received for small grants for conference funding. The first five were recommended to the exec (all for £300): Kent; Birkbeck; British Group for Early American History; Birmingham; UEA. Some stipulations for some of these awards. TS raised the question about whether applicants had to be members of BAAS? It was recommended that in future this should be clearly expressed as a stipulation for applicants for awards.

1. 8.     Postgraduate Business (ZF reporting)
   

The Exec recorded its thanks to Zalfa for the work she has done esp. on IAAS. MH and ZF will prepare “how-to” sheet for next rep.

1. 9.     Publications Subcommittee (GL reporting) 
   

1. BRRAM

KM is in negotiation with the Ayrshire Archives, the University of Aberdeen Archives and the Cumbria Record Office over possible future BRRAM titles.

1. Edinburgh University Press (EUP)

Updates on BAAS Paperback series:

Nick Selby’s American Poetry since 1900 was signed up last summer and is due for publication in the spring of 2013.

1. Journal of American Studies (JAS)

Five JAS Board Members will be coming to the end of their terms this year: Richard Crockatt; Marjorie Spruill; Jane Dailey; David Seed; and Paul Giles. Discussions about extensions and potential replacements – and areas in which such replacements might best be made – have begun between GL, the JAS Editors, and CUP.

The JAS Board Meeting will be held on Monday 17th September, at 1pm.

SL reported favourable feedback on the recent 9/11 anniversary issue of JAS, and set out future publication plans. There is growing interest in, and use of, the electronic links that are provided on the JAS website, such as those linking Rob Kroes’ recent article with relevant web-based images. He and the editorial team were congratulated for the considerable achievement of clearing and processing all submissions that were received before the Scholar One system was implemented. Those efforts have made it possible to advise those submitting work to the journal of a 12 month lead time between acceptance and publication. It was envisaged that articles accepted up until the Autumn this year would be out in time for the next REF. Those articles on First View at the time of the REF census date will be eligible for REF submission

SL welcomed ideas from BAAS members for new marketing opportunities for the journal, for example by embedding links from relevant websites.

SL confirmed that the 2012 JAS Lecture will be delivered by Joyce Chaplin, and the 2013 Lecture by Anders Stephanson.

1. American Studies in Britain (ASIB)
   

KA confirmed that a 1,000-word obituary for Phil Melling (Swansea) has been received from Jon Roper (Swansea) and Pete Messent, and will run in the next issue of ASIB.

After a number of enquiries from potential advertisers wishing to insert flyers into ASIB, KA questioned whether BAAS ought to highlight the existence of such a service on the website.

The Exec agreed, but thought prices should not be published up front.

KA reported continued correspondence from frustrated former-BAAS members who were still receiving copies of ASIB, and equally frustrated BAAS members who were not yet receiving their copy. Treasurer clarified that membership lists are updated / purged on an annual basis in January, and thus there can be a lag. The editor of ASIB should bring any individual cases to the Treasurer’s attention.

KA is interviewing Helen Taylor for ASIB and will interview other Hon Fellows in due course.

(e) US Studies Online

CS reported that USSO’s involvement with the BAAS PG conference was successful, including a talk from her on the journal’s role and significance, and recommendations from panel chairs on the papers most suitable for inclusion in the conference issue (Issue 20).

Issue 19 of the journal has been delayed due to final submission of revised articles. A general CFP for Issue 21 has been submitted to the BAAS mailbase, H-Net, and UPenn CFP. The Subcommittee supported CS’s idea for a Special Issue, “(Re)Defining America(n).” The Exec also welcomed this move, but cautioned against tying the idea too closely to the election which might date the material unnecessarily quickly.

CS presented the Subcom with a formal proposal for USSO to move to a new server. This would allow for the change of URL from http://baas.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=110%3Aus-studies-online-the-baas-postgraduate-journal&catid=15&Itemid=11 to usstudiesonline.com. The Subcom commended CS on the detail of her proposal, and agreed to present it to the Exec, alongside fiscal implications. Exec unanimously agreed.

(f) Website

MJC has continued to put up CFPs, notices etc as they have been received over the last three months.

There were no responses to the call for a web assistant trained in Joomla! Another call will be sent out shortly. SL suggested MJC contact John Horne, currently Editorial Assistant at JAS.

(g)   BAAS Mailbase

Nothing to report.

10.  Conference Subcommittee (TRS reporting)

(a) The provisional programme for Manchester 2012 is almost ready for distribution. Since Ian Scott was not able to attend the meeting, TRS will send Ian feedback arising from discussion.

(b) Online booking for Manchester is open, though TRS will follow-up with Ian Scott about early booking deadlines and PG / Retired discounts.

(c) The Conference Subcommittee toured the Exeter campus, reviewing facilities for Exeter 2013, all of which seem entirely fit for purpose. Preparations for Exeter 2013 are ahead of schedule.

(d) The subcommittee reviewed draft promotional material for Exeter 2013, which will be ready in time to distribute in conference packs at Manchester 2012.

(e) Exec confirmed that the organiser of the Birmingham BAAS will start coming to conference sub com in June.

11.  Awards Subcommittee (IB reporting)

(a) GTA Studentships: IFAB reported on the interviews for the MA GTA studentships – Myles Oldershaw (Virginia) and Jodie Free (Mississippi) have been offered the studentships for 2012-14. Ted Ownby, the Director of the Southern Studies Centre at the University of Mississippi, is intending to come over for the Manchester Conference to present our first Mississippi GTA award. The Treasurer agreed to cover cost of train fare and banquet for GTA recipients to attend Awards Ceremony. MH will write to contacts in Mississippi and Virginia; IFAB will write to Jodie Free and Myles Oldershaw.

(b) In future, IFAB suggested combining closing dates for Monticello and GTAs.

(c) Book Award: GL will write to shortlisted authors this time to remind them that they need to be members of BAAS to be eligible. GL will also contact Stephen Tuck who is now in the USA re arrangements for sending shortlisted books to him.

(d) Short Term Travel Awards: 23 applications + 7 without references. IFAB has sent material out all to reviewers. In future we will make clear on paperwork that incomplete applications will not be accepted. This year, if any of those without references are successful, we will offer them subject to references.

(e) Founders’ Awards: down a little (8 received).

(f) Awards Ceremony (Manchester Conference): IFAB will organise certificates, trophies etc.

12. Libraries and Resources Committee (DE reporting)

DE reported on two retirements, and two resignations (JG and TS). Replacements are Bella Adams, and possibly Michael Collins. Two replacements for Kevin Halliwell and Donald Tait.

Update on American Embassy grants (which are no longer being given for journal publications) although they may cover some of the costs of publishing online. DE confirmed that Matthew Shaw has been in discussions with KA.

Directory of Librarians with an interest in American Studies has been set up. Thanks to Jayne Kelly (Cambridge) for setting this up; the list is used as a mail base.

DE reported on on-going discussions re consortium bids. Possible pilot via ProQuest re historic newspapers. DE has been working with JF on pursuing this on a trial basis.

Manchester Conference; James Griffin (Dept of Law; University of Exeter) confirmed speaker to talk about intellectual copyright / property. DE is pursuing a second speaker.

13. EAAS (PD reporting)

Turkey conference website is now live. PD updated us on his plans for possibly standing again as EAAS President and issues re. dates of elections and legal procedures re changing EAAS standing orders. Nevertheless, 100% support for a change in the articles to shift the terms of office. MH will speak at the conference; TS and SC will also attend. PD’s initial term of office will finish at the March conference and so he will be eligible to stand for re-election for 4 years. TS confirmed that EAAS pay the expenses of their President and not the “host” association i.e. if PD were to be re-elected, it wouldn’t be at BAAS’s cost.

14.  UKCASA / Academy of Social Sciences (IM reporting)

Iwan has attended a meeting and reported that UKCASA are trying to build international links.

Sue Currell confirmed usefulness of meeting described earlier by Martin. Next meeting is on Tues 24^th Jan. IFAB asked re clarification of issues on double-weighting; issues are still under discussion and formal criteria will be issued by end of Jan.

15. Any Other Business

MH suggested fund-raising initiatives e.g. in terms of setting up bequests etc, and in terms of tackling previous alumni, previous recipients of awards. NB suggested setting up a clear focus for any future discussion of this issue.

AHRC Block Grant reductions; Exec agreed to write to support campaigns against AHRC PGR funding reductions.

16. Date of next meeting

The next meeting of the Executive Committee of the British Association for American Studies will be held at the University of Manchester on Thurs 12^th April at 10 am. The AGM of the Association will be held at the University of Manchester on Friday 13^th April at 4 pm.

or jo.gill@baas.ac.uk / Office Phone: (01392) 264256

Announcements

Professor Zoe Trodd has been appointed as Chair of American Literature in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham

Dr Helen Laville has been internally appointed as Head of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Birmingham.

Dr Simon Topping has been internally appointed as Head of History at the University of Plymouth.

Dr James Campbell has been internally appointed as Acting Director of American Studies at the University of Leicester for one year.

Professor Susan Castillo has retired from her Chair in American Studies at King’s College London (she will continue to supervise PhD students).

Professor Pete Messent will retire from his Chair in American Literature at the University of Nottingham at the end of September.

Dr James Russell (De Montfort University) has been awarded £98,000 by the Leverhulme Trust for his two-year project ‘Hollywood and the Baby Boom, A Social History’.

Professor Nick Selby (UEA) has been elected to the Committee on Programs and Centers for the American Studies Association

1. Prizes

Natalie Zacek (University of Manchester) won the 2011 Gladstone History Book Prize from the Royal Historical Society for her monograph Settler Society in the English Leeward Islands, c.1670-1776 (Cambridge University Press, 2010)

Jarod Roll (University of Sussex) won the Working Class Studies Association’s 2011 C.L.R. James Award and the Herbert G. Gutman Prize from the Labor and Working-Class History Association for his monograph Spirit of Rebellion: Labor and Religion in the New Cotton South (University of Illinois Press, 2010)

Stephen Tuck of Pembroke College, Oxford has won this year’s American Politics Group Richard E Neustadt Book Prize for We Ain’t What We Ought To Be: The Black Freedom Struggle from Emancipation to Obama (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). A presentation will be made at the APG/BAAS colloquium in November.

1. Invitations

MH was invited to speak on a panel on ‘The Public Value of the Humanities’ at the AHRC’s Subject Associations Event in London on 24 June.

MH has been invited by CCUE to join an invited panel of speakers on the subject of ‘English in the post-Browne World: Opportunities, Dangers, Strategies’ at their OGM on 3 December.

Philip McGowan (IAAS Chair) and MH have been invited to give the keynotes at the inaugural joint BAAS/IAAS postgraduate conference at Trinity College, Dublin, 14-15 January 2012.

MH has been invited to give a keynote lecture at the European Association for American Studies Conference on ‘The Health of the Nation’ in Izmir, Turkey, 30 March – 2 April 2012.

1. Correspondence and Meetings

The Chair circulated the REF consultation documents to heads/representatives of American Studies and have elicited some responses.

He has been in correspondence with the University of Mississippi to finalise the new GTA in Southern Studies – details are now available on the web. George Lewis and MH met with the Director of Southern Studies at Mississippi, Professor Ted Ownby, when he visited the UK in July. Professor Ownby will try to attend the Manchester conference

Gareth Hughes and MH met with Sue Wedlake from the US Embassy on 9 August to discuss various initiatives. I have since been in touch with the Embassy about sponsoring four speakers for the Sixth Form event on American Politics which Gareth is arranging (through the Development Subcommittee) for the end of January/beginning of February.

The Chair will be attending a BA meeting on the REF on 28 September and an AHRC meeting on the Block Grant Partnership (BGP2) on 10 October.

MH has corresponded about the Manchester conference, the Journal of American Studies, and the Government White Paper.

1. Other Business

• REF CONSULTATION

MH raised seven key issues in the REF to which BAAS may wish to respond:

1. Maternity Leave: BAAS’s proposed response re. dispensation for periods of maternity leave (i.e. that each period of discrete maternity leave should be taken into account even if, as is common, such leave is for fewer than the 14 months currently being proposed as the trigger for one less output) was approved. The question was also raised about the accessibility of distant research archives to scholars with childcare responsibilities.
2. Double Weighting: The importance of consistency across panels with respect to double-weighting was noted.
3. Co-authorship: There were concerns about the lack of clarity in the consultation document with respect to co-authored outputs i.e. clarity is required about how weightings will be ascribed.
4. Boundary Statements and Cross-Referral: Concerns were expressed about (i) the articulation of the interdisciplinary range in American Studies, and, (ii) procedures for cross-referral.
5. Impact: Two points about the limitations of the proposed “residency” requirement (a particular issue for disciplines where mobility is common) and about the importance of assessing impact as part of the wider HEI environment, were discussed and agreed.
6. Assessment Criteria: Concerns were raised about the imprecision of some of the grade boundaries. BAAS would like to see more specific guidance and better communication about the nature of these grade distinctions. This is particularly an issue with interdisciplinary study where straightforward distinctions may not properly recognise the nature of the research.

vii.  Multiple Submissions: Concerns were expressed about the procedure for multiple submissions which in the case of some area studies departments at some institutions, may be an issue.

JG / MH to respond to the Consultation.

Possibility of hosting a REF or Impact discussion at the BAAS 2012 conference in Manchester was again raised. MH /JG to discuss and pursue.

MH raised potential of cross-funding/cross-organising conferences in future along the lines of the forthcoming Irish Association for American Studies PG Conference (Dublin / January 2012)

JG to check whether there is a revised BAAS membership leaflet for supply to conferences that we are funding.

• WHITE PAPER

BAAS, along with other interested parties, has the opportunity to respond to the Government’s White Paper (“Higher Education: Students at the Heart of the System”). BAAS’s concerns centre around several key areas including (i) the lack of consideration in the document of the benefits – and the financial cost to students – of degree programmes with an international / exchange element, such as American Studies; (ii) the effect on recruitment to interdisciplinary programmes such as American Studies of the AAB proposals (i.e. institutions wishing to charge £9000 p/a in fees will be released from quotas for students earning AAB or equivalent at A-level, (iii) the implications of the proposed changes on PG study. JG and MH will draft and submit a response to the White Paper Consultation, based on the above.

GH and PD suggested that we might seek a meeting with the British American Parliamentary Group and / or the Select Committee on Education and / or the Minister of State with responsibility for transatlantic affairs. MH to pursue contacts with Adam Roberts.

JG and MH to check timetable for further consultation / amendment after the initial consultation period.

DJE noted the different challenges facing Area Studies (language based) and Anglophone area studies in terms of funding, and making a case for sustainable investment.

5.  Secretary’s Business (JG reporting)

JG reported that she attended the Fulbright Scholars’ Reception in London in June. She has circulated and responded to drafts of the White Paper and the Alternative White Paper. She has responded to requests for information e.g. with respect to potential External Examiners, members and applicants for Awards.  She has liaised with Graeme Thomson (Listserv); Michael Collins (Web) and Kaleem Ashraf (ASIB).

6. Treasurer’s Business (TS reporting) 

1. (a) Membership

TS has removed from the membership list the names of people who had cancelled Standing Orders but had not otherwise advised us that they had left the Association. She further reported that there is a Paypal option for people who have not updated their standing orders. A discussion ensued of other ways of contacting these people i.e. would it be feasible to do this when people register for the next conference? It was agreed that a more effective way might be to contact people by a circular addressed to those who have not yet updated their Standing Order. TS will proceed in this way.

1. (b) Accounts

TS reported that accounts have been submitted and charities commission data nearly complete.

The Gift Aid claim is going in for the year, now CC stuff registered

1. (c) Awards

Embassy Awards for 2012 Conference and postgraduate subsidies have been approved.

Eccles awards audit tracker has been updated for the years up to 2010: 2011 (current year) underway. TS is working in liaison with PD, IFAB, Louise Cunningham, JG to ensure that missing information is obtained and recorded 

1. 7. Development Subcommittee (JF reporting)

(a) Matters arising from previous minutes:

• The Subject Centre for Language Linguistics and Area Studies has a continuing remit and budget in place. BAAS will continue to liaise, support and publicise. JG to write to John Canning (Southampton) to reaffirm our support.

• There have been 5 applications for small grants for conferences:

1. Simon Middleton (University of Sheffield) “Markets, Law, and Ethics, 1400-1800” 23-26 June 2012. £240 for PG bursaries (with proviso that the bursaries are named as American Studies bursaries and go to scholars in early American Studies)
2. Simon Newman (University of Glasgow) “Scottish Association for American Studies” 16-17 March 2012. £300 to facilitate Postgraduate access to the conference.
3. Philip Davies (Eccles Centre for American Studies, The British Library) “Congress to Campus UK” Nov 2011. £300 contribution to costs of for UK-based speakers.
4. Philip Davies (Eccles Centre for American Studies, The British Library) “BAAS/APG Colloquium” Nov 2011. £300 to maintain low base rate charge to make accessible for students.
5. Zalfa Fergali (University of Nottingham) Louise Walsh (Clinton Institute) Kate Kirwan (University College Cork) “Transgressive and Transgression”: IAAS and BAAS Postgraduate and Early Career Scholar Conference.” Up to £600 (to match IAAS €800 contribution) to support running costs, low registration fee and travel bursaries for what is planned as first of a series of biennial IAAS-BAAS events.

These were all recommended to the Exec and approved for funding.

The sub-com had discussed the processes / principles for funding. It was agreed that there was need for clarification on what might be funded, without being too prescriptive, and to establish a clear timetable of deadlines for funding application and allocation.

1. (b) Schools Liaison

GH was thanked for his work in setting up a schools’ conference in February 2011 to include various expert speakers and a session on exam techniques. There is the possibility of American Embassy funding to cover the cost of the speakers. It is hoped that a Northern hub for BAAS Schools’ Activity may emerge from this event. GH is liaising with Andy Mink, Director of Outreach and Education for the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.

(c)  Postgraduates

The subcommittee discussed the idea raised at the June meeting of offering a BAAS bursaries (£200 per person allocating maximum of £500 on a bi-annual basis) to UK PG students who have papers accepted for EAAS panels to support travel/accommodation costs. The exec agreed this recommendation

(d) Richard Martin (Intern) Report

RM has been looking at BAAS and Fulbright Archives and has interviewed various people, and is now looking at admissions data, REF issues etc. He will oversee a round-table at the 2011 BAAS PG (12 Nov / Nottingham) conference. UEA are to host a special research seminar on the project. RM asked for suggestions of who he should talk to / useful resources. Exec to respond to RM. MH advised that project will be written up by and presented at the April AGM.

1. 8. Postgraduate Business (ZF reporting)

1. PG Conference 12^th November in Nottingham. Provisional programme tabled. Keynote is Liam Kennedy.

(b)  Joint Conference with IAAS Jan 15/16th (Trinity College, Dublin). ZF asking for £600; matched by

euro 800 from IAAS. Conference runs every 2 years.

1. MH raised the importance of ensuring that there is a clear job spec for the PG Exec role; the

question of early career representation on the BAAS Exec was again raised. JG will check Standing Orders to see what options there are for ensuring such coverage. The matter will be considered again at January Exec.

1. JG suggested that Exec members should alert their own newly registered MA / PhD students to BAAS membership, conferences and events.

1. 9. Publications Subcommittee (GL reporting)

(a)  BRRAM

KM will be meeting David Sarsfield at MAP next week, to discuss new titles for the series.

(b) JAS

• CMB reported on the journal editors’ move to a Nottingham base and on the successful implementation of the Scholar One system; the editors have a new editorial assistant (John Horne); the journal has now increased in size by an extra 48 pp per issue and has healthy subscription figures; Twitter is being used as a way of promoting the Journal.
• All scholarly articles are now screened by one of the editors and, if appropriate, forwarded to two independent readers. The typical length of articles has increased from 6000 to 7000 words and reviews from 500 – 750 words. 35% of submissions are from women; 40% of acceptances are by women. The Journal aims to include a mixture of articles, reviews and roundtables in print and on-line versions and aims in particular to foster interdisciplinarity.
• There will be 1 x special issue per year. The 9/11 issue is coming soon as are special issues on “The Arts of the Diasporas,” and “Oil.” A Harvard round-table on “The Politics and Poetics of Photography” (2012) will be the subject of a future issue.
• There are 5 Board Members who are due for replacement: Judie Newman; Janet Beer; Shelley Fisher Fishkin; Simon Newman, and Carol Smith. GL will seek suggestions for replacements.
• MH mentioned the JAS leaflet for use at conferences; this will also be made available via the BAAS website.

(c) ASIB

• KA has had contact from Julia Monk, Marketing Manager at Combined Academic Publishers, who wishes to place an A3 flyer in the next issue ASIB (ASIB 105; Sept.) The Treasurer and Chair of Publications settled on a flat fee of £250 for the service, which should defray the increase in postage costs. The flyers are to be delivered by the end of w/c 12 Sep.

• BAAS Fellow interview with Helen Taylor. HT is away from her desk until 12 Sep, so KA hopes to arrange the interview to coincide with the Exeter BAAS Exec meeting on 21st January. It is therefore now planned that the interview will, then, appear in the Spring issue.

• Bom Pomfret (ASIB typesetter) will deliver the next edition (9/11 Special Issue) in the first week of October.

• The sub-committee discussed problems arising from the current BAAS website joining form, which at present causes editorial difficulties for KA. This will be tweaked accordingly.

(d) US Studies Online

• The Spring/Summer 2011 issue has been published on the BAAS website. 

• A high percentage of those previously indicating an interest in submitting to USSO failed to do so by the deadline. The deadline for submission to the Autumn/Winter issue has therefore been extended. The sub-committee also welcomed CS’s suggestion that postgraduates could be encouraged to submit “state of the field” essays.
• CS has been in contact with the BAAS Postgraduate Conference organisers and will be giving a short talk about USSO at the conference, as well as explaining our presence and intent to publish selected papers. CS will also contribute a short blog post to the conference website.

• The sub-committee discussed CS and MJC’s idea of establishing a separate website for USSO, to be managed by the editor. It was thought that this would have a number of benefits: it would increase the journal’s visibility; shorten its current url address; and open up the possibility for a wider range of content. The sub-committee agreed this change in principle, and GL would put it to the full Exec.

(e) Web site

• MJC had now converted the Manchester Conference poster into an electronic

button suitable for the website. In future, all conference organisers would be asked to design a web button image (square or rectangular; 140-155 pixels) as well as posters.

• A link to the INTUTE website was still up on the website. GL to check with RE whether this was still required, given the cessation in INTUTE funding and subsequent lack of activity on the website.
• The “Schools” tab is now available on the website.
• There was considerable discussion of the role played by Clear & Creative. MJC reported a lack of clarity in both what C&C were supposed to provide, and what the costs would be. Discussions over costs centred around the subjective term of “maintenance” and what both parties inferred from it. Currently, C&C are charging for any work which requires detailed knowledge of JOOMLA! coding, which is beyond the current capabilities of MJC. KA reported that a number of current post-grads may have that capability with JOOMLA!. If that is the case, it would offer a useful short- to medium-term solution. If that is not found to be the case, the sub-committee agreed with MJC’s recommendation that BAAS should settle upon an approved annual communications budget.

Action: a request to be made via the BAAS mailbase for JOOMLA! expertise. MJC/GT

to liaise.

(f) AOB

• In light of the recent libel issues surrounding the on-line publication of a conference paper from BISA, the sub-committee agreed that, in future, all editions of USSO and ASIB would be screened for potential libel by the Chair of the Publications Sub-committee.
• 10. Conference Subcommittee (TRS reporting)

1. TRS mentioned that posters have been circulated and are on the website.
2. Costs for Manchester are under discussion prior to the publication of the booking form.
3. Plans are well advanced for Exeter in 2013. The poster and CFP etc will be ready in draft for Jan Exec and then published in April for Manchester. JG / Sinead Moynihan / Paul Williams to deal.

11. Awards Subcommittee (SE reporting)

1. GTA Award (a new post) at the University of Mississippi – The ad. is up on website
2. GTA Award (revived) at the University of Virginia – This post has now been agreed and can be advertised. SE will ensure that both are on the listserv and website.
3. JG and SE will set deadlines for the rest of the Awards and will communicate to Kaleem Ashraf for publication in ASIB and with MJC and Graeme Thomson for publication on the website, and listserv.
4. Posters advertising the awards need to be redesigned / updated via Clear & Creative. These will then need to be sent out to Exec and Departments etc via Louise in October. JG and SE to check copy, dates and proceed.
5. It was confirmed that it is permissible for the Exec to apply for Eccles Awards.
6. It is hoped that the GTA interviews will take place mid-January (provisionally Fri 14^th / Sat 15^th) with Keele, Leicester or Birmingham mooted as fairly central places at which to hold the interviews. SE to pursue.

12. Libraries and Resources Committee (DE reporting)

1. EBSCO have invited BLARS to join their database.
2. DJE raised the question of BLARS membership. JG (already a member prior to assuming role of BAAS Sec) will go to Feb meeting as ordinary and BAAS Exec member; the EXEC role from thereon will be discussed in April (possibly part of someone’s portfolio).
3. A list of American Studies Librarians is on the website.

13. EAAS (PD reporting)

1. Next EAAS conference is in Ismir, Turkey (30 March – 2 April 2012). MH will be a keynote. CFP has been circulated; 1st Oct closing date so will be circulated again before then (and via BAAS website)
2. The European Journal of American Studies has new Editors / Associated Editors including Jenel Virden and John Dumbrell.
3. A selection of 18 papers from the 2008 Oslo EAAS conference has been published as E pluribus unum or E pluribus plura?, edited by Hans-Jurgen Grabbe, David Mauk & Ole Moen. The volume of the 2010 conference is currently in press.

13. UKCASA / Academy of Social Sciences (IM reporting)

• The Campaign for the Social Sciences is gearing up and is hopeful that the government will appoint a Chief Social Scientist.
• Internationalizing the Academy – a major report on this is expected in December
• Learned Society nominations to AcSS – there was a plea for streamlined recommendations based on 5 bullet points as to why someone should be awarded AcSS membership. A model endorsement will soon be put up on the AcSS website.

15. Any Other Business

Iwan Morgan reported on Academy of Social Sciences and mentioned meeting with new head of ESRC who expressed an interest in funding projects from all areas of the world. There is a possibility of penalties for submission of inadequate applications (such as restricting the number of applications from a HEI in future rounds)

16. Date of next meeting

The next meeting of the Executive Committee of the British Association for American Studies will be held at the University of Exeter on Sat 21^st January 2012. Subcommittees will commence at 11 am and the Exec at 1.30pm [please note the slightly later times to allow for travel to Exeter].

JG reminded the Exec to book travel in advance. Please note that this is a change to the original date in order to allow Exec members to attend the BAAS / Irish American Studies Association joint PG conference in Dublin on 14^th Jan.

or jo.gill@baas.ac.uk / Office Phone: (01392) 264256

US STUDIES ONLINE

PROSE-RHYTHM AND THE AESTHETIC CLAIM: A NEW READING OF ELIZABETH BISHOP’S ‘SANTARÉM’

VIDYAN RAVINTHIRAN

© Vidyan Ravinthiran. All Rights Reserved.

During Elizabeth Bishop’s first stay in Paris, she took part in a bizarre argument about aesthetics described by her friend Harriet Thomas:

For her beauty really was one of the eternal verities, the most important thing in life. […] John was taking the part of the advocatus diaboli, arguing that beauty was in the eye of the beholder and that one’s ideas of value conditioned what one thought and how one defined beauty. […] Bishop got very upset […] and went into the kitchen. I found her there ten minutes later drinking a large glass of gin and weeping profusely. She said, “Well, you know, people shouldn’t discuss things like that”.[1]

The specifically gendered nature of the confrontation is striking: appalled by her interlocutor’s masculine gamesmanship, Bishop retreats like a good housewife into the kitchen, and self-pityingly subverts her insistence as to the reality of disinterested aesthetic pleasure by taking more mundane solace in a ‘large glass of gin’. Religious beliefs are often presumed to be exempt from rational discussion—perhaps because the grounds for such beliefs cannot always be verbally articulated. Bishop, a sceptic, transfers that sacred hush to the domain of aesthetics.

She is touching here on the experience alluded to by the ordinary-language philosopher Stanley Cavell, when he remarks:

the feature of the aesthetic claim, as suggested by Kant’s description, as a kind of compulsion to share a pleasure, hence as tinged with an anxiety that the claim stands to be rebuked. It is a condition of, or threat to, that relation to things called aesthetic, that something I know and cannot make intelligible stands to be lost to me.[2]

Bishop’s work affords plentiful instances of ‘the aesthetic claim’—when she tells us, for example, that the rise of fireflies is ‘exactly’ like that of bubbles in champagne, she is pointing something out joyously, trying to share it with us. When Bishop writes in this way to Marianne Moore in her letters, the essentially social nature of such similes becomes more obvious; she observes more specifically what Cavell calls the ‘compulsion to share’ when she writes to Moore in July 1941 of her poetic descriptions that ‘I get so overexcited and then angry because there is no one to show them to’.[3] But what if the interlocutor finds nothing noteworthy in such supposed beauties?

If Bishop was concerned with that anxiety Cavell describes as haunting Kant’s aesthetic judgement, then there is one poem in particular, ‘Santarém’, in which I would argue the problem is explicitly dramatised; not just by what Brett Millier has called the ‘central confrontation’ of the poem,[4] which echoes Bishop’s argument in Paris, but also, I hope to show, by the very texture of the writing itself. We may remark of this late poem, first published in The New Yorker on February 20, 1978, that its defiantly prosaic style cannot be separated from the philosophical problem with which it is concerned. By writing this late poem in what is essentially prose-rhythm,[5] Bishop is, in a sense, returning to the scene of conflict she deserted rapidly that day in Paris; she is inviting the kind of attack made, for example, by the poet-critic Mary Kinzie, who brutally differentiates Bishop’s good prosy poems from her supposedly bad ones:

the proselike liberation of a “freed verse” like Bishop’s encourages a precarious honesty in the thought. At the same time, slackness shows. It is easy to distinguish her standard poems from her good poems, for the mediocre ones are always just prose, yet with that false, poetical “aura” provided by line breaks. (I would place “The Man-Moth” here, despite its moist, waiflike fancy, also “Arrival at Santos”, “Manuelzinho”, and a poem collected in the 1983 volume for the first time, “Santarém”.)[6]

Kinzie makes recourse here to something like Wittgenstein’s distinction between what can be said and what must be shown.[7] We should note how important it is to her argument not just that Bishop’s two kinds of ‘proselike’ poems can be distinguished, but that it is in fact ‘easy to distinguish’ them, since this is a difference that ‘shows’, that does not need to be argued and in fact, as Cavell suggests, could never be discursively argued.

What makes ‘Santarém’ particularly interesting is that, of the four poems selected, this is one where Kinzie’s ‘just prose’ judgement has been echoed by more sympathetic criticism. For while Kim Fortuny, for instance, also refers to ‘Arrival at Santos’ as ‘prosaic’,[8] she is more conclusive about the style of ‘Santarém’, which she describes in terms of Bishop’s ‘relaxation of poetic form into almost pure and casual prose, perhaps the most proselike of all her poems’.[9] It therefore seems relevant to explore the particularly ‘proselike’ quality of this poem, as identified by both sympathetic and hostile criticism as being inseparable from the question of its overall aesthetic value. What makes this poem proselike, and why is it so? ‘Santarém’ begins in uncertainty:

Of course I may be remembering it all wrong

after, after—how many years?[10]

This casual disclaimer positions the poem to follow as an oral account of what the poet saw, and experienced—with all the potential for unreliability, exaggeration, and after-the-fact formalisation that such an account entails. If this is ‘prose’, then prose, for the moment, means speech, life raw and unedited; yet the speaker here is clearly speaking to somebody, and so the encounter which Cavell describes is already taking place.[11] The poet is saying: do not judge me, or what I am about to tell you, too harshly; there may be something here, as in that tearful confrontation in Paris, which simply cannot be discussed, but I am going to do my best to render it in language as carefully as I can.

The situation may be clarified by a passage from Susan Sontag’s essay on ‘The Aesthetics of Silence’, regarding Beckett:

Beckett speaks of “my dream of an art unresentful of its insuperable indigence and too proud for the farce of giving and receiving”. But there is no abolishing a minimal transaction, a minimal exchange of gifts—just as there is no talented and rigorous asceticism that, whatever its intention, doesn’t produce a gain (rather than a loss) in the capacity for pleasure.[12]

‘Santarém’ will end with a kind of aesthetic ‘transaction’ in Cavell’s terms, where the speaker shows the wasp’s nest she admires to ‘Mr. Swan’, who merely finds it ugly. Such an argument as to aesthetic worth is, however, already relevant at the beginning of the poem. If, as I have argued, the speaker’s disclaimer—‘I may be remembering it all wrong’—is not just an admission of memory’s inevitable editorialising, but also an excuse made pre-emptively on behalf of a to-be-recounted experience that may not be all that interesting, then the proselike style of the poem may be said to explore Beckett’s dream of a zero style which would eliminate the social/aesthetic transaction entirely, and merely place the facts on the table as they are. That no such pure transmission is possible—that there is always, in Sontag’s phrase, ‘a minimal transaction’—is, however, registered by the nuanced rhythmical development of that expressive medium Kinzie rejects as ‘just prose’. That is to say, the aesthetic transaction, apparently negated, is in fact then re-established gently as we read by our recognition that the ‘asceticism’ of Bishop’s style may actually—for certain readers—‘produce a gain (rather than a loss) in the capacity for pleasure’.

The intersubjective nature of the poem—it is very much a speech-act—bleeds through into the discussion of a mongrel, hybrid culture which is ostensibly its subject:

That golden evening I really wanted to go no farther;

more than anything else I wanted to stay awhile

in that conflux of two grand rivers, Tapajos, Amazon,

grandly, silently flowing, flowing east.

Suddenly there’d been houses, people, and lots of mongrel

riverboats skittering back and forth

under a sky of gorgeous, under-lit clouds,

with everything gilded, burnished along one side,

and everything bright, cheerful, casual – or so it looked.[13]

As the poem inaugurates itself as a transaction between poet and reader, speaker and listener, its first impulse is not, in fact, to carefully describe the experience in question, but to immediately symbolise its potential meeting of minds as an ideal state of harmonious ‘conflux’. The first two lines of the verse-paragraph have a certain thrown-out intensity which could be called poetic, but the next two about the rivers, with their casual punctuation and paused repetitions, bring that lyric impetus to a prosaic halt. It is at this point that we encounter the only line-break which does not fit seamlessly into the prose syntax: the break on ‘mongrel’, which, rare for Bishop, draws attention to itself. Cross-breeding will turn up in the poem more explicitly later on, and the highlighted word ‘mongrel’ prefigures that, but it is also worth remembering that language itself can be described as ‘mongrel’, and the word may function here as a descriptor for the hybrid, proselike style of the poem itself. That Bishop unusually chooses at this point to show her hand, with the kind of dramatic line-break one would tend to associate with a different kind of poet, may be related to the ongoing intersubjective drama of the poem. If this is a poem about (aesthetic) value judgement, and the experience not just of difference but of loss which may result from an authentic encounter with the other, then this line-break in particular represents a deliberate transgression, as the poet teases and provokes the kind of reader represented by Kinzie.

In assessing Kinzie’s description of ‘Santarém’ as ‘just prose’, we therefore have to look closely—as she does not—at its structural features, paying particular attention to the constitutive distinction between poetry and prose: the line-break. The line-breaks of ‘Santarém’ have, I would argue, been redesigned so as to be virtually unidentifiable with regard to their traditional lyric function as the assertion of an ideally suspensive and transcendent intelligence.[14] As Clive Scott puts it, the traditional line-break represents, ‘amongst other things, an integrative pause where the line possesses its pre-ordainedness, stabilizes itself, hypostatizes itself’.[15] As such, it may be linked with what Sontag describes as ‘the self-conscious artist’s traditional serious use of silence … as a zone of meditation, preparation for spiritual ripening, an ordeal that ends in gaining the right to speak’.[16] The traditional lyric poem could be said to inscribe this silence within its texture at the end of every line, so as to dispel the kind of objection ‘Santarém’ is visibly opening itself to, which Mary Kinzie has emphatically summarised with the dismissive phrase ‘just prose’. The lyric voice, pausing and yet not pausing at the end of every line, seems to re-gather its force, to consider its options with an ideal lucidity; certain lines of Wordsworth’s blank verse, for example, visibly seek to exist not only as the product of a continuous intelligence but also as isolable, stand-alone phenomena in and of themselves, proved upon the iambic pulse. Enjambment in this case does work to suspend sense, to produce ambiguity, but a student of contemporary poetics might argue that the tendency of such verse is inevitably toward the creation and maintenance of ‘safe ambiguity’, a domestication of radical uncertainty.

William Empson may have made this case best, in his intelligent dismantling of Wordsworth’s habit of repeatedly breaking his line after the word ‘sense’:

             my brain

Worked with a dim and undetermined sense

Of unknown modes of being. (Prelude i.392)

There is a suggestion here from the pause at the end of the line that he had not merely “a feeling of” those unknown modes but something like a new “sense” which was partly able to apprehend them—a new kind of sensing had appeared in his mind.[17]

Although Empson remarks the stressed pause at the end of Wordsworth’s line, the poetic line-break as traditionally conceived could be said to always institute a pause, although it may be, as Christopher Ricks suggests, a ‘non-temporal pause’;[18] an undecidable entity which intimates something like what Wordsworth finely describes as ‘a dim and undetermined sense / Of unknown modes of being’. Bishop, who describes herself self-deprecatingly in a letter of July 1951 to Robert Lowell as a ‘minor female Wordsworth’,[19] uses her proselike verse to revolt against such a type of presumed intelligence; in ‘Santarém’ her speaker simply does not possess the authority to institute such mysterious, expressive pauses at the end of her lines. This is partly because, as I have argued, this is a profoundly intersubjective poem, and the speaker does not want to pretentiously intimate anything she cannot more objectively communicate to the other—even as she recognises, as Cavell states, that there is something essential to the aesthetic claim which must remain incommunicable. Her solution is to take us directly into the speaker’s ‘dim and undetermined sense’ of what is going on, although it is worth remarking here that she still stops far short of her successor in this mode, Jorie Graham, whose attempts to turn the printed page into a field of cognitive action Bishop would likely have taken as a travestying of the fundamental transaction between poet and reader.[20]

As Bishop seeks to depict, to borrow her favourite phrase of Morris Croll’s about baroque prose, ‘not a thought, but a mind thinking’,[21] we therefore get something more like the free indirect discourse of the novelist entering into her character’s thoughts:

Two rivers. Hadn’t two rivers sprung

from the Garden of Eden? No, that was four

and they’d diverged. Here only two

and coming together. Even if one were tempted

to literary interpretations

such as: life/death, right/wrong, male/female

—such notions would have resolved, dissolved, straight off

in that watery, dazzling dialectic.[22]

The verse-rhythm here seems to lose all fluency, breaking up into short, enjambed sentences close to that of prose. These linebreaks are deliberately, even aggressively opposed to Wordsworth’s procedure. They represent a reimagining of ‘the poetic’ not in terms of a monumental solidity of phrasing, but a destabilising of sentiments which, in unlineated prose, might pass as mere idling. Inevitably, form develops of formlessness, as the repeated structure of the line with a sentence-break in the middle produces the more complex idea of being ‘tempted / to literary interpretations’. ‘One’ here is not merely the standard disinterested pronoun but a condition of solitariness set against the ‘two’ rivers mentioned at the end of the last line. The idea seems to be that the temptation of literary interpretation—the line-break associates such temptation with the Fall from the aforementioned ‘Garden of Eden’—is particularly applicable to the solitary intelligence on its travels. In the moment of intersubjective union of the kind imaged by the rivers, and strongly desired by the poem as a whole, can be found a mode of life beyond that straightforwardly hermeneutic mindset the speaker associates with a crude binarism—‘life/death, right/wrong, male/female’. ‘Literary interpretation’ is connected here with the kind of combative masculine intelligence Bishop encountered painfully in Paris; a style in love with confrontation, to the extent that it incorporates that clashing structure into the very forms of its thought.

Having asserted that moment of potential intersubjective union which the poem’s overall tone is less certain of achieving, Bishop begins her next verse-paragraph with a return to more grounded description of the village. This functions like a conversational fallback strategy, as if the speaker feels she has pressed her point too aggressively on her interlocutor, and is in danger of boring him. As Cavell remarks of the aesthetic experience, ‘the compulsion to share a pleasure’ is necessarily ‘tinged with an anxiety that the claim stands to be rebuked’; the poem’s return to apparently pure description can be read as the poet, having exposed herself conceptually, now taking refuge in a style of reportorial prose which makes no greater claim than empirical accuracy:

In front of the church, the Cathedral, rather,

there was a modest promenade and a belvedere

about to fall into the river,

stubby palms, flamboyants like pans of embers,

buildings one story high, stucco, blue or yellow,

and one house faced with azulejos, buttercup yellow.[23]

The Bishop reader who takes an intense pleasure in such typically ‘modest’ description will have difficulty making their case to those, like Kinzie, who find it ‘just prose’. That said, this superficially proselike passage in fact seems to me to be trying to prove itself on the pulse rather keenly. The first four lines slant-rhyme, in a loose manner which adds to the sense of an improvised speech-act trying to make the case for the significance of what it is describing. The vague coherence of the landscape—the soft rhymes, the repeated yellow of the stucco buildings and the flowers—is what makes it poetic, and the suggestion of plain iambic metre in the third line is only held off by one reversed foot:

x  /   x  /   / x   x  /  x

about | to fall | into | the ri |ver

Associated with a potential action, that of the belvedere falling into the river, the iambic line arrives to buoy the casual prose-rhythm surrounding it, to keep the writing alert. This is verse written for and by an ear well-trained in traditional metrics, which looks instinctively for iambic footholds. But it also represents a reversal of the typical strategy embraced by formalist poets working in the Anglo-American mainstream; Bishop’s iambs evoke dissolution, not creation. For the belvedere to ‘fall into the river’ would not be the happy intersubjective mergence figured earlier by the rivers themselves, but something more like that aforementioned ‘fall’ into arid intellectuality, a letting-go of the redemptive materiality of the scene, as properly embodied in variable prose-rhythm.

Bishop’s irregular rhythms now gradually modulate into a style more easily appreciable as verse:[24]

x     /   x    /  x  /    / / x   /

The street was deep in dark-gold river sand

/     x   x  /x  x / x  /   /

damp from the ritual afternoon rain,

x     /    x   /   /  x   / x    /

and teams of zebus plodded, gentle, proud,

x    /   x    /     /    /   x    /    x  /

and blue, with down-curved horns and hanging ears,

/  x   /   x   / x   /

pulling carts with solid wheels.[25]

The first line is virtually perfect iambic pentameter, as is the third, where the iambs finally start to function in a traditionally constructive or mimetic fashion previously discussed, dramatising the plodding motion of the zebus. We may read a certain confidence into this skilful introduction of traditional form into an otherwise proselike poem. The speaker seems to fall into iambs because she has, for a short stretch, the sense that aesthetic value can be, if not communicated, then shown to the potentially oppositional reader, that the reader can be made to understand intuitively that value Bishop perceives in Santarém and which cannot be discursively transmitted. Iambic rhythm, in other words, comes to stand in for that ‘something’ Cavell refers to which one ‘knows’ but ‘cannot make intelligible’, and which therefore ‘stands to be lost’ when one attempts to share one’s aesthetic judgements with another. This is why the poem’s second verse-paragraph ends with a mysterious silence paralleling the ‘resolve, dissolve’ of the first:

x    /    /      x  /   x   /

The zebus’ hooves, the people’s feet

/   x x  /  x   /

waded in golden sand,

/    x   x   / x   /

dampered by golden sand,

/   x  /     x  /  x   /

so that almost the only sounds

x     /   x    /     /     /

were creaks and shush, shush, shush.[26]

 The obtrusive iambs of the first line set up another binary of the type deplored in the first verse-paragraph, with its dismissal of categories like ‘life/death, right/wrong, male/female’. The binary this time is that of animals and human beings, of nature and culture, and the speaker once again has little time for it; zebus and people alike both wade through the golden sand. When the pun on poetic ‘feet’ gently alludes to the artificially patterned force of the line itself, it is as if the poem recognises at this point its increasingly iambic slant, and starts to move away from it toward the more proselike, associative style prevalent earlier on. ‘Waded’ gets refined into ‘dampered’, which itself has emerged of ‘damp’ a few lines earlier; the repeated o sounds of ‘golden’, ‘so’, ‘almost’ and ‘only’ assert a form of slow-motion, where everything appears in silent close-up, moving through space with special visibility. At the same time, the ear registers the absence of the ee sound which, previously prominent in its run through street-deep-teams-zebus-ears-zebus-people’s feet, disappears mimetically from the next three lines to finally reappear in ‘creaks’.[27]

The binary of ‘the zebus’ hooves, the people’s feet’ is another version, like the conflux of rivers, of the aesthetic confrontation with which the poem will end and which is, as I have argued, the essential subject of the poem as a whole; as both hooves and feet are silenced, or at least ‘dampered by golden sand’, Bishop images another ideal reconciliation along the lines of the rivers’ ‘watery, dazzling dialectic’. (The slight pause after ‘dampered’ affords that line a subtle intensity.) Such a reconciliation has now also been staged by, and embodied within, the rhythmical texture of the verse itself, whose shift into iambic verse and then back out again is essentially dialectical, attempting that synthesis implied by Marianne Moore’s remark, in a letter to Yvor Winters, that ‘prose is a step beyond poetry … and then there is another poetry that is a step beyond that’.[28] In other words, the issue a reader like Kinzie has with ‘Santarém’—that it forsakes a certain responsibility to lyricism and thereby becomes ‘just prose’—is being meditated in the ongoing fabric of the poem itself.

The next verse-paragraph therefore ignores the shushing injunction to silence and plunges once again into the landscape, invoking the subject of conflict, of hybridity, already figured as one subject of the poem:

Two rivers full of crazy shipping—people

all apparently changing their minds, embarking,

disembarking, rowing clumsy dories.

(After the Civil War some Southern families

came here; here they could still own slaves.

They left occasional blue eyes, English names,

and oars. No other place, no one

on all the Amazon’s four thousand miles

does anything but paddle.)[29]

The two rivers no longer image an ideally frictionless reconciliation – they are ‘full of crazy shipping’ and people ‘all apparently changing their minds’. If the speaker is, as she has already told us, inclined to ‘stay awhile’ in Santarém, then the capricious bustling of all these other people ‘changing their minds’ suggests that no such peace can be found here, or in fact anywhere. Bishop refuses to idealise a current or lost cultural authenticity; instead, she aggressively historicises a hybrid culture both contaminated and inevitably enriched by the impurity of human motivation. Subtle formal effects reinforce her point, shifting her technique of proselike description towards argumentation; the abrupt line-break on ‘people’ wryly points out that ‘people’ themselves can become just ‘shipping’, or cargo, dehumanised like the slaves mentioned in the next sentence.

As Bishop italicises those ‘oars’, so they justly stick out as an example of colonial impingement into a local culture, we might remark that the prosy style of ‘Santarém’ may also be connected to the poet’s selection of a responsibly modulated voice for articulating such difficult subject matter. As Fortuny puts it:

Because Bishop labored to expose the philosophical biases of the Western traveler in her poems and prose, it was necessary to cultivate a certain selflessness that could be mistaken for cold critical distance.[30]

Such cold selflessness may be linked with the mutedly ‘proselike’ style of ‘Santarém’; when Kinzie suggests that the poem is ‘just prose’, that it is missing a certain something that raises language to the heightened intensity of poetry, she refuses to consider that Bishop may have deliberately excluded, or chosen to work around, that indefinable poetic quality for reasons of her own.

Carefully, unobtrusively, the poem continues to not only document but also subtly analyse the hybrid culture it describes:

A dozen or so young nuns, white-habited,

waved gaily from an old stern-wheeler

getting up steam, already hung with hammocks

—off to their mission, days and days away

up God knows what lost tributary.

Side-wheelers, countless wobbling dugouts…

A cow stood up in one, quite calm,

chewing her cud while being ferried,

tipping, wobbling, somewhere, to be married.

A river schooner with raked masts

and violet-coloured sails tacked in so close

her bowsprit seemed to touch the church[31]

If, earlier in the poem, Bishop imagined an ideal reconciliation, an intersubjective flight beyond those conceptual categories which keep individuals arguing and apart, then these lines are nowhere near so hopeful; the nuns will never convert the locals into beings exactly like them, and in this way they share the cow’s stubborn lack of awareness that she is headed off ‘to be married’. The poet’s proselike style is also no longer happy; it is as if it registers that loss Kinzie complains of, becoming dependent on ellipses and disjointed descriptions—the jaunty, off-kilter couplet on ferried/married aligns form with falsity, with too-pat reconciliations and absurd personification of the natural world. The river schooner’s bowsprit appears to intimate a rare moment of contact, but just as it seems ‘to touch the church’, the verse-paragraph ends. This is a world defined by disjunction; there is a pathos to the subtle uh sounds in ‘coloured’, ‘touch’ and ‘church’ which intimate that moment of contact which does not actually occur. Inscribed ambiguously by its colonial history, Santarém itself comes to inhabit that space of ‘loss’ described by Cavell.

The next verse-paragraph briefly encompasses the kind of epiphanic natural event which a more traditional lyric poem would centre itself around, and probably conclude with:

(Cathedral, rather!). A week or so before

there’d been a thunderstorm and the Cathedral’d

been struck by lightning. One tower had

a widening zigzag crack all the way down.

It was a miracle. The priest’s house right next door

had been struck, too, and his brass bed

(the only one in town) galvanised black.

Graças a deus—he’d been in Bélem.[32]

Bishop, possibly following Hopkins, often uses lightning to characterise the kind of poetic epiphany she wants to achieve, that sudden charging of the world with significance which here notably fails to occur.[33] The most telling detail is the priest’s bed being ‘the only one in town’—Bishop is poking fun at that obsession with unique one-off events which lyric poetry shares with the most mundane forms of gossip, a bit like how, as John Cotter observes, August Kleinzahler uses a dubiously unique snowflake in his recent poem ‘The Old Poet, Dying’, to make fun of the kind of ‘single-effect, single-mood poem’ favoured by poets like Mark Strand.[34]

Earlier in the poem I focussed on Bishop’s wry use of the word ‘one’, whose sense of loneliness and disjunction was pointedly set against the ‘two’ rivers joined in harmonious ‘conflux’. That the priest’s brass bed is, again, ‘the only one in town’ may be read as subtly damning; why should the clergy be so privileged? Perhaps God sent down a bolt from the blue to chastise him for that fact—we can never know. Uniqueness, Bishop is saying, is not necessarily a good thing; that brass bed, as a signifier of the priest’s difference from the laity, may be compared, once again, to Cavell’s distantiating aesthetic experience. It is something that cannot be shared. Bishop’s proselike verse revolts against those ideals of solitude and uniqueness which define the standard lyric; she is not only undermining religion, but poetry itself. She is attempting to revise the kind of aesthetic contract which, as Kinzie’s revulsion demonstrates, ‘Santarém’ has failed to honour from the outset—a contract whereby the poet provides a certain intensity of language, and of event—a thunderstorm, for example—and the client undergoes an aesthetic experience supposedly defined by transcendence but in fact proscribed within very definite boundaries.

The poem’s final verse-paragraph appears to cherish, for a moment, an example of such well-wrought perfection:

In the blue pharmacy the pharmacist

had hung an empty wasps’ nest from a shelf:

small, exquisite, clean matte white,

and hard as stucco. I admired it

so much he gave it to me.[35]

As Bishop’s inscape recalls the ‘wasp-nest flaws / of white and white’ she particularly admired in Marianne Moore’s ‘The Paper Nautilus’, a poem based on one of her own gifts, the frictionless interaction between the pharmacist and the speaker echoes that poetic (and literal) transaction between her and her mentor. ‘Blue’ links back slightly ostentatiously – Bishop is letting us see the ordering imagination at work, for good or ill – to the blue of the zebus and the eyes of the slave descendants. (By leaving ‘blue’ throughout the landscape, does Bishop’s own wandering eye represent just another instance of the colonial mindset?) It also, thanks to Wallace Stevens, suggests the aestheticisation of experience implied by his man with ‘a blue guitar’ who does ‘not play things as they are’.[36] Accordingly, although these lines superficially look formless, they are in fact tightly formalised: one notices the doubling of ‘pharmacy’ and ‘pharmacist’, the underlying iambic pentameter of the second line, and the taut line-breaks braced by the slant-rhyming couplet on ‘matte white’ and ‘admired it’, as ‘exquisite’ introduces the terminology of aesthetic approval. Nothing has, in Cavell’s terms, been ‘lost’ here—a claim for significance has been assented to and left uncontaminated by economic exchange, since the pharmacist, a scientific healer set against the theological authority of the priest, ‘gave’ the nest to the speaker, rather than selling it to her. Aligned with the ‘stucco’ buildings already mentioned as a feature of Santarém, the wasps’ nest emerges as a type of the ideal artwork, shaped to a genuine formal integrity and yet, perhaps unlike the slightly pathological ‘thin glass shell’ of Moore’s nautilus, totally in and of its cultural moment, connected to its environment and drawing its value from it.

The subsequent drop into prose-rhythm is therefore obtrusive:

Then—my ship’s whistle blew. I couldn’t stay.

Back on board, a fellow-passenger, Mr. Swan,

Dutch, the retiring head of Philips Electric,

really a very nice old man,

who wanted to see the Amazon before he died,

asked, “What’s that ugly thing?”[37]

The speech-fresh interjection ‘really a very nice old man’—which rhymes with the oddly poetic word ‘Swan’—stops this passage becoming too prosaic, but the rhythmic slippage and the paralleling of aesthetic and personal judgement—‘I admired it’, ‘really a very nice old man’—still shows Bishop grappling with the problem Cavell describes. It is important that the poem ends at this point, at the very moment when what he describes as the ‘aesthetic claim’ is ‘rebuked’ or at least threatened. We do not get to see what happened next, to hear the speaker’s response, if in fact she has one. Perhaps, like Bishop left sobbing in that kitchen in Paris, she will be unable to deal with Swan’s challenge. Mercenary and male, he seems to have missed the point, but Bishop is also trying to make it clear that he is not a straw man, a simplified intrusion of the male/logical intelligence arriving to close down female aesthetic receptivity. He is, as she insisted later to Jerome Mazzaro,[38] a real person, who was actually there, who was himself motivated by a desire for knowledge, and for beauty—‘who wanted to see the Amazon before he died’. The poem seems to rush all of a sudden to its conclusion, demonstrating the strain, the excitement, the danger of Cavell’s ‘compulsion to share a pleasure’. Like the homely wasps’ nest itself, ‘Santarém’ the poem must necessarily expose itself to the criticism, or confusion, of a Swan or Kinzie inclined to ask of its proselike provocation—‘What’s that ugly thing?’

University of Oxford

NOTES

Thanks are due to the colleagues who have looked at drafts of this essay: Tom Paulin, Laura Marcus, Michael Wood and Seamus Perry. It represents one chapter of an as-yet unpublished DPhil thesis on ‘Elizabeth Bishop’s Poetics of Prose’.

[1] Remembering Elizabeth Bishop: An Oral Biography, ed. by Gary Fountain and Peter Brazeau (Amherst: Massachusetts University Press, 1994), pp. 65-6.

[2] Stanley Cavell, Philosophy the Day after Tomorrow, (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 9.

[3] Elizabeth Bishop, One Art: Letters, ed. by Robert Giroux (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994), p. 102.

[4] Brett Candlish Millier, Elizabeth Bishop: Life and the Memory of It (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), p. 309.

[5] Bishop criticism has long been interested in the proselike style of her verse, but has proved unwilling to consolidate individual insights into an overall thesis. In her chapter on ‘“Old Correspondences”: Prosodic Transformations in Elizabeth Bishop’, Penelope Laurans asserts, for example, Bishop’s frequent use of ‘prose passages’, suggesting that ‘fully one third’ of ‘The End of March’ is ‘prose arranged in verse lines’. In Elizabeth Bishop and Her Art, ed. by Lloyd Schwartz and Sybil P Estess (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983), p. 90. Thomas Travisano, in Elizabeth Bishop: Her Artistic Development, identifies ‘flat prose rhythms’ in ‘A Cold Spring’ and ‘prose rhythms modulating … into lyricism’ in ‘Questions of Travel’. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1988), pp. 103, 144. There are subtle observations here, but both critics are hampered by their neglect of the long critical history of ‘prose-rhythm’. The neglected Victorian critic George Saintsbury propounds not a negative but a positive definition of prose-rhythm, as connoting not just the absence of poetic metre but the presence of something else, ‘arranged on a principle totally different, and indeed opposed, when compared with that of poetry. Instead of sameness, equivalence, and recurrence, the central idea turns on difference, inequality, and variety’. Saintsbury, A History of English Prose Rhythm (London: Macmillan, 1912), p. 344, <http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofenglish00sainiala#page/n6/mode/1up> [accessed 10 May 2011]. It is this positive definition of prose-rhythm, as an entity both cognitive and musically elaborative, which I apply to Bishop’s verse, drawing on her own cross-generic application of Morris Croll’s take on baroque prose to the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. See Note 20 for more on this point.

[6] Mary Kinzie, The Cure of Poetry in an Age of Prose: Moral Essays on the Poet’s Calling, 2nd edn. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 96-7.

[7] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Notebooks 1914-16, trans. by G.E.M Anscombe, ed. by G.H. von Wright and G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1961).

[8] Kim Fortuny, Elizabeth Bishop: The Art of Travel (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2003), p. 33.

[9] Ibid., p. 104. Italics mine.

[10] Elizabeth Bishop, ‘Santarém’. 1-2.

[11] Other Bishop poems which could be re-read in the light of a possible conversation, or meeting of minds include ‘A Cold Spring’, with its address to an uncertain recipient—‘Four deer practised leaping over your fences’—and its dedication to Jane Dewey; also the injunctions of ‘Little Exercise’, as dedicated to Thomas Edwards Wanning. Such readings draw on that inimitably spoken feel of Bishop’s style, as remarked by Robert Lowell when he tells her in a letter of December 1955 that she always seems to be ‘just talking in a full noisy room, talking until suddenly everyone is quiet’. Words In Air: The Complete Correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, ed. by Thomas Travisano and Saskia Hamilton (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), p. 174.

[12] Susan Sontag, Styles of Radical Will (London: Vintage, 1969; repr. 2001), p. 8. 

[13] ‘Santarém’. 3–11. 

[14] We would do well, however, not to generalise from the style of Bishop’s linebreaks in one poem to her overall practice. The linebreaks of the early poem ‘Seascape’, for example, with their exact alignment to the clausal sense-units of prose, differ considerably from the later, more freely enjambed style of ‘Santarém’ and ‘Crusoe in England’, a close rival for the title of Bishop’s most prosaic poem. 

[15] Clive Scott, Vers libre: The Emergence of Free Verse in France, 1886-1914 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), p. 14. 

[16] Sontag, p. 6.

[17] William Empson, The Structure of Complex Words (London: Hogarth Press, 1985), p. 290.

[18] Christopher Ricks, The Force of Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 90.

[19] Bishop, One Art, p. 222.

[20] Although American criticism tends to relate Graham’s achievement to Bishop’s (see Willard Spiegelman, How Poets See The World: The Art of Description in Contemporary Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)), British critics and poets have on the whole been less keen to view the slide from Bishop’s anti-hysterical, if conceptually fraught, empiricism to Graham’s fractured splurge as either inevitable or desirable. See, for example, the poet-critic Sean O’Brien’s 2003 review in Poetry London, where he compares a linebreak in Graham’s ‘The Time Being’ to one in Bishop’s ‘The Bight’, and concludes that ‘in general the texture of the verse is much thinner’. Sean O’Brien, ‘Tension between Poetry for its own Sake and for the World’s Sake’, Poetry London, 44 (2003), p. 27.

[21] See ‘The Baroque Style in Prose’, in Style, Rhetoric and Rhythm: Essays by Morris W. Croll, ed. by J. M. Wallace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966); Bishop cites Croll in her undergraduate essay on ‘Gerard Manley Hopkins: Notes on Timing in His Poetry’ and in an early letter to Donald Stanford. Bishop, Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose and Letters, ed. by Robert Giroux and Lloyd Schwartz (New York: Library of America, 2008), p. 665-6; and One Art, p. 12.

[22] ‘Santarém’. 13–20.

[23] Ibid. 21–6.

[24] With prose-rhythm in mind, I scan phrasally from this point onwards, to place the emphasis on divergences from regular metre, rather than coincidences with it. Saintsbury’s definition of ‘prose-rhythm’ allows for ‘fragments of regular metre’ used as a kind of unadmitted counterpoint; so long they are ‘melted or welded rather than dovetailed or mosaicked into the whole…[they] can hardly be avoided, and indeed will positively improve [the rhythm of the prose]; but if they emerge and “stick out” it is doomed’. Saintsbury, p. 344.

[25] ‘Santarém’. 27–31.

[26] Ibid. 32–6.

[27] Although assonance is common in verse, Bishop’s curiously understated use of the device may be counted as one more factor which moves her style closer to prose, since it resembles the ‘Masson-patterns’ Adam Piette identifies as one of the subtle structuring devices of literary prose. Adam Piette, Remembering and the Sound of Words: Mallarmé, Proust, Joyce, Beckett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 38–43.

[28] Marianne Moore, The Selected Letters of Marianne Moore, ed. by Bonnie Costello (London: Faber, 1988), p. 192.

[29] ‘Santarém’. 37-45.

[30] Fortuny, p. 27.

[31] ‘Santarém’. 38–49.

[32] Ibid. 50–7.

[33] See, for example, ‘Electrical Storm’, the unpublished draft ‘It is marvellous to wake up together’, and Bishop’s letter to Marianne Moore of September 11, 1940, where she remarks of her compositional difficulties that she feels as if, should the ‘things’ in her head be ‘joggled around hard enough and long enough some kind of electricity will occur’. One Art, p. 94.

[34] See John Cotter, ‘Kleinzahleresque’, Open Letters Monthly, May 2008, <http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/may08-kleinzahleresque> [accessed 10 May 2011]

[35] ‘Santarém’. 58–62.

[36] Wallace Stevens, Wallace Stevens: Collected Poetry and Prose, ed. by Frank Kermode and Joan Richardson (New York: Library of America, 1997), p. 135.

[37] ‘Santarém’. 63–8.

[38] One Art, p. 621.

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ALEXANDER HOWARD

© Alexander Howard. All Rights Reserved.

Charles Henri Ford (1908-2002)—the editor of Blues—occupies a curious, marginalised position in the history of 20^th century American literature. A prolific, uncannily prescient poet, artist, and editor, Ford can be seen lurking in the background of many scenes of the major artistic advances of the century (a number of which he championed, anticipated, and disputed in his own work—particularly Surrealism and Pop Art). There are a number of reasons behind Ford’s paradoxical position, some of which are regional and geographical in basis, the roots of which I will consider in this paper.

Perhaps the best way to begin to understand Ford is with a brief summation of his career and main achievements.[1] Edward B. Germain’s introduction to Ford’s 1972 collection—The Flag of Ecstasy: Selected Poems—acts as a useful primer:

When he began publishing in 1929, Ford was unique: America’s surrealist poet. In retrospect, he is seminal. What he accomplished in 1930, most American poets hadn’t even imagined. In the pages of his magazines, Blues and View, he introduced and encouraged surrealism while it passed into the spirit of hundreds of American writers.[2]

Ford as seminal? Germain’s praise is effusive. But is it warranted? After all, we are dealing here with an obscure poet, often confined to the footnotes of American literary history. Let us begin by unpacking Germain’s statement. As noted by Germain, Blues and View were two modernist little magazines edited by Ford. Both magazines were surrealistically inflected. Though rarely spoken of at any great length, Ford’s role in developing surrealism in America was vital. Indeed, Ford was America’s first surrealist poet.[3] Seminal? So far, so accurate. In addition, Germain is correct to suggest that Ford played a significant role in influencing younger generations of American poets, often via the pages of his magazines. This is certainly true of View. For instance, Kenneth Koch acknowledged Ford’s influence on his own early writing,[4] as did Ted Berrigan:

Your poetry and your old magazine, VIEW paved the way for so much of what younger poets feel is really happening now, when so many older poets were being so boring and so ordinary.[5]

Like Germain, Berrigan is charitable about Ford’s literary achievements. But notice how—despite the fleeting reference to Ford’s own poetry—Berrigan explicitly lists View as an important precursor to what is ‘really happening now’ in the 1960s. Berrigan’s remark is typical of much that has been written about Ford’s lasting literary legacy.

Ford remains best known as the editor of View.[6] View ran from 1940-47 and was a pioneering magazine that served as a home away from home for the displaced artists of the European avant-garde—notably the surrealists: Breton, Duchamp, Ernst, and so on—who had been forced into exile during World War Two.[7] Perhaps significantly in the context of today’s conference, Ford’s View was— like its editor—based in New York. Of course, New York was the geographical location that, in the latter part of the century, displaced Paris as the centre of art world, cementing America as the dominant cultural force in the world.[8] Ford’s New York-based View played a significant role in this cultural re-alignment, reproducing and promoting early works of notable American artists like Isamu Noguchi and Joseph Cornell. In short, a heady mix of American and European aesthetic groupings—geographically distant groupings symbolically housed in periodical form—characterised Ford’s View milieu.

A strong case could be made that View was one of the most important American art magazines of the 20^th century. However, whilst recognising the significance of Ford’s second magazine, I do not want to focus on View. Rather, I want to talk about Ford’s earlier ventures in the little magazine field, as represented by his avant-garde literary journal: Blues. This is where Germain’s historical specificity becomes relevant, as the dates of 1929 and 1930 correspond exactly with the publication run of Blues.

Blues: a Magazine of New Rhythms was Ford’s first little magazine, View his second. Inspired by Stanley Braithwaite’s anthology of magazine verse and by copies of Eugene Jolas’ influential European magazine, transition, Ford set out to carve himself a niche in the literary world in 1929.[9] Like View, Blues has its famous supporters. Blues was singled out for praise in Fredrick J. Hoffman’s canonical 1946 documentary of modernist little magazines. Hoffman notes that the ‘experimentation of Blues is self-conscious, enthusiastic, and daring’.[10] However, as the 1930s progressed the ‘daring’ and ‘enthusiastic’ experimentalism that Hoffman identified in Blues became disadvantages. Ford’s privileging of avant-garde literary techniques placed both editor and magazine at odds with socially ‘committed’ and dogmatic periodicals like the New Masses and Partisan Review. Writing in New Masses, Joseph Vogel criticised what he perceived as a ‘metaphysical’ tendency in Blues, one that runs ‘away from any form of life that may threaten a boot in the rear’.[11] Nevertheless, influential modernist figures like Stein continued to champion Ford’s venture, arguing that amongst the plethora of little magazines published in the second flush of modernism, Blues burned the brightest:

Of all the little magazines which as Gertrude Stein loves to quote, to have died to make verse free, perhaps the youngest and freshest was the Blues. Its editor Charles Henri Ford has come to Paris and he is young and fresh as his Blues and also honest which also is a pleasure.[12]

Kenneth Rexroth’s retrospective account of Blues similarly stresses the importance of Ford’s youthful venture. Rexroth notes that the number of writers Ford (and his editorial assistant, Parker Tyler) ‘discovered or published when they were still practically unknown is astonishing. They discovered Erskine Caldwell, Edouard Roditi, and me in one issue’.[13]

So, why did Blues fade so quickly from view? Firstly, brevity was a seemingly unfortunate aspect. Ford’s original magazine ran for a mere nine issues, beginning in March 1929 and concluding in the autumn of 1930. However, the brevity of Blues is not necessarily a hindrance. Its premature collapse in the first flush of youth prevented it from falling into the typical trap of little magazines as charted by critics like Ian Hamilton, who argues that ten years is the ideal lifespan for a little magazine. ‘Within that span’, argues Hamilton, ‘one can discern a pattern. There are the opening years of jaunty, assertive indecision, then a middle period of genuine identity, and after that a kind of level stage in which that identity becomes more and more wan and mechanical’.[14]

Secondly, historical contingency and economic expediency come into effect. Ford began publishing Blues mere months before the 1929 Wall Street Crash and the subsequent Great Depression of the 1930s. Such problems surely added to the problems of cash flow and distribution that were endemic in modernist periodical print culture. Thus, Blues came to a close before it really had a chance to begin. This is not the end of the story, however. Ford was to resurrect Blues for a one-off special edition in 1989. Edited by Ford, Blues 10 appeared as a guest issue of Michael Andre’s magazine Unmuzzled OX. Why might Ford desire a return to Blues, some sixty years after its original publication? The answer, I want to suggest, is threefold. The Unmuzzled OX Blues acts as both a subtle corrective to the praise typically offered solely to View and as an attempt to resituate Blues in the literary limelight of the late 20^th century; it also functions as a final effort on Ford’s part to shore up—and ensure—his artistic legacy. In an indirect manner, the appearance of Blues 10 is also useful when charting the reasons for the disappearance of the original Blues from literary history.

Like View, Blues 10 was published in New York. Peripatetic though he remained throughout his life, New York was—by the time of Blues 10—something of a permanent home for Ford. During this time, Ford lived in the Dakota complex (in an apartment he shared with his sister, the actress Ruth Ford). Late in life, Ford was also prone to self-deprecation. He often referred to himself as ‘the hermit of the Dakota’.[15] Ford’s remark is as uncharacteristic as it is telling. Certainly, it is uncharacteristic, given Ford’s famously wide-ranging artistic connections. As Roberta Smith notes, ‘[t]he simplest summation of Mr. Ford’s life and work may be that he did exactly what he wanted, and seemingly knew everyone’.[16] Everyone worth knowing in artistic and literary circles, that is. The term ‘hermit’ carries with it connotations of chosen, deliberate isolation. Bearing this in mind, Ford’s later acts of self-willed marginalisation can be contrasted to the enforced isolation suffered during his formative years. Here, an obvious—yet equally revealing—point of contrast between Ford’s 1929 and 1989 Blues can be made. Although influenced by cosmopolitan periodicals like Jolas’ Parisian transition, Ford’s original Blues was not published in New York; it was published in Columbus, Mississippi. This brings us to the third reason as to why Blues faded so quickly from view. Put simply, Blues suffered from its regional obscurity. Combined with its experimental content, the regionally obscure origins of Blues perplexed contemporary critics who did not know how to respond to Ford’s magazine, except in hostile and derogatory terms.

The contentious issues of geography and regionalism in Blues have much to do with Ford’s biography. Ford was born in Brookhaven, Mississippi. A precocious youth, convinced of his genius and coveting poetic fame, the adolescent and ambitious Ford established Blues from the regionally remote Columbus. During its brief publication run, correspondence directed to Blues was delivered to the wholly un-cosmopolitan address of 227-228 Gilmer Building, Columbus, Mississippi. The geographical situation of Ford’s Blues played a significant—if paradoxical—role in the character of his magazine. Ford decried his isolation in un-cosmopolitan towns like Brookhaven and Columbus. Ford notes—in an early journal entry dated 22^nd August 1927—that he ‘feels the need of new sensations, new friends, [and a] new environment’.[17] Ford is clear about the cause of his frustration: it stems from what he perceives to be geographical isolation in Brookhaven: ‘I cannot live in this provincial, bourgeois town’.[18]

Having identified the geographical root of this frustration, Ford proceeds to inadvertently diagnose the underlying psychological causes of the material problem. Ford equates provincialism with neurosis, as this journal entry of 7^th January 1928 entry makes clear:

I must not live my life at home—sheltered and without pain. There isn’t the slightest doubt but that I would become a hopeless neurotic. For that reason I must go to New York. Be hurt if necessary. See what life is. Have “experience”—vital to one who would live by his pen. Or, for that matter, starve by it…

Am I lying to myself? Trying to justify a step that will be the most important one I ever took or shall ever take?

Oh, God, I must see…[19]

Despite the melodramatic, adolescent tone of the passage, Ford’s journal entry reveals his fear of artistic stagnation if remaining ‘sheltered’ in Mississippi. Ford’s preventive inoculation against the dangers of such neurosis-inducing shelter is simple: exchange regional Mississippi for the cosmopolitan lights and glamour of New York—in order to experience ‘life’—and make a name for himself in the literary world. That was the theory at least. In practice, events unfolded differently.

Failing to secure immediate passage to New York, Ford’s frustrations grew. At the same time, Ford continued to develop his poetic technique. His early poetic forays met with mixed success. In a journal entry of 5^th February 1928, Ford notes how ‘[m]uch of my own work [h]as been returned recently. Rejections from Poetry, Books, American Mercury, Bookworm, etc. Oh its [sic] hard, hard…’[20] Hard though it might have been, Ford’s enthusiasm for the task at hand does not diminish. Taking stock on his twentieth birthday (10^th February 1928), Ford asks:

What have I done? 1 poem in The New Yorker, 1 re-print of said poem in the San Antonio Evening News, 2 poems accepted by Bozart… How many times must I doubt these small achievements…?

…Fame? … In one year it shall be done.[21]

On the same day, Ford comes quickly to the realization that ‘[l]aunching a poetry magazine would help immensely’.[22] Soon after, a fortuitous meeting of young, likeminded poets in an unglamorous, regional setting sowed the seeds for the emergence of Blues.

Ford describes this meeting in a journal entry of 22^nd February 1928. ‘Hope entered my dull existence today in the form of a charming letter from Miss Kathleen Tankersley Young’.[23] Like Ford, Young (herself both an editor and Harlem Renaissance poet) is largely absent from accounts of contemporary literary history.[24] And, like Ford, Young felt oppressed by bourgeois regionalism and isolation. This much is made clear in Ford’s journal entry of 5^th March 1928: ‘[h]ow I sympathize with her, living here with no people with her tastes, no nothing. Except lonesomeness’.[25] The ‘here’ that Ford is referring to is San Antonio, Texas. Young had previously written to Ford about a First National Poetry Exhibition scrapbook that she wanted to share with him. The exhibition in question had been organised by Lew Ney, and was held in Greenwich Village, New York.

Ney was later to act as patron to Ford’s Blues. Whilst in the Village, Young had met Ney, who in turn suggested that she take a copy of the exhibition scrapbook to show to Ford (whose ‘Interlude’ was included in the volume).[26] Young did so, carrying with her the scrapbook to the much less cosmopolitan location of the library in San Antonio, Texas (where she and Ford had arranged to meet). Young brought traces of the cosmopolitan glamour the adolescent Ford coveted. Moreover, Young’s interests and ambitions coincided with those of Ford. ‘She, too, has thought of starting a poetry magazine but don’t guess we will… Oh, God, I feel—nothing seems worth anything to me tonite [sic]’,[27] wrote Ford on 4^th March 1928.

But Ford’s despairing prediction proved inaccurate. Suitably inspired, Ford borrowed $100, found a willing printer, and began to publish Blues in February 1929. Blues was published in the provincial location of Columbus, Mississippi, a far cry from the more desirable New York. Basic in appearance, Ford’s magazine was bound in simple blue wrappers and, from the outset, contained a mixture of experimental and more conventional prose and poetry. Eschewing a codified stance, Blues offered no definitive account of Ford’s aesthetic inclinations. Retrospectively, the lack of a codified aesthetic programme in Blues was only to be expected, given its editor’s youth and, more significantly, Ford’s preference for inclusiveness and resistance to easy categorization in both art and life (it seems no mere coincidence that later issues of Blues trumpeted its arrival as a as ‘Bi-Sexual Bi-Monthly’).[28]

Rexroth—one of the early contributors to Blues—implicitly recognised Ford’s editorial acumen. Rexroth praises Ford’s ability to provide a suitably inclusive forum for ‘divergent’ attitudes in a letter of 30^th November 1929:

Everybody, judging from the contributions of the “Blues group”, you and I included, seems to know a great deal more about where he is going and why, has at least the sketch of a programme of personal discipline outlined, than he did in the beginning last year. These programs may be a great deal more divergent than we expected then, but we are at least held together by a common disgust a common enemy and a common persecution.[29]

Rexroth’s comment is suggestive, gesturing towards the simultaneously divergent and unified ‘sketches’ of personal programs contained in Blues. What is more, geography is a factor in Rexroth’s comments. After all, the regionally isolated Ford hardly had yet the chance to meet his ‘divergent’ contributors.

So, despite his provincial isolation, and having launched his little magazine, Ford sought out potential contributors for Blues. One such contributor was none other than that doyen of high-modernist little magazines, Ezra Pound. Ford had already made contact with Pound. Pound was quick to recognise the potential of Ford’s project, arguing that it was the American magazine best suited to assuming the role of Margaret Anderson’s The Little Review. ‘Seems to me a chance (in Blues) for the best thing since the Little Review’,[30] Pound wrote to Vogel on 23^rd January 1929. This is not all. Pound adds that Blues seems ‘certainly the best thing done in America without European help’.[31] Pound’s distrust of European aid places him at odds with Ford. As we have noted previously, Blues was directly inspired by the prominent magazine transition. Not only this, Ford’s magazine was to feature literary contributions by Jolas.

Bearing these comments in mind, we can assume that Pound would have been irked to find Jolas later listed as a member of the editorial board of Blues. Though Pound’s prejudice against potential European influence over Blues is clear, he still has much useful advice to offer Ford: ‘Most “young” magazines play ostrich. They neither recognize the outer world nor do they keep an eye on contemporary affairs of a strictly literary nature’.[32] Pound proposes to remedy this situation by having Ford compile an aggressive list of written stupidities contained within contemporary periodicals, or, as Pound calls it, a ‘sottisier’. ‘These sottisiers are often the first parts of a live mag. that people read’,[33] argues Pound. They serve to differentiate a critically vibrant, aesthetically relevant magazine from those that are not. Those magazines found lacking subsequently become characterised by common ‘idiocies’[34] that must be guarded against.

In this respect, Pound’s comments recall Rexroth’s words to Ford, those suggesting that Blues is ‘held together’ by disgust for a ‘common enemy’. In turn, Rexroth’s comments shed light on those of Pound. Notice how Rexroth stresses how Ford is able to hold Blues together despite the myriad aesthetic directions in which the magazine travels. Rexroth’s view tallies with a related suggestion made by Pound to Ford:

As you don’t live in the star town with yr start [sic] contribs. You can not have fortnightly meeting and rag each other. Best substitute is to use circular letters. For example write something; or use this note of mine; add your comments; send it on to Vogel; have him show it to [Herman] Spector; and then send it to Bill Wms. [William Carlos Williams] each adding his blasts and blesses or comment of whateverdamn natr. etc.When it has gone the rounds, you can send it back here.[35]

As altruistic as Pound’s advice initially seems, it actually reveals a characteristically Poundian attempt to stamp his own mark on Blues. Once the ‘blasts’ and ‘blesses’ of his literary elders are collected, Pound suggests that Ford return it to his address— not in Columbus, but Rapallo, Italy. Perhaps wisely (and significantly), Ford did not take Pound’s ‘friendly’ advice.

Regardless of personal motive, Pound’s advice does suggest a means with which to circumnavigate regional isolation. Realising the geographical limitations imposed on Ford, Pound suggests that he should use ‘circular letters’ as substitution for direct meetings. In this way, Ford would be able to bind—or rather, hold—together the aesthetically divergent attitudes potentially found in Blues. Pound reasons that—in Ford’s case—such circulars would fulfil one of the supposed prerequisites when establishing a youthful literary venture like Blues:

Every generation or group must write its own literary program. The way to do this is by circular letter to your ten chief allies. Find out the two or three points you agree on (if ANY) and issue them as a program.[36]

At the time, Ford’s rejection of Pound’s advice was arguably detrimental to Blues. Ford’s decision not to include anything that might suggest a programme ultimately left whatever public there was for a new (regionally), obscure little magazine with few means to pigeonhole the experimental work contained within. With no convenient explanation for the direction of the work displayed in Blues, or means with which to evaluate the magazine, Ford’s venture faced public resistance.

Sometimes—as in The Literary Lantern of 30^th December 1928—such resistance was prejudicial, framed in derogatory language pertaining to specific regions of North America: ‘Literature seems to spread like infection. At any rate, no sooner have we become used to unwanted activities in Alabama, then we find Mississippi stirring’.[37] On other occasions—as in Donald Davidson’s review in the Tennessean (3^rd March 1929)—Blues was dismissed out of hand as repeating ‘the vices and [having] none of the virtues of the forward and experimentalist cults that wax and sicken on the banks of the Seine and the Hudson’.[38] In a way, Davidson’s dismissal of Blues does contain an element of truth. A curious, hybridised mixture of local, cosmopolitan, and international experimental literature does feature in Ford’s magazine. Indeed, New York is evoked in Davidson’s mention of Hudson River, much as the ‘banks of the Seine’ imply the ‘experimentalist cults’ of Parisian magazines like transition.

Nevertheless, Davidson simply does not know what to make of Blues. Ford’s magazine strikes him as ‘mysterious and odd’[39]—all the more as Ford’s urbane magazine comes from Mississippi. Davidson’s prejudices are typical of those others who deigned to discuss Blues. Herein lies one of the main problems facing Ford’s venture: general indifference. We might cite the lack of any differentiating Blues manifesto as a reason for the wider indifference that Ford faced. James Rorty—writing in the New York-based The Nation on 17^th April 1929—suggests as much, arguing that Blues is merely ‘a potpourri of badly dated modernistic attitudes and techniques with an underlying arrivist [sic] psychology’.[40] Rorty literally dismisses Blues as a mismatched collection of miscellanea.

But indifference can manifest itself in a variety of guises. To be sure, the relative difficulty of even finding an available copy Blues should be taken into account. Young emphasises as much to Ford, in a letter of 23^rd October 1929: ‘I asked for a BLUES quarterly at the Washington Square Bookshop and they were not very nice … she said no they didn’t carry it any more and that they had to weed out some of those little magazines of that type…’[41] Weeding out magazines of that type: Young’s choice of words is telling. Public prejudice against avant-gardism comes into play here. According to William Carlos Williams, the problem lay with the American public, not with Blues. Furthermore, the value of Blues in Williams’ eyes ultimately lies in its refusal to pander to the tastes of an indifferent American society, in which ‘[d]ifferentiations of personality, [and] individualistic expressions are taboo. We require mass action and group drawings’.[42]

An editorial board member, frequent Blues contributor himself, and staunch nativist advocate, Williams best sums up the difficulties facing Ford’s magazine in an unpublished piece:

1. Agreed: That “Blues” is a perfectly hopeless attempt to put what is alive in writing before an american audience; it is a negative virtue but the only one that can be respected.

2. Resolved: There is nothing to do but to continue to do as now being done by “Blues”: it is the best present day tradition. The only one that can be counted on to bear anything but dry nuts.[43]

Whilst casting aspersions on the critical and literary faculties of the general American ‘audience’, Williams implores Ford to stay the course, as there is ‘nothing’ more to do but to continue. Williams’ praise of Blues is somewhat contradictory: at points he describes it as ‘perfectly hopeless’ whilst later arguing that ‘it is the best present day tradition’. Williams’ praise of Blues is vague. We are told that Blues represents the ‘best’ writing being done in the modern tradition—the only tradition ‘that can be counted on to bear anything but dry nuts’—but nothing more. Nevertheless, retrospectively—and despite William’s vagueness—it is possible to appreciate Ford’s magazine for what it was intended to be.

Blues is resolutely uncodified. Decades later, when asked about his opinion of Charles Olson’s role in the formation of the Black Mountain School of projectivist poetry, Ford remarks tartly: ‘I can’t see why Olson founded a school’.[44] Though the two writers are perhaps closer in attitude—if not spirit—than Ford allows here, the relevant point is clear: Ford distrusts any poetic ‘school’ that—by dint of programmatic implications—approaches a condition where codification becomes a possibility. That is not to say that Blues is characterised by sheer randomness, far from it in fact. Again, recall Rexroth’s comments about the divergent quality of Blues. Time and space prohibit me from developing this point, but a cursory inspection of the magazine in its entirety reveals how Blues is held together by Ford’s subtle editorial approach, where seemingly disparate pieces are textually able to dialogue with and dispute one another.

Significantly, this textual dialogue is also conducted across materials that are geographically divergent. As suggested previously, what distinguishes Blues from other contemporary American little magazines (like Pagany and Morada, which stress nativist qualities, and Troubadour and Smoke, which are inconsistently edited and academically orientated[45]) is the fertile mix of regional forms contained within the periodical’s covers. Parker Tyler (Ford’s confidante, editorial assistant, and collaborator) confirms as much in 1965: ‘[o]f course there were a great many other little magazines but Blues distinguished itself, not only by being aesthetically and intellectually radical, but by being internationally as well as nationally angled’.[46] This blend of regional and international forms accounts for the inclusion of the Vorticist-inspired line drawings of Mexican Contemporáneos artist Augustin Lazo, the colloquial social realist prose of a young James T. Farrell, the regionally specific—whether American or European—pieces by William Closson Emory and Jacques Le Clercq, and Ford’s own surrealist-inflected, typographically diffuse Southern idioms.

The regional and the cosmopolitan coalesce in Blues. However, contemporary critics fail to appreciate the uncodified nature of the magazine, whilst simultaneously attacking Blues because of what they perceived as a ‘betrayal’ of Ford’s Southern heritage. For instance, an unnamed piece in The Literary Lantern (28^th April 1929) criticises Blues for containing ‘nothing by a southern writer and nothing about the South’.[47] Such criticism is unwarranted; aside from listing a Mississippi postal address, Blues had never claimed to be a magazine representative of the American South.

Criticism of Blues came closer to ‘home’—that is, from within, and from unexpected sources. Pound is one such source. During his sole appearance in Blues—in the footnote to his ‘Program 1929’—Pound reveals his anxieties regarding the supposedly damaging lure that the bright lights of New York exert upon the American literary youth:

Foot-note: Instead of EVERYBODY’S going to New York ten or a dozen bright young lads ought to look in on the national capital. We need several novels in the vein of Hemingway’s The Torrents of Spring dealing not with helpless rural morons but with ‘our rulers’ and the ‘representatives of the people’.[48]

Pound’s almost paranoiac fear of the corrupting influence of the cosmopolitan landscape is ironic given his various stays in the European centres of modernism. Moreover, Pound’s neurosis about the cosmopolitan appears the absolute inverse of Ford’s fears caused by geographical isolation and provincial stagnation.

Despite Ford’s personal reservations, the early numbers of Blues nevertheless foreground more nativist, regional concerns—though not strictly of a ‘Southern’ variety. Instead, in the first issue of Blues, we find the highly regionally specific Southwestern poetry of Norman Macleod (the editor of nativist Morada) and the localised, Midwestern prose of Le Clercq. Macleod’s poem ‘Loggia’ displays an agglomeration of a variety of disparate cultural (Native American) and regional (Southwest America) influences. Macleod goes to great lengths to highlight an awareness of nativism—as in poetic imagery that is ‘black like a moqui’s hair’[49]—and articulate a sense of regional specificity, a specificity beset by undercurrents of historical violence:

Bound, gagged… over the edge of cliff

face three hundred feet to stark virginity

of rock, alien priest

served ritual to Acoma[50]

Macleod’s ‘Loggia’ anticipates later critical analysis—like that proposed by Jahan Ramazani—that suggests that ‘we need to remind ourselves constantly that the cultures, locations, and identities connected are themselves agglomerations of complex origin—though those earlier fusions have often been naturalized in ways that occlude the surprise or irony of their convergence’.[51] Thus, in the instance of Macleod’s contribution, Ford’s Blues remains attendant to regional specificity.

But can the same be said of the French writer Jacques Le Clercq’s short story ‘Jordan Revolver’? ‘Jordan Revolver’ opens the first issue of Blues. Le Clercq’s story can best be summed up by its closing paragraph. ‘The story is exactly that. Jordan Revolver contracted a venereal disease from Rosie; he married a prostitute in Detroit; he was found dead and his cadaver was used for experimental purposes in the clinic at Ann Arbor. The rest is silence’.[52] Whilst to an extent accurate, Le Clercq’s summation of Jordan Revolver’s life fails to account for the geographical specificities of the story. Le Clercq’s narrative visits a variety of different locations, both American (in the form of the University of Michigan and Lake Superior) and European (in the narrator’s recounting of wartime exploits in Parisian cafes and clubs). An interesting point of comparison can be made between Le Clercq’s prose and that of F. Scott Fitzgerald. To be more specific, comparison can be made between ‘Jordan Revolver’ and Fitzgerald’s debut novel: This Side of Paradise (1920). The narratives of both This Side of Paradise and ‘Jordan Revolver’ feature accounts of their respective protagonists’ American university experiences. Fitzgerald’s description of Amory Blaine’s experience of American university life is significant: ‘[f]rom the first he loved Princeton—its lazy beauty, its half-grasped significance, the wild moonlight revel of the rushes, the handsome, prosperous big-game crowds, and under it all the air of struggle that pervaded his class’.[53]

The similarities between ‘Jordan Revolver’ and This Side of Paradise do not end there. Fitzgerald’s recounting of Amory Blaine’s extracurricular activities is revealing: ‘[o]n the Triangle trip Amory had come into constant contact with the great current American phenomenon, the ‘“petting party”’.[54] This corresponds to the following comment of Le Clercq’s narrator in ‘Jordan Revolver’:

I spent the summer of 1915 at Apostle Island in Lake Superior… I learned for the first time the technique of what later came to be known as necking or petting, but which in that rude day was termed loving, or with inelegant emphasis, loving-up. I found it more than futile, for my boyhood had been spent abroad.[55]

Futile for Le Clercq’s narrator, perhaps—though the same cannot necessarily be said of Jordan Revolver. Unlike Le Clercq’s narrator, Jordan Revolver’s upbringing—‘He dressed much as anyone at Apostle Island; he swam excellently and earned some money occasionally by acting as life-guard on the beach’[56]—remains rooted in the American, and is not dissimilar to that of Amory Blaine:

Amory saw girls doing things that even in his memory would have been impossible: eating three-o’clock, after-dance suppers in impossible cafes, talking of every side of life with an air half of earnestness, half of mockery, yet with a furtive excitement that Amory considered stood for a real moral let-down. But he never realized how widespread it was until he saw the cities between New York and Chicago as one vast juvenile intrigue.[57]

Notice the emphasis placed on geographical locale. Fitzgerald here designates the unnamed space between New York and Chicago as a ‘vast juvenile intrigue’. Fitzgerald’s notion of juvenile is one taken up by Le Clercq. The narrative of ‘Jordan Revolver’ is in many respects that of an adolescent—a narrative in which Le Clercq’s protagonist ‘played the banjo, told stories, danced and comported himself generally with inconspicuous adequacy’.[58]

The comparison between the two texts—both of which detail the American Midwest at length—is no coincidence. Le Clercq’s subject—and his treatment of the material—invites comparison to the earlier Fitzgerald. Ford is aware of such a comparison: this is why he positions Le Clercq’s story at the very beginning of Blues. Like any magazine editor, Ford felt the need to situate Blues. Having chosen not to heed Pound’s advice to publish an aesthetic programme, Ford used the materials at his disposal in order to construct a differential vantage point for Blues. Ford’s desire was to situate Blues both in relation to region and to earlier forms of literary modernism. Ford’s use of ‘Jordan Revolver’—replete as it is with allusions to the earlier ‘Jazz Age’ is an example of this editorial practice, a practice that is consistently repeated throughout each issue of Blues.

Bearing in mind the mixture of nationalities, landscapes, and forms contained in Blues, perhaps Ford’s regionalism might be best viewed as one of reluctance. This might be one way of understanding Ford’s decision to open Blues—his magazine of purportedly ‘new’ rhythms—with a Midwestern tale told by a European writer; a writer, moreover, belonging to what Charles Bernstein would describe as the era first-wave modernism.[59] There is a generational aspect at work here, and it is interesting to note that Ford’s 1933 novel The Young and the Evil (co-authored with Tyler) was described by Stein as the novel that ‘creates’[60] Ford’s generation as Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise did his before. Perhaps Ford is aware of how generational issues of modernism—themselves tied to his own attempt to situate himself and Blues in relation to previous aesthetic practice—link with his magazine’s regionalist impulse?

It certainly seems feasible. Over the course of its nine original issues, Blues displays what might be described as a localist—as distinct from a superficially regionalist—sensibility. In this regard, Louis Zukofsky’s localist poetic sensibility was a good fit for Blues. Ford’s implicit recognition of Zukfoksy’s localism accounts for the latter’s inclusion in Blues (despite the fundamental differences between the poetic approach of both writers).[61] The comparison between Ford and Zukofsky is suggestive. As early as 1928, Zukofsky’s ‘Poem beginning “The”’ had challenged notions of high-modernist universalism. Similarly, after Ford’s sixth Blues—the ‘Expatriate Number’ of June 1929 that included a wealth of first-generation modernists, including Stein, Jolas, Kay Boyle, Laurence Vail, and Harry Crosby—his magazine made a short-lived shift towards the local. The three issues of Blues that followed the expatriate number are mainly filled with unknown, American writers: both regional and cosmopolitan. One might argue that a symbolic clearing out of first-wave modernist figures takes place in Blues.

But matters become complicated. Arguing that transatlantic expatriatism has been fully replaced by regional modernism seemingly falls prey to confirming what Hugh Kenner called ‘homemade’ American modernism. According to Kenner, homemade modernism is that which is simply grateful to receive the scraps of an already ‘formed tradition’[62] regarding aesthetic inheritance. However, Ford’s biography suggests a refutation of any homemade, regionalist agenda that Blues fostered, reluctantly or not. Having watched his magazine suffer at the hands of the literary public, Ford soon left America, offering this parting shot as he did:

…it is you and your fellows who make a vice of literature by assuming that it has the efficacy of a plough share; […] you all are the trespassers, but as there are in america now among the younger generation one artist to forty farmers i assume that numbers will triumph, since, as you rightly divine, america deals always in size and never in quality being a big woman in a big bed with many little and inadequate husbands.[63]

Is Ford guilty here of repeating some of the regional stereotypes that had been asserted about his own magazine? Perhaps. What is certain is that soon after Ford decried America as a generic, rural space: one that is simultaneously large in ‘size’ yet critically ‘inadequate’ and unresponsive, due to the manner in which literature is treated as if it has nothing more than ‘the efficacy of a plough share’. In leaving America, Ford joined a long list of self-exiled modernists who sought refuge in those expatriate communities that the ‘cooperative’ Blues had briefly begun to challenge, later returning just in time to provide a literary shelter for the last vestiges of a geographically displaced European avant-garde culture during the 1940s.

UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

NOTES

[1] Critical treatments of Ford are few and far between. But, for a general overview of Ford’s literary career, see Karen L. Rood, ‘Charles Henri Ford’, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, 1880-1945, ed. by Peter Quartermain (Detroit: Bruccoli Clark, 1986), pp. 191-210. Those readers seeking a more colloquial treatment of Ford are directed to the documentary Sleep in a Nest of Flames, dir. by James Dowell and John Kolomvakis (Symbiosis Films, 2001).

[2] Edward B. Germain, ‘Introduction’, in Flag of Ecstasy: Selected Poems, Charles Henri Ford (Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1972), p. 11.

[3] This title is often erroneously attributed to one of Ford’s protégés: Philip Lamantia.

[4] Koch: ‘I think I started writing poems I liked more when I was seventeen or eighteen. I wrote a poem when I was just eighteen, maybe on my birthday, called ‘For My Eighteenth Birthday’ or ‘Poem For My Birthday’ and it was influenced by French surrealism in so far as I understood it. I understood it mainly from a surrealist magazine called View’. David Kennedy, An Interview with Kenneth Koch, 5 August 1993: <http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/koch.html> [accessed 13 September 2010]

[5] Ted Berrigan to Charles Henri Ford, 26 April 1965, Charles Henri Ford Papers, Harry Ransom Center, Austin (hereafter: HRC).

[6] See View: Parade of the Avant-Garde 1940 1947, ed. by Charles Henri Ford (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1991), for a varied and detailed selection of essays, literature, and art complied during View’s seven-year publication history.

[7] Detailed critical accounts of the European avant-garde’s time in American ‘exile’ can be found in Martica Sawin, Surrealism in Exile and the Beginning of the New York School, 2nd edn (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1997), and Dickran Tashjian, A Boatload of Madmen: Surrealism and the American Avant-Garde 1920-1950 (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2002).

[8] For an extended discussion of New York’s rise to prominence in the art world, see Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art: Abstract Expressionism, Freedom and the Cold War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).

[9] See ‘Charles Henri Ford’, Charles Henri Ford interviewed by Allen Frame, Journal of Contemporary Art, <http://www.jca-online.com/ford.html> [accessed 10 January 2011]

[10] Fredrick J. Hoffman, Charles Allen, Carolyn F. Ulrich, The Little Magazine: A History and Bibliography, 2nd edn (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947), p. 290.

[11] Joseph Vogel, New Masses, October 1929, reprinted in Charles Henri Ford, Scrapbook: 1928-1931, unpaginated, Charles Henri Ford Papers, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Yale (hereafter Beinecke). Vogel’s case is a strange one. Originally an editorial board member and contributor to Blues, Vogel was to turn his back on Ford and the magazine. For more on Vogel’s break with Ford see, Douglas Wixson, Worker-Writer in America: Jack Conroy and the Tradition of Midwestern Literary Radicalism, 1898-1990 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994), p. 180.

[12] Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (London: Penguin Books, 2001), p. 260.

[13] Kenneth Rexroth, American Poetry in the Twentieth Century (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), p. 106.

[14] Ian Hamilton, The Little Magazines: A Study of Six Editors (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976), p. 9.

[15] Valery Oişteanu, ‘Charles Henri Ford (1908-2002)’, NY Arts (December 2002), http://www.nyartsmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1223:charles-henri-ford-1908-2002-by-valery-oisteanu&catid=39:december-2002&Itemid=682 <accessed 20 September 2010>

[16] Roberta Smith, ‘Charles Henri Ford’ (Obituary), The New York Times, 30 September 2002. For more biographical information, see Charles Henri Ford, Water from a Bucket: A Diary, 1948-1957 (New York: Turtle Point Press, 2001).

[17] Charles Henri Ford, I Will Be What I Am, undated, Charles Henri Ford Papers, HRC, p. 91.

[18] I Will Be What I Am, p. 91.

[19] Ibid., p. 94.

[20] Ibid., p. 98.

[21] Ibid., p. 99.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid., p. 100.

[24] Documents and references pertaining to Kathleen Tankserley Young can be found in various archives (the HRC at University of Texas-Austin, the Beinecke at Yale University, and Princeton University). Examples of Young’s poetry can also be found in Shadowed Dreams: Women’s Poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, ed. by Maureen Honey (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1989).

[25] I Will Be What I Am, p. 102.

[26] I Will Be What I Am, p. 101.

[27] Ibid., p. 102.

[28] There is an unpublished program—drafted by Parker Tyler—that was written and intended for eventual publication in Blues. However, when Blues folded, the manifesto was forgotten. Parker Tyler, ‘Program’, undated, Charles Henri Ford Papers, HRC.

[29] Kenneth Rexroth to Charles Henri Ford, 30 November 1929, Charles Henri Ford Papers, Beinecke.

[30] Ezra Pound, Selected Letters 1907-1941, ed. by D.D. Paige (New York: New Directions, 1950; repr. 1971), p. 223.

[31] Selected Letters, p. 223.

[32] Ibid., p. 224.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Ibid., p. 223.

[37] Charles Henri Ford, Scrapbook: 1928-1931, unpaginated, Charles Henri Ford Papers, Beinecke.

[38] Scrapbook, unpaginated.

[39] Ibid., unpaginated.

[40] Ibid., unpaginated.

[41] Kathleen Tankersley Young to Charles Henri Ford, 23 October 1929, Charles Henri Ford Papers, Beinecke.

[42] Williams Carlos Williams, Blues: A Magazine of New Rhythms (1-9), ed. by Charles Henri Ford (New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1967), p. 75. All references are taken from the Johnson Reprint copy of Blues.

[43] Williams Carlos Williams to Charles Henri Ford, undated, Charles Henri Ford Papers, Beinecke.

[44] Charles Henri Ford Interviewed by Ira Cohen, Gay Sunshine Interviews, ed. by Winston Leyland (San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1984), p. 53.

[45] For more on Blues and its relation to other contemporary little magazines, see my ‘Into the 1930s: Troubadour (1928-32), Blues (1929-30), Smoke (1931-37), and Furioso (1939-53)’ in The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines, vol. 2 North America, 1890-1950, ed. by Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2012).

[46] Parker Tyler, ‘Charles Henri Ford: From Poet to Graphipoet’, unpublished (1965), p. 1, Charles Henri Ford Papers, HRC.

[47] Scrapbook, unpaginated.

[48] Pound, ‘Program 1929’, p. 29.

[49] Norman Macleod, ‘Loggia’, p. 22.

[50] Ibid., p. 22.

[51] Jahan Ramazani, A Transnational Poetics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), p. 47.

[52] Le Clercq, ‘Jordan Revolver’, p. 9.

[53] F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (London: Penguin Books, repr. 2000), p. 39.

[54] This Side of Paradise, p. 54.

[55] ‘Jordan Revolver’, p. 2.

[56] Ibid., p. 2.

[57] This Side of Paradise, p. 54. Emphasis added.

[58] Ibid., p. 2.

[59] Charles Bernstein’s discussion of first- and second-wave modernism places artists and writers born between 1889 and 1909 in the latter category. Born in 1870, Le Clercq falls into the former category. Bernstein, ‘Objectivist Blues: Scoring Speech in Second-Wave Modernist Poetry and Lyrics’, American Literary History, 20 (2008), 346-368 (p. 348).

[60] Quoted in Philip Hoare’s obituary for Charles Henri Ford, The Independent, 1 October 2002, <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/charles-henri-ford-644148.html> [accessed 13^th September 2010]

[61] It should be noted that by the time that the Zukofsky edited the 1931 ‘Objectivist’ issue of Poetry—which included poetry by Ford and Tyler—a rift between Ford and Zukofsky had emerged.

[62] Hugh Kenner, A Homemade World: The American Modernist Writers (London: Marion Boyars, 1977), p. 169.

[63] Charles Henri Ford, ‘Correspondence’, The Left: A Quarterly Review of Radical & Experimental Art, 1 (1931), p. 92. I am indebted to Michael Rozendal for this reference. Michael Rozendal, On The Line: A Reconsideration of 1930s Modernist and Proletarian Radicalism (unpublished doctoral dissertation, State University of New York-Buffalo, 2006).

US STUDIES ONLINE

THEORISING DAVID FOSTER WALLACE’S TOXIC POSTMODERN SPACES

DAVID HERING

© David Hering. All Rights Reserved.

Prevailing critical discussion of the works of the writer David Foster Wallace—particularly his most celebrated novel Infinite Jest—has focused around the manner in which Wallace uses the ironic dimension of postmodern literature against itself in order to attempt a ‘post-postmodern’ form of American fiction. In this article, however, I will address the as-yet critically neglected technique in Infinite Jest by which Wallace articulates and attempts to counter the problems of literary and cultural Postmodernism through geographical, spatial and temporal narrative strategies. In Infinite Jest, Wallace presents a future vision of the USA where the cultural conditions of Postmodernism have become embodied within the physical, natural characteristics of the American landscape. I will be theorising here how Wallace creates geographical and psychological spatio-temporal landscapes that represent both the characteristics and also the potential toxicity of a culture of Postmodernism. My argument will discuss two specific areas of Infinite Jest—firstly, Wallace’s delineation of dangerous postmodern geographic spaces and secondly, his psychological description of how time is experienced spatially within a postmodern culture of addiction. To support and illustrate my analysis I will also draw on the works of Mikhail Bakhtin (particularly his discussion of the elements of space and time in the narrative ‘chronotope’) and Frederic Jameson (for his ideas about how space and time operate in a postmodern culture), as well as including reference to additional geographical examples from Wallace’s other works of fiction to reinforce my illustration of Wallace’s new narrative approach to American physical and cultural geography.

1. GEOGRAPHICAL SPACES

To articulate the first part of my argument, I will take as my primary area of discussion the depiction in Infinite Jest of a geographical area of the future North America known as ‘The Great Concavity’, a gigantic governmental toxic waste dump that occupies most of what was once New England, the territory then subsequently assigned as a politically backhanded ‘gift’ to Canada. Due to a lethally effective fuel fusion process subsequently implanted in this waste dump by the government, time and space in the Concavity now operate in a different manner to the rest of the country (a process described in detail below).

The Great Concavity

Because of its toxic characteristics, the Concavity site is the ideal location for the employment of the energy-creating process of annular fusion, described most directly as ‘a type of fusion that can produce waste that’s fuel for a process whose waste is fuel for the fusion’.[1] This process, effective at first, ultimately spirals wildly out of control, and the government have to catapult waste materials into the Concavity to regulate the environment. During a comically exposition-heavy conversation between teenage tennis students Michael Pemulis and Idris Arslanian the processes of annular fusion and its associated problems become clearer. It is necessary to quote from the conversation at length:

‘The resultant fusion turns out so greedily efficient that it sucks every last toxin and poison out of the surrounding ecosystem, all inhibitors to organic growth for hundreds of radial clicks in every direction … You end up with a surrounding environment so fertilely lush it’s practically unlivable … and you find you need to keep steadily dumping in toxins to keep the uninhibited ecosystem from spreading and overrunning more ecologically stable areas, exhausting the atmosphere’s poisons so that everything hyperventilates … So this is why E.W.D.’s major catapulting is from the metro area due north … Which eradicates the overgrowth until the toxins are fused and utilized. The satellite scenario is that the eastern part of Grid 3 goes from overgrown to wasteland to overgrown several times a month. With the first week of the month being especially barren and the last week being like nothing on earth’.

‘As if time itself were vastly sped up. As if nature itself had desperately to visit the lavatory’.

‘Accelerated phenomena, which is actually equivalent to an incredible slowing down of time’. …

’Decelerated time, I have got you’.

‘And this is what the Boog’s saying is eating him alive the worst, conceptually. He says he’s toast if he can’t wrap his head around the concept of time in flux, conceptually … Granted, it’s abstract. But you should see him. One half of the face is like spasming around while the half with the mole just like hangs there staring like a bunny you’re about to run over’.[2]

Such is the ruinous psychological effect upon the individual of the temporal discrepancy engendered by annular fusion within the Concavity. As I will now explain, this ruinous condition is concurrent with the effect of space and time as experienced in a state of postmodernity.

It is worth stating here that Catherine Nichols has critically established a connection between the Great Concavity and the postmodern in her 2001 article ‘Dialogizing Postmodern Carnival’ during her discussion about Wallace’s employment of the postmodern carnivalesque ‘chronotope’ against itself. Nichols also discusses the problem of postmodern narratives as analogous to the ‘circularity’ of the process of annular fusion in the Concavity. However, I feel that this model needs critical development for three specific reasons. Firstly, Nichols seems to attribute the terms ‘The Great Concavity’ and ‘The Great Convexity’ to, respectively, the Western and Eastern zones of the area in question. This, I would argue, is incorrect, as the terminology ‘Concavity’ and ‘Convexity’ is described in Infinite Jest as being used relative to the perspective of the geographical/political position of the speaker (to Canadians it is a Convexity, to US citizens it is a Concavity). This is dramatised most decisively in an overheard argument that takes place at a party early in the novel:

‘Convexity.’

‘Concavity!’

‘Convexity!’

‘Concavity damn your eyes!’.[3]

Secondly, I feel that the distinction between the geographical areas of the Concavity needs further discussion and more detailed information in terms of how they represent different problems of narrative and, crucially, the spatial and the temporal problems of Postmodernism. Thirdly, I wish to suggest that in fact the attribution of ‘stasis’ to the Concavity by Nichols, while certainly not inaccurate, ultimately underestimates the ferocity of Wallace’s entropic depiction of the postmodern. I will now offer a spatio-temporal account of the Concavity which will also address these problems.

It is important to locate the problem of postmodern space and time in relation to the geography of the Concavity. The Concavity is described by a number of characters as having two distinct geographical areas: the ‘barren Eliotical wastes’[4] of the Western Concavity and the Eastern Concavity described in the extended extract above, ‘so fertilely lush it’s practically unlivable’.[5] Recall that Mikhail Bakhtin’s teleological schema for the novelistic ‘chronotope’ is characterised by a slow spatial and temporal separation between individual and environment, and I would argue that the schema outlined here graphically represents the chronotopic characteristics of both Modernism and Postmodernism and the subsequent problems engendered by the effectiveness of the postmodern chronotope. By the era of high literary Modernism, the individual subjective account takes precedence over historical time within the written narrative. Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ represents the fracture between individual and environment (a fracture that Bakhtin is also beginning to map) as an arid plain. That the Western Concavity is explicitly referred to as ‘Eliotical’ in Infinite Jest inevitably begins to encourage the reader to mentally associate the Western Concavity with the Modernist narrative (I will discuss this in more detail below). The Western Concavity’s neighbour, the lush and ‘greedily efficient’ Eastern Concavity, is clearly something quite different, and I want to argue now that the representation of the Eastern Concavity is inherently bound up with the problems of Postmodernism as a narrative form and as a spatio-temporal strategy.

Why then should we associate the lush Eastern Concavity with the postmodern narrative? Well, it contains characteristics strongly associated with postmodern narratives, particularly those of Wallace’s predecessors. Firstly, the trajectory of literary Postmodernism—metafictional writing, the alliance with poststructuralism, the foregrounding of textual self-consciousness—is analogous to the annular fusion system than runs in a continuous cycle and perpetuates itself by continuously taking its own material as fuel. However, it is important when discussing the Eastern Concavity to remember that the annular fusion system is not the same thing as the lush and dangerous wilderness. Rather, it precedes and engenders that wilderness. Therefore, the wilderness itself is the result of Postmodernism, the ‘greedily efficient’ by-product of the original idea. The second postmodern characteristic is the description of the Eastern Concavity as a thermodynamically entropic system. The invocation of entropy alerts the postmodern reader immediately to thoughts of the entropic focus of one of Wallace’s postmodern forefathers, Thomas Pynchon. Indeed Pynchon’s story ‘Entropy’ describes, in a schema not unlike the Concavity, two adjacent zones (two adjoining apartments) that Malcolm Bradbury delineates as ‘the world of hermetic containment’ and ‘the world of undifferentiation’.[6] In addition to the entropic postmodern characteristic, the description of the Eastern Concavity as ‘greedily efficient’ and ‘so fertilely lush it’s practically unlivable’ chimes thematically with a number of statements Wallace has made about the problem of postmodernist narrative in literature. Essentially, the postmodern literary form, as a new system to supplant the structures of Modernism, is running entropically amok.

This process mirrors Wallace’s concerns in his manifesto-like essay ‘E Unibus Pluram’ that the tools of literary Postmodernism have been co-opted as a voraciously effective and insidious way of advertising. The original objective of literary Postmodernism has spawned a monster that feeds off the nutrients that nourish the original form but uses them for its own corporate ends. Therefore, in what I believe is an important distinction, the continuous barrage of toxic waste sent into the Concavity to control the forests is as representative of the frantic attempts to contain the corporate horror engendered by Postmodernism as it is representative of the stasis of literary form which writers like Wallace find that Postmodernism has engendered. Postmodernism, essentially, has become toxic and dangerous as well as simply static. It is also worth recalling here that the system for containing the hazardous contents of the Concavity is far from perfect. Reported occasions of spillage and leaking toxicity pervade the novel, while additional damage is caused by mis-catapulted waste receptacles that fall short of their target and cause death and injury in civilian areas adjacent to the Concavity. These spillages suggest that the current system of keeping the Concavity under control is not efficiently dealing with the problem. The apparent ‘stasis’ of postmodernity is, in fact, more dangerous and insidious than has been predicted. The problem of the postmodern Concavity cries out for a new solution before it engulfs everything around itself.

East and West

It is worth pointing out here that the Great Concavity is an explicit development of the postmodern Illinois geography outlined in Wallace’s preceding novella, ‘Westward The Course Of Empire Takes Its Way’, from the collection Girl With Curious Hair. The novella, a very direct response to John Barth’s postmodern collection Lost In The Funhouse, points towards Wallace’s narrative strategies in Infinite Jest. Connie Luther astutely points out in her essay on ‘Westward…’ that the endless fields of corn can be described as analogous to the postmodern landscape:

Postmodern cultural expansion is reflected, not only in the huge but worthless yields of corn in Wallace’s Funhouse, but also in its geographical features. It is not enclosed and restricted, like Ambrose’s original carnival Funhouse, but a terrifyingly wide-open place … an image of immense cultural expansion, and that it is not only worthless but disorienting.[7]

I would also argue that the description of the fields in ‘Westward…’ itself as ‘disorienting, wind-blown, verdant, tall, total, menacingly fertile’ display an attribute that could also easily be applied to the ever-expanding forests of the Eastern Concavity.[8] ‘Westward…’ has been described as a ‘programmatic declaration of intent’ and this is perhaps never more so than in the development of these menacing, lush postmodern spaces.[9] It is also worth considering the question of an East-West trajectory in relation to both ‘Westward…’ and Infinite Jest. When one considers the West as what Luther identifies as a ‘ubiquitous symbol of hope and progress throughout American literary history’, one would then surely expect the Eliotical Modernist dryness to occupy the Eastern Concavity, and the lush horrors of Postmodernism to occupy the Western Concavity, the historical trajectory moving characteristically Westward.[10] As it is, the area west of the lush jungles of the Eastern Concavity is a dry wasteland.

I would offer here a potential explanation for this spatial conundrum. The geography of the dry Western Concavity can represent both Modernist past and postmodern future. Its barren wasteland alludes graphically to the horrors of Modernist subjectivity, against which the Eastern Concavity can define itself as characteristically postmodern, but it also invokes the suggestion—through its Western positioning—that the trajectory of Postmodernism is heading towards just such a barren, ahistorical world. Luther, invoking Frederic Jameson, speaks in her discussion of ‘Westward…’ of the postmodern landscape as ‘a flat, featureless and frightening place, stripped in postmodernity of its historical content’,[11] and in his seminal study Postmodernism, or The Cultural Concept of Late Capitalism Frederic Jameson defines the postmodern culturescape as suffering from a kind of atemporal Lacanian ‘schizophrenia’, ‘a series of pure and unrelated presents in time’.[12] In the eternal postmodern present, past and future are both stripped of historical feature and their teleological connection to the present. Therefore the barren Western Concavity can occupy a dual temporal position, as past and future simultaneously. Finally, consider the fact that, as I have stated, the geography of the Concavity is underpinned by a cyclical process—one can see how the wasteland of the past is occupied, evacuated, then returned to once more.

Time in Flux

Before concluding my discussion of the spatio-temporal characteristics of the Great Concavity, I wish to analyse the problems of the previously mentioned ‘decelerated time’ as a potential further problem of a postmodern chronotope. Annular fusion—as explicated by Michael Pemulis above—results in a massive temporal disjuncture between spaces within the Concavity and between Concavity and non-Concavity space, a disjuncture that can be interpreted, dependent on perspective, as a slowing down or speeding up of time, something referred to by Pemulis in the earlier extract as ‘time in flux’. This temporal and spatial schism reminds the Bakhtinian reader of the discussion within his essay ‘Forms Of Time And Chronotope In The Novel’ of the strong association between natural environment and collective public life outlined in the folkloric chronotope, a chronotope associated with an extremely early stage of narrative development:

The agricultural life of men and the life of nature (of the earth) are measured by one and the same scale, by the same events; they have the same intervals, inseparable from each other, present as one (indivisible) act of labor and consciousness.[13]

Now consider Bakhtin’s analysis of the developmental trajectory of this narrative chronotope:

Such a time is unified in an unmediated way. However, this imminent unity becomes apparent only in the light of later perceptions of time in literature (and in ideology in general), when the time of personal, everyday family occasions had already been individualized and separated out from the time of the collective historical life of the social whole, at a time when there emerged one scale for measuring the events of a personal life and another for measuring the events of history.[14]

Bakhtin is talking from a standpoint contemporaneous with Modernism, but his theory of chronotopic development lends itself appositely to discussion of Wallace’s postmodern spatio-temporal problem of annular time. This severe dissociation between the temporal unity of directly adjacent natural spaces represents a new postmodern narrative of wild chronotopic flux which supersedes the steady separation between the individual and nature seen by Bakhtin as a characteristic of narrative—in Wallace, natural time and space themselves have become not only violently unyoked from the individual but also from one another. However, this disjuncture in time and space between Concavity and non-Concavity space does not simply concern itself with representing a geographical actualisation of a postmodern chronotope of multiple Lyotardian ‘intensities’. As I have already suggested, the toxic and entropic nature of the Concavity space not only represents a chronotope that is characteristically postmodern but also interrogates it. This toxic ‘pure and unrelated present’, rather than operating distinctly as a self-enclosed system, breaks its borders and begins to poison and contaminate adjacent ‘presents’. To paraphrase concisely, in Infinite Jest postmodern spatio-temporal ‘play’ is not harmless, or even static and stagnating. It is actively toxic and threatens nullification of the overall environment within which it operates.

Moreover, Pemulis’ description of ‘time in flux’ (for which read the postmodern focus on the atemporal and ahistorical) is described as being not only physically toxic but psychologically ruinous. It is appropriate to now repeat Pemulis’ physical description of the individual unable to psychologically process this concept: ‘One half of the face is like spasming around while the half with the mole just like hangs there staring’. The psychological confusion caused by the concept of annular time causes the human face to actually physically reflect the temporal discrepancy between the two different geographical areas, with one half of the face in perpetual change and the other half static in comparison, the psychological and geographical problems of the postmodern combine in one concise, comically horrible image.

2. PSYCHOLOGICAL SPACES

How then does Wallace offer or infer a route by which the individual can escape from this postmodern spatio-temporal flux? Using his descriptions in Infinite Jest of how time is experienced spatially I will now argue that Wallace suggests a specific spatio-temporal method by which the individual is capable of recovering a unitary sense of time and space from the flux of the postmodern.

The Recovery of Space and Time for the Individual

In order to discuss the manner in which Wallace achieves this it is first necessary to further outline the models described by Bakhtin and Jameson that will underpin my subsequent analysis. Bakhtin, throughout his delineation of the novelistic chronotope, employs a schematic of horizontal and vertical axes when discussing temporal events. Historical time and temporal continuity are aligned with the horizontal axis. In his specific discussion of the metamorphic narrative of Apuleius Bakhtin notes that, in respect to the way in which the individual life is represented in specific events along the temporal axis:

Time breaks down into isolated, self-sufficient temporal segments that mechanically arrange themselves into no more than single sequences … the novel provides us with two or three different images of the same individual, images that have been disjointed and rejoined through his crisis and rebirths.[15]

Later in the essay, in an important definition, Bakhtin invokes the vertical axis:

There is a greater readiness to build a superstructure for reality (the present) along a vertical axis of upper and lower than to move forward along the horizontal axis of time. Should these vertical structurings turn out as well to be other-worldly, idealistic, eternal, outside time, then this extratemporal and eternal quality is perceived as something simultaneous with a given moment in the present; it is something contemporaneous, and that which already exists is perceived as better than the future (which does not yet exist and which never did exist).[16]

I am fully aware that Bakhtin does not refer here to characteristics of the postmodern narrative, having of course written the essay many years before the advent of literary postmodernism. However, I do believe that Bakhtin’s vertical and horizontal spatio-temporal stratagems as laid out above provide a very useful model for delineating the manner in which Wallace suggests the individual can ‘recover’ a unitary sense of space and time from the postmodern while still incorporating the very sense of eternal ‘present’ that is a characteristic of postmodernism. This leads naturally into the second theoretical argument that underpins this discussion, Jameson’s delineation (invoking Lacan) of postmodern temporality as ‘schizophrenic’ and ahistorical. The following quote is extremely important to subsequent discussion, so therefore it is necessary to reproduce it in full. Jameson begins the quote by referring to Lacan’s theory of linguistic schizophrenia:

The connection between this kind of linguistic malfunction and the psyche of the schizophrenic may then be grasped by way of a twofold proposition: first, that personal identity is itself the effect of a certain temporal unification of past and future with one’s present; and second, that such active temporal unification is itself a function of language, or better still of the sentence, as it moves along its hermeneutic circle through time. If we are unable to unify the past, present, and future of the sentence, then we are similarly unable to unify the past, present, and future of our own biographical experience or psychic life. With the breakdown of the signifying chain, therefore, the schizophrenic is reduced to an experience of pure material signifiers, or, in other words, a series of pure and unrelated presents in time.[17]

Let us consider how this breakdown of the signifying chain might look as represented by Bakhtin’s vertical and horizontal axes. If, as Jameson indicates, the postmodern is a series of pure and unrelated presents, where ‘the subject has lost its capacity actively to extend its pro-tensions and re-tensions across the temporal manifold and to organise its past and future into coherent experience’, then this postmodern representation of space and time would be represented as a consistent vertical axis composed of a series of eternal un-historicised presents, one that does not, to repeat Bakhtin, move forward along the horizontal axis of time.[18] Wallace’s oft-stated interest that fiction should not be merely diagnostic of a condition of postmodernity but also seek to move beyond it includes a suggestion that the ‘cage’ of postmodernist fiction is equated to the condition of solipsism—that is, that the atemporal vertical axis I have delineated as being concurrent with postmodern narrative represents also the trap of the postmodern de-historicised individual, living purely in the solipsistic present.

How then can Wallace point towards a fictional solution for the individuals in Infinite Jest that can align their solipsistic ‘vertical’ postmodern narratives with a re-engagement with the horizontal axis of time? I would argue that this solution comes in the relation of time and space to the process of recovery and rehabilitation in the overarching structures of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am aware that the critical discussion of Alcoholics Anonymous in Infinite Jest as a precursor to escape from solipsism has been thoroughly critically established and is a received part of the discussion of Wallace’s fictional manifesto. However, I do not yet feel that the spatio-temporal manner in which Wallace constructs said recovery process has been analysed in sufficient detail, and I believe that by reading Bakhtin and Jameson alongside Wallace, a new and illuminating account of the strategy in Infinite Jest for the recovery of the individual emerges at a level that is not only spatio-temporal but also linguistic, as Jameson’s invocation of Lacan’s ‘sentence’ proves to be a valuable asset in understanding Wallace’s strategy of escape.

I believe that this strategy of escape and recovery is inherently connected to how the process of time in Infinite Jest is experienced by the individual recovering from addiction to drink or drugs. Wallace devotes a significant amount of the novel to the manner in which the recovering individual experiences time (Ennet House ‘reeks of passing time’), and I first wish to give several examples to illustrate this point fully.[19] The most persuasive examples of how recovering addicts experience time, and how time can be experienced differently according to individual psychological condition, concern the characters of Randy Lenz, Poor Tony Krause and Don Gately. I will now discuss how these three characters experience time during recovery to illustrate my general argument about how time can be ‘recovered’ on Bakhtin’s horizontal axis.

Lenz, Krause and Gately

Randy Lenz, as well as a compulsion to be North of things, has ‘a tendency to constantly take his own pulse, a fear of all forms of timepieces, and a need to always know the time with great precision’.[20] A compulsion to always know the exact time coupled with the phobia of actually being able to look at the time oneself not only illustrates the psychology of an individual struggling with the passing of time as allied to the process of recovery, but also invokes Jameson’s theory of postmodernity as a series of continuous, unrelated ‘presents’. Lenz’s constant need to take his own pulse conflates the continuous sense of dissociated presents with establishing whether one is still alive. That is, that the individual trusts himself only to be alive in that exact present temporal moment, a temporal moment which one has to keep checking still exists, and fears any future moments on that basis. Considering that Lenz is an example of the unreconstructed addict—he continues to surreptitiously abuse substances with eventual disastrous consequences—this method of experiencing time as dissociated instants is evidently flawed and also inherently associated with the postmodern series of similarly dissociated presents outlined by Jameson. Lenz’s pathological obsession with the present is, at base, an inherently postmodern one and can be illustrated on Bakhtin’s axes as a continuous vertical, a series of stagnated instants or presents with no ultimate progression.

Poor Tony Krause has a nightmarish encounter with time during his hellish detoxification process. Krause locks himself alone in a bathroom stall in an attempt to defeat his addiction by going ‘cold turkey’, and suffers a terrifying and hallucinatory physical and psychological ordeal. One of the most notable details of this sequence is the moment where the passage of time actually becomes malevolently personified in Krause’s hallucination:

Time began to take on new aspects for him, now, as Withdrawal progressed. Time began to pass with sharp edges … By the second week in the stall time itself seemed the corridor, lightless at either end. After more time time then ceased to move or be moved or be move‐throughable and assumed a shape above and apart, a huge, musty‐feathered, orange‐eyed wingless fowl hunched incontinent atop the stall, with a kind of watchful but deeply uncaring personality that didn’t seem keen on Poor Tony Krause as a person at all … Nothing in even Poor Tony’s grim life‐experience prepared him for the experience of time with a shape and an odor.[21]

Throughout the sequence—complemented by the agonisingly small space of the bathroom stall—time becomes ever more spatial, more concrete and inescapable, becoming less abstract and more physically rendered. It is notable that time here is described as ‘lightless at either end’ and ceases ‘to move or be moved or be move-throughable’. That the recovering addict is here unable to move through time is a remarkable spatial actualisation of both Jameson’s diagnosis of the postmodern condition and Bakhtin’s vertical axis. All temporal continuity and processes are suspended during this process of recovery—in fact, time itself becomes a confined space, steadily more difficult to move through. Tony eventually ‘escapes’ time by having a withdrawal seizure, although his subsequent failure to escape the traits of his addictive behaviour lead him—like Lenz—to disaster and death.

We have seen how the addict (pervasively conflated with the postmodern subject by Wallace) suffers at the hands of an atemporal postmodern sense of time. How, then, to recover from this process? How can the recovering addict transfigure the postmodern sense of the eternal present to aid his recovery and move beyond his addiction, avoiding the spatial trap that time has become? The answer provided by Wallace in Infinite Jest is best exemplified by the behaviour of recovering addict Don Gately. As has been critically noted (Mary K Holland makes a persuasive argument), Gately is essentially the heroic, Herculean figure in Infinite Jest, a postmodern subject trying his best to escape the clutches of his addiction and make a new life for himself. However, the manner of Gately’s interactions with the process of space and time has not yet been articulated with the thoroughness warranted by its depiction in and centrality to the novel. Gately’s relationship with time via Alcoholics Anonymous is notably different from those recovering addicts mentioned above, and I wish now to discuss how this temporal relationship underpins Wallace’s strategy of recovery from the series of unrelated presents and movement towards a re-association with progressive movement through time as represented by Bakhtin’s horizontal axis.

One Day At A Time

Gately’s progress is inherently tied to one of the central maxims of Alcoholics Anonymous: ‘One Day At A Time’. The slogan, along with many others employed by the organisation, is recognised variously as ‘trite’ and ‘cliché’ by various recovering addicts throughout the novel. However, it is Gately’s attempts to engage with the slogan beyond the simple dismissal of it as cliché that is key to his ongoing recovery. Importantly, Gately’s memory of his initial residency at Ennet House is identified almost identically with Krause’s detoxification. For Gately, ‘he’d felt the sharp edge of every second that went by’,[22] while for Krause ‘time began to pass with sharp edges’.[23] With their initial stages of detoxification established as identical, the diverging paths of Gately and Krause’s recovery can be established as residing in the psychological approach to the tenets of recovery. Gately chooses to abide by the regulations, even praying when he feels that the very act of prayer is redundant, and increasingly adopts a subservience to the methodological time- and process-based approach of recovery, paralleled comically in his approach to following a recipe:

If he just followed the motherfucking directions, and had sense enough to get help from slightly more experienced bakers to keep from fucking the directions up if he got confused somehow, but basically the point was if he just followed the childish directions, a cake would result. He’d have his cake.[24]

More directly, the instructions on how to perceive time in recovery (‘the primary need not to absorb a Substance today, just today, no matter what happens’)[25] are graphically articulated by Joelle Van Dyne, talking to Gately after he has been shot:

‘Pat in counselling keeps telling me just to build a wall around each individual 24‐hour period and not look over or back. And not to count days. Even when you get a chip for 14 days or 30 days, not to add them up’.[26]

This image of ‘walling up’ days separately is key to how the addict and postmodern subject can employ the series of unrelated, ahistorical ‘presents’ outlined by Jameson towards regaining an escape back into historical time, and away from the Bakhtinian vertical and towards the horizontal. In a postmodern condition where the ‘signifying chain’ between the past, present and future is broken, one might assume that to embrace the concept of living solely in isolated spatio-temporal units is an embracing of postmodernism, rather than an escape from it. However, the absolute commitment to approaching each day as a single, unconnected unit is revealed to ultimately assist the escape from that very approach. In a similar manner to the method of ‘treating cancer by giving the cancer cells themselves cancer’ outlined elsewhere in the novel, the isolated ‘present’ is embraced and isolated absolutely—just as the addict does not allow himself to think of the arduous, apparently endless path of rehabilitation ahead, the postmodern subject does not allow himself to think of the lost histories engendered by postmodernity, rather to build a new history out of the intense consideration of every single day in isolation.[27] The spatio-temporal present, in effect, is recaptured and recovered from its centrality to postmodernism and realigned along a historical axis.

Consider this approach along the vertical and horizontal axes established by Bakhtin. This process would, instead of finally constituting a prolonged and endless vertical axis, ultimately re-establish a series of isolated temporal units along the horizontal axis. The entry back into historical time is achieved indirectly. What might look at first like a series of vertical ‘presents’ will, at the end of the rehabilitation process, be revealed retrospectively to have actually been a teleological, historical horizontal process with a past, present and future (the future a new space free from the eternal present of substance abuse). The substance addict and the ahistorical postmodern subject have recovered their historical chronology and the Jamesonian/Lacanian ‘schizophrenia’ has been transgressed. Think also of how closely the actual formal structure of the novel mirrors this process: a series of isolated, achronological moments in time that must be considered alone before the reader can climactically order them into a historical sequence. Lenz’s botched method of recovery apparently involves the continuous awareness of units of time (the constant checking of watches) but is tragically flawed because his attention is drawn to how time is passing rather than actually passing the time. Lenz considers units of time only in how they relate to earlier and later units of time—a fundamental mistake in a spatio-temporal philosophy of recovery that prizes awareness of the isolation of the present moment. Much like his attempts to always be North of something, Lenz’s subjugation to the totality of a large, unfocused and unwieldy system is the root cause of his failure to escape addiction.

The Redemptive Sentence

Timothy Aubry carries out a perceptive analysis of a lengthy sentence from Infinite Jest about the process of recovery, astutely noting that ‘the temporal experience of reading this page-long sentence mimics the arduous experience of recovering in AA’.[28] I will reproduce important component parts of the sentence (including the beginning and end) to illustrate my subsequent argument:

And so you Hang In and stay sober and straight, and out of sheer hand‐burned‐on‐hot‐stove terror you heed the improbable‐sounding warnings … you keep coming and coming, nightly … you Hang In and Hang In, meeting after meeting, warm day after cold day … older guys who seem to be less damaged—or at least less flummoxed by their damage—will tell you in terse simple imperative clauses exactly what to do, and where and when to do it (though never How or Why) … and now if the older guys say Jump you ask them to hold their hand at the desired height, and now they’ve got you, and you’re free.[29]

It is not my intention here to discuss the ironic interplay of this sentence (indeed Aubry discusses the paradox of ‘they’ve got you’ and ‘you’re free’ in his article), rather I am interested in expanding the analysis of the spatio-temporal constitution of the sentence and its ramifications for the Bakhtinian/Jamesonian/Lacanian models I have been employing.

The length of the sentence—as Aubry has indicated—encompasses the journey of the recovering addict from initial induction to final acceptance of and subservience to the overarching narrative the programme demands, and thus ‘freedom’. Therefore, the essence of this sentence’s narrative is also inherently temporal. Because the whole process is incorporated within a continuous sentence, there is an unbroken narrative unity drawn between the initial point of ‘Hanging In’ and final acceptance. I would argue that the spatio-temporal narrative of this sentence enacts an attempt to recover the entire unity of a historical narrative arc from the Jamesonian atemporality of the postmodern present, while also invoking for the reader Jameson’s employment of the linguistic Lacanian ‘schizophrenic’ sentence model as the basis for his historical diagnosis. In the same manner as the ‘one day at a time’ approach outlined above, the understanding of the historical (‘horizontal’) process of the journey taken by the subject is only fully actualised at the end of the sentence. The sealing of the sentence with a full stop creates the definitive end point of a space that now encompasses a teleological journey of recovery—one in which the recovering addict can retrospectively discern a definite spatio-historical process to their rehabilitation.

UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL

NOTES

[1] David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1996), p. 572.

[2] Ibid, p. 573.

[3] Ibid, p. 234.

[4] Ibid, p. 574.

[5] Ibid, p. 573.

[6] Malcolm Bradbury, The Modern American Novel, 2^nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 220.

[7] Connie Luther, ‘David Foster Wallace: Westward with Fredric Jameson’, in Consider David Foster Wallace: Critical Essays, ed. by David Hering (Austin/Los Angeles: Sideshow Media, 2010), p. 52.

[8] David Foster Wallace, Girl With Curious Hair (London: Abacus, 1989), p. 275.

[9] Marshall Boswell, Understanding David Foster Wallace (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003), p. 102.

[10] Luther, p. 52.

[11] Ibid, p. 53.

[12] Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (London: Verso, 1993), p. 27.

[13] Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin, ed. by Michael Holquist, trans. by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), p. 208.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid, p. 114-115.

[16] Ibid, p. 148.

[17] Jameson, p. 26-7.

[18] Ibid, p. 25.

[19] Infinite Jest, p. 279.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid, p. 302.

[22] Ibid, p. 280.

[23] Ibid, p. 302.

[24] Ibid, p. 467.

[25] Ibid, p. 360.

[26] Ibid, p. 858.

[27] Wallace, Infinite Jest, p. 572.

[28] Timothy Aubry, ‘Selfless Cravings: Addiction and Recovery in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest’, American Fiction of the 1990s: Reflections of History and Culture, ed. by Jay Prosser (London: Routledge, 2008), p. 211.

[29] Infinite Jest, p. 350-1.

US STUDIES ONLINE

THE REGIONAL MODERNISMS OF WILLIAM FAULKNER AND JOHN DOS PASSOS

JAMES HARDING

© James Harding. All Rights Reserved.

The present paper runs together—and by so doing seeks to complicate—two putatively ‘regional’ modernisms: William Faulkner and John Dos Passos. Historically contemporaneous, yet geographically removed, Faulkner and Dos Passos rarely meet in critical discussions of modernist practice. The former, often narrowly situated as an agrarian modern and rooted to the soil of the South is, it seems, incompatible as a reference point to the latter, who remains construed as fluent in the forms and syntax of American modernity and urban America. Notwithstanding the regional estrangement that keeps Faulkner and Dos Passos apart in the critical tradition, both, as I seek to show in the coming discussions, share a desire to mythologize two historically, culturally and aesthetically divergent American regions: the postbellum South and modernist New York. These two regional projects are worth considering jointly because they provide the means of contesting underlying assumptions with regard to American regional specificity.

I begin with Faulkner. While Faulkner remained emotionally tethered to the South, he was not a writer that, in Waldo Frank’s phrasing, ‘stayed at home’.[1] In fact, Faulkner made numerous journeys away from Mississippi during his lifetime, travelling, amongst other places to Canada (1918), Switzerland (1925; 1953), Greece (1957), Brazil (1954), Japan (1955), Sweden (1950), Egypt (1954), Venezuela (1961), Iceland (1955) and the Philippines (1955). An infamous—and supposedly reluctant—visit to Norway at the behest of the Nobel Committee in 1950 has been widely discussed;[2] his three trips to England (1925; 1952; 1954), a country that he frostily tagged ‘the Siberia of the mind’,[3] in addition to the three to Italy (1925; 1953; 1954) and the visits, as least four in number, to France (1925; 1952; 1953; 1954) are less well documented. France, I argue here, would hold a particular ‘fascination’ for Faulkner, especially through the twenties. In addition to this international journeying, Faulkner travelled frequently, if not extensively, within the United States. A ten-week sojourn to Connecticut in 1918 with Phil Stone was Faulkner’s first extended trip away from Mississippi,[4] yet it would not be the last trip from the South. Six productive and happy months followed in New Orleans in 1925. During the thirties, Faulkner would make frequent trips to New York; in the forties and fifties Faulkner travelled frequently between Oxford, Mississippi and Hollywood, California. Many of these relocations were undertaken begrudgingly, some less so, as Faulkner’s serial womanising copiously exemplifies. Whatever the motivation, these numerous journeys away from the South, at least twenty-five in number, altered the contours of the geographic ‘cosmos’ that Faulkner famously called his own.

In addition—and usefully, for present purposes—these relocations also allow us to redefine the contours of a critical tradition in dire need of realignment. Despite the recent exertions of colonial and hemispheric scholarship[5] to re-map Faulknerian territory and place the prose works within a transnational context, the prevailing scholarly tendency continues to read Faulkner as a static and essentially parochial writer.[6] In themselves part of a territorial dispute to wrestle ‘Faulkner’ back into the ‘Southern’ context, these claims to regional specificity—claims, in short, to ‘southernness’—are ideologically landlocked; narrowly conceived as a ‘regional’, modern Faulkner is rendered emblematic of Southern cultural and economic stagnation. ‘Faulkner’ becomes the ‘vessel’ within which the supposed ‘exceptionalism’ of the American South—an imperilled category of reference, often unconvincingly argued—might congeal. The metaphoricity of ‘Faulkner’ is indeed appealing, yet the substitution that it supposes dislodges a properly historical appreciation of a difficultly situated modernism. Faulkner, of course, is partly to blame for the sedentary labelling. Having famously claimed in 1927 to have ‘shut the door’ on his readers, his publisher, and by extension, on the society that would come to fete his literary achievements, Faulkner created, and subsequently ‘privatised’ a mythic ‘space’ within which his fictional materials could receive articulation.[7]

Yet to a significant degree, Faulkner’s South is inflected from without. ‘There is’, as Faulkner would write from New Orleans in early April 1925, ‘too much in the world to see, to spend all the time between four walls’.[8] That Faulkner’s fictions bear, as I think they do, the imprimatur of international modernisms is not to relegate the American South to the periphery. Any attempt to unpack the semantic densities that subtend Faulkner’s prose must be attuned to the social, economic and racial formations that, whilst not exceptional to the American South, would haunt the stories that the South would use to tell about itself (and conceivably, the stories that it would refuse to tell).[9] The fundamental principles that underpinned the logic of Southern means of production—first slavery, and then debt peonage at its centre— must be critically accounted for if one hopes to mount a properly historicised account of Faulknerian textual practice. Eric Sundquist is quite right in his assertion that Faulkner’s work engages with ‘the single most agonizing experience of his region and his nation: the crisis and long aftermath of American slavery’.[10] The ‘South’, then, and specifically its economic underpinnings, occupies the centre of Faulkner’s prose fiction. By failing to place the periphery, however, the centre cannot hold. The American South and continental Europe—specifically France—sustain a productive and conceivably dialectic connection in Faulkner. Thus, and in the idiom of the Marxist linguist Valentin Volosinov, geography becomes a ‘semantic context’ that engenders contradictions. For Volosinov, ‘semantic contexts do not stand side by side in a row, as if unaware of one another, but are in a state of constant tension, or incessant interaction and conflict’.[11] The text that carries European inflections most significantly is, I would suggest, Sanctuary (1931), a story of the rape of a seventeen-year-old virgin, Temple Drake, with a corn-cob, in a disused barn at the appropriately named ‘Frenchman’s bend’. The regional, and by implication ‘semantic’ conflict central to Sanctuary is sustained, I argue, between Paris and Mississippi. While ‘place’, then, is key to Faulkner and indeed occupies the foreground of his literary productions, this foreground is itself foregrounded by his evoking of the periphery. To scramble Hamlet’s wording, the place is out of joint.

Faulkner in Paris, 1925

Writing home to his mother Maud from Paris in the autumn of 1925, William Faulkner provides encouraging news from the continent. In the letter, postmarked September 6, Faulkner insinuates that he had hit a sort of literary jackpot:

I have just written such a beautiful thing that I am about to bust—2000 words about the Luxembourg gardens and death. It has a thin thread of plot, about a young woman, and it is poetry though written in prose form. I have worked on it for two whole days and every word is perfect. I haven’t slept hardly for two nights, thinking about it, comparing words, accepting and rejecting them, then changing again. But now it is perfect —a jewel. I am going to put it away for a week, then show it to someone for an opinion. So tomorrow I will wake up feeling rotten, I expect. Reaction. But its [sic] worth it, to have done a thing like this.[12]

Small, but perfectly formed, the ‘jewel’ to which this jubilant letter refers marks a germinal moment in Faulkner’s compositional chronology. Faulkner himself seemed taken aback by the magnificence of his own creation. The sense of disbelief would linger; four days later, Faulkner writes that the Parisian story was ‘[s]o beautiful that when I finished it I went to look at myself in a mirror. And I thought, Did that ugly ratty-looking face, that mixture of childishness and unreliability and sublime vanity, imagine that? But I did’.[13] The ‘thing’ over which Faulkner intently pored denoted his inaugural investment in a protracted compositional process that would, six years later, yield a novel. Inasmuch as it occasions Faulkner’s first thoughts on what would become his sixth novel, then, this extract, composed from his apartment which overlooked the Luxembourg gardens and detailing his observances of children playing in the park, marks a kind of literary beginning.[14] In due course, this ‘beginning’ would mark an ‘end’, however, providing the climax to the published Sanctuary. The final line of the novel, as published in 1931, runs thus:

She closed the compact and from beneath her smart new hat she seemed to follow with her eyes the waves of music, to dissolve into the dying brasses, across the pool and the opposite semicircle of trees where at sombre intervals the dead tranquil queens in stained marble mused, and on into the sky laying prone and vanquished in the embrace of the season of rain and death.[15]

The ‘she’ connotes Temple Drake; the passage is the remainder of an original prose passage ‘about a young woman’ who frequents ‘the Luxembourg gardens’ that Faulkner conceived in Paris five years earlier. The point is this: despite the many revisions that Faulkner made to his manuscript, Paris—and more specifically the ‘region’ within the perimeter walls of the Luxembourg gardens—provides the setting and the inspiration for what would later rank as Faulkner’s most notorious, most popular, and some might say most American novel. The Luxembourg gardens were the nucleus for Faulkner’s French activity and the location that occasioned the creative middle of Sanctuary. It proved, to prompt a coming term, to be the Vortex, ‘the point of maximum energy’.[16] As it turned out, these 2000 words, categorically French, which Faulkner immodestly rated ‘the most beautiful short story in the world’ would be put away for considerably more than ‘a week’.[17] Faulkner in fact shelved his Parisian ‘jewel’ until at least January 1929, at which point he would labour, ‘at white heat’ in Noel Polk’s term, for almost five months, to turn ‘story’ into ‘novel’.[18] Come 1930, after the completion of As I Lay Dying in February, Faulkner laboured again—this time at great personal expense—to turn his rejected and potentially court case-inducing set of galleys into a publishable text. It is perhaps unsurprising that in the course of composition, drafting, submission, refusal and extensive revisions, much of the ‘French’ story got lost. When Sanctuary materialised as a novel, in February 1931, the 2000 ‘French’ words translated as 345 ‘American’ words, which Faulkner appended as a delirious and floating final scene. Despite the five-year lag between the composition of the ‘French’ short story and its articulation in an ‘American’ novel, despite two types of re-situation—textual and national—and despite the rigorous pruning, in which ‘France’ virtually ‘disappears’ or is ‘rejected’ from the textual body, Faulkner transplants Paris, France, albeit partially and awkwardly, into the soil of Jefferson, Mississippi. Residual traces of the earlier French composition can nevertheless be detected throughout the published Sanctuary.

I would like to attend, briefly, to a moment in the 1931 novel in which France ‘repeats’ on Faulkner; it (France) ‘re-emerges’, reconstituted, so to speak, within the context of Sanctuary. Faulkner’s lucubration in Paris triggers an analogous outpouring in Jefferson, Mississippi: ‘Reaction’. Having ingested a strong black coffee on a recent train journey, Horace Benbow, attorney at law and ambivalent guardian of southern moral codes,

knew what that sensation in his stomach meant. He put the photograph [of his step daughter Little Belle] down hurriedly and went to the bathroom. He       opened the door running and fumbled at the light. But he had not time to find it and he gave over and plunged forward and struck the lavatory and leaned      upon his braced arms while the shucks set up a terrific roar beneath her thighs. Lying with her head lifted slightly, her chin depressed like a figure lifted down from a crucifix, she watched something black and furious go roaring out of her pale body. She was bound naked on her back on a flat car moving at speed through a black tunnel, the blackness streaming in rigid threads overhead, a roar of iron wheels in her ears. The car shot bodily from the tunnel in a long upward slant, the darkness overhead now shredded with parallel attenuations of living fire, toward a crescendo like a held breath, an interval in which she would swing faintly and lazily in nothingness filled with pale, myriad points of light. Far beneath her she could hear the faint, furious uproar of the shucks.[19]

Horace’s vomiting evokes the moment at which 2000 words pour from—or ‘bust’ out of—the Faulknerian imagination in France in the autumn of 1925. Horace’s physical emission, set in train by Temple’s (re)telling of her rape and brought to a climax by a seamy and highly problematic visualisation of Little Belle, is a narrative re-enactment of Faulkner’s literary emission, described in enthusiastic terms to Maud Falkner [so spelt] which occurs as Faulkner, perhaps like Benbow, running and fumbl[ing]’ to his room, inspired by sights within the Jardin de Luxembourg and desperate to ‘plung[e] forward’ or ‘pour forth’ at his typewriter, to ‘vomit’ his words onto the page. Certainly, Faulkner’s reviewers concurred with Faulkner’s assessment as to Sanctuary’s putrid subject matter: ‘I thought of the most horrific thing I could think of and wrote it’, Faulkner famously noted, in 1957.[20] The topoi between Faulkner’s apartment and Benbow’s bathroom are striking in their similarity. The second passage is a re-placement of the first. Apartment room and bathroom elide: Paris is Mississippied. These passages, in effect, bring Parisian apartment and Mississippian toilet into a reciprocal relation.

The vomit that issues from Benbow’s mouth, sufficiently blackened by ‘coffee’ to racialise the act, is shortly, and problematically, attributed to Temple. Shifting, without warning, from the masculine personal pronoun, ‘he’ to the feminine ‘she’, Faulkner’s syntax brings Horace’s mouth and Temple’s vagina into congress. Where one hole ends, another begins. The job of both of these outlets is, I suggest, to spew out the ‘black stuff’.[21] As Faulkner puts it, Temple ‘watched something black and furious go roaring out of her pale body’. As if one reference to vomiting up blackness was not enough to racialise Temple’s rape (or, better yet, racialise Horace’s desire to rape his step-daughter), the allusions continue. The ‘blackness streaming in rigid threads overhead’ is key in this connexion, taking us back to the sudden and keenly ejaculatory compositional process from which Faulkner’s French story emerged. Specifically, ‘rigid threads’ evokes what Faulkner describes as the ‘thin thread of plot’ that runs through his short story ‘about the Luxembourg gardens and death’. These two ‘threads’ may at first seem tenuously related, yet they achieve more substantial articulation if we relate them, briefly, to a narrative presence which threads through Faulkner’s short story and the passage cited from Sanctuary: Madame Bovary (1857). Faulkner not only read Flaubert’s novel in the early twenties but he reread it whilst he was in Paris in the summer of 1925.[22] Bovary and Temple are linked, in a material sense, by a trail – or ‘thin thread’ – of putrescence that issues, in the first instance, from Bovary’s mouth as a result of arsenic poisoning and, in the second, from the vagina of Temple as a result of a violent rape. Here, then, what Faulkner dubs ‘that black stuff that ran out of Bovary’s mouth and down upon her bridal veil when they lifted her head’ is thus re-imagined as the emergence of black matter from Temple’s vagina.[23] With her ‘her head lifted slightly’, from the crucifix, Temple is an inverted Bovary.

These two passages are not only united topographically (typewriter and toilet bowl elide) but they share an aesthetic reference, namely ‘Vorticism’. It is not difficult to detect Vorticist inflections within Horace’s exchange. Terms like ‘plunging’, ‘roared’ and ‘furious’ appropriate the dynamic energy of the vortex as defined by Pound, if not Vorticism itself, as practiced in London by Wyndham Lewis, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and David Bomburg. Temple’s body, throughout Sanctuary, seems at the mercy of Vorticist energies; manically animated, she shoots off at various angles, disappears into and through various holes, doorways, attic spaces; drawn into almost inconceivably contorted positions, Temple’s movement throughout the novel mimics the centrifugal logic of Vorticism. Indeed, Temple’s vagina is the vortex par excellence, the hole or Poundian ‘point’ to which the entirety of the action, and ultimately, Popeye’s corncob is drawn. Biographical evidence supports the claim that the vortex was in Faulkner’s mind through the composition of Sanctuary. Only three weeks before Faulkner wrote his 2000 words, he experienced Vorticism at first hand. In a letter dated the 18^th of August, 1925, Faulkner tells his mother of the experience; the impact was immediate and it was lasting: ‘went to a very very modernist exhibition the other day—futurist and vorticist’.[24] In the immediate aftermath of this viewing of ‘futurist and vorticist’ material, which may—if it was vorticist—have been more than a dozen years old by 1925, Faulkner wrote a poem, based on his experience of French modernism, that was ‘so modern’ that even he professed not to know its meaning.[25] While striking in its enthusiasm regarding the ‘very very modernist’ exhibits of Paris that may or may not have been ‘new’ at all, the August letter does not denote Faulkner’s first reference to Vorticism, however. Faulkner references ‘the Vorticist schools’, in February 1925, in a short story, composed in New Orleans, entitled ‘Mirrors of Chartres Street’.[26]

I argue above, and with reference to a key early fiction, that Faulkner assimilates Paris, his ‘periphery’, into the context of the American South, his ‘centre’ ground. I propose, in a second set of arguments, to assess the relation between text and region in moments from Dos Passos’ travel writing and correspondence and, by so doing, plot a more fluid literary geography. Like Faulkner, Dos Passos scouts for useable material abroad, material that he subsequently incorporates back into the American Scene. Unlike Faulkner, who crammed much of his foreign travel into one or two digestible portions, Dos Passos would travel extensively, and often, spreading his international excursions over a much longer period. And, also unlike Faulkner, whose frequent letters home suggest an acute homesickness, Dos Passos’ letters and diaries demonstrate a coolness that is entirely absent in the various correspondences sent by Faulkner. Whereas Faulkner’s geographies congeal, or clot, to be hacked up at moments of intensity, Dos Passos’ geographies, and by extension his texts, seem constantly on the move; his prose works and travelogues, in fact, as literary articles, plot what he calls ‘[t]he idolization of action’.[27]

A number of critics have noted the ease with which Dos Passos crossed international borders. Dos Passos enjoyed what he would famously call a ‘hotel childhood’, yet this ‘peripatetic youth’, in Donald Pizer’s phrasing, led to an equally itinerant adulthood.[28] Dos Passos’ relation to America, and specifically, to New York, was beset by ambivalence. A diary entry of August 24, 1917, penned while in service in France, testifies to Dos Passos’ resentment toward the perceived duplicity of the national character: ‘[a]t present America is to me utter anathema—I can’t think of it without belching disgust at the noisiness of it, the meaningless chatter of its lying tongues.’[29] Dos Passos was convinced that ‘it will take generations to leaven the great stupid mass of America’;[30] specifically to liberate the nation ‘from under the crushing weight of industry’.[31]

While Dos Passos critiqued what Max Horkheimer might call the ‘massification’ of American productivity, he simultaneously drew upon these modes as the cultural capital for his later fictions, primarily, U.S.A. (1936).[32] Dos Passos, in short, was repelled and at the same time magnetised by the industrial aspect of American modernity. America might be what he called a ‘train throbbing to the heart of lead horizons’[33] but this throbbing was the effect of what he lustily termed: ‘vigor, force, modernity’.[34] Dos Passos’ foreign jaunts would remind him of the almost unfathomable magnetism of New York City. Replete with vorticist intonations, Dos Passos, whilst on board a ship off the coast of Damascus, would write that ‘we felt the suction of the great machine, the glint of whirring nickel, the shine of celluloid and enamel, the crackle of banknotes fingered in banks, the click and grinding of oiled wheels.’[35] The erotic inflections that subtend Dos Passos’ commentary should not go un-noted. The words ‘suction’, ‘fingered’, ‘grinding’ and ‘oiled’ are suggestively wrought; these terms invest the ‘great machine’ with a quasi-human voluptuousness.[36] Even the word ‘glint’—a reference to a blinding moment of ‘exposure’—generates a certain sexual static: ‘glint’ is part ‘wink’ part ‘grunt’. With an enticing wink and a primitive grunt (a grunt that, in turn, shoulders the semantic weighting of two corporeal exertions, sex and labour) the organs of industrial culture entice Dos Passos yet simultaneously assert a devastating, eroticised power. Tellingly, then, it was whilst Dos Passos was abroad that his thinking on American modes sharpened. Unlike Faulkner, who transplants Paris into Mississippi, Dos Passos projects New York onto Damascus. Another letter, this time from Paris, underscores this regional ambivalence. In June 1919, Dos Passos writes from Paris that

life in Europe in saner, healthier and happier than in America. I admit that America is more dear to me than Europe—probably its colossal hideousness, its febrile insanity are evolving towards a better life for man. But none of that’s to the point. The thing I object to is the mental attitude involved—And at this moment I can’t quite explain why I object to it.[37]

Dos Passos would remain unable to ‘explain’ his Poundian relation to the ‘colossal hideousness’ of American capitalism. As he confessed to Thomas P. Cope in 1920, ‘America has an unhallowed attraction for me’.[38] For Dos Passos, at the beginning of the twenties, ‘America’ meant ‘New York’. In September 1920, less than one month into what would become a three-and-a-half-year residence, Dos Passos writes to his French friend Germaine Lucas-Championnière, insisting that

New York—after all—is magnificent—a city of cavedwellers, with a frightful, brutal ugliness about it, full of thunderous voices of metal grinding on metal and of an eternal sound of wheels which turn, turn on heavy stones. People swarm meekly like ants along designated routes, crushed by the disdainful and pitiless things around them.[39]

New York struck Dos Passos as ‘magnifique’ but at the same time, like Baudelaire’s cité fourmillante, it was a codeword for submission, drudgery and uniformity. What Dos Passos had referred to as ‘the procession of industrialism’ in the late ‘teens, remained a significant source of discomfort at the beginning of the twenties.[40] Initially, New York had struck Dos Passos as ‘vapid and grimy […] silly and rather stupendous’.[41] Yet over the course of the next three years, Dos Passos became attuned to the harsh ‘angularities of New York’[42]—angularities that had, he previously claimed, made the city look ‘rather funny—like a badly drawn cartoon’.[43] By 1922, Dos Passos would describe New York as ‘grimy hectic and rather thrillingly gruff with springtime’.[44] The thrill would swiftly translate into a kind of ecstasy: ‘I’ve never liked this fantastic city so mucho questo paese sotta sopra [so much this country upside down]’, Dos Passos would chirrup gladly to McComb in April.[45] ‘I like its fearfulness better than ever’, he would follow, in May.[46] In fact, by March 1923 Dos would write ‘I have never been so happy in my life’.[47] Yet Dos Passos’ happiness would fail to mask his uncertainty toward the procedural logic of American capitalism; moreover, it would fail to keep him from making frequent journeys away from the United States. As Yoknapatawpha proved the centre of the Faulknerian universe, New York proves central for Dos Passos. Both literally and imaginatively, New York was, during the twenties, the place to which he would perennially return. Yet during the twenties, Dos Passos would constantly look into the ‘East’, toward Europe, as a means of ‘leavening’ the excesses that, for him, characterised American living. As he reports in 1927 of a journey taken through the ‘Red Caucuses’ in 1921 (his first trip to the Soviet bloc): ‘[w]e used to dream of a wind out of Asia that would blow our cities clean of the Things that are our gods, the knickknacks and scraps of engraved paper and the vases and the curtain rods, the fussy junk possession of which divides poor man from rich man.’ Continuing, Dos Passos slams what he calls ‘the shoddy manufactured goods that are all our civilization prizes, that we wear our hands and brains out working for’. Dos Passos subsequently locates Russia as a viable model of living that might be both modern and just:

[t]hat wind has blown Russia clean, so that the Things held divine a few years ago are mouldering rubbish in odd corners… Harder, harder blows the wind out of Asia; it has upset the table, taken the chair out from under me. Bottle in one hand, glass in the other, I brace myself against the scaring wind.[48]

On this first trip, the ‘wind out of Asia’ blew too hard even for Dos Passos, sending him, both physically and ideologically, back to the United States. Dos Passos returned to Russia, however, in 1928; this time ingratiating himself in the cultural ferment as well as the physical landscape. ‘Having a swell time in Russia’, Dos Passos would cheerfully write Hemingway in the autumn.[49] Further, the trip would prove informative with regard to Dos Passos’ literary investments. In Moscow, he met with the film director Sergei Eisenstein, stage director Vsevolod Meyerhold and Vsevolod Pudovkin. Dos Passos would integrate, as did Faulkner, these experiences into his fictions. The imaginative distance between the United States and Russia would increase, however, as the twenties came to an end. Russia, as Dos Passos wrote in the thirties, was ‘too enormous, it was too difficult’.[50] It was America, ultimately, that, vortex-like, sucked Dos Passos back in.

UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

NOTES

[1] See Waldo Frank, Our America (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1919), p. 193.

[2] See Eric Solomon, ’Joseph Conrad, William Faulkner and the Nobel Prize Speech,’ Notes and Queries, 14 (1967), 247-48; James B. Meriwether, ‘A. E. Housman and Faulkner’s Nobel Prize Speech: A Note,’ Journal of American Studies, 4 (1971), 247-248; Michael Grimwood, ‘The Self-Parodic Context of Faulkner’s Nobel Prize Speech,’ Southern Review, 15 (1979), 366-75; David Rife, ‘Rex Stout and William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize Speech’, Journal of Modern Literature, 10 (1983), 151-152; Joel Williamson, William Faulkner and Southern History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), especially pp. 273-274. Also John T. Matthews, William Faulkner: Seeing Through the South (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2009), pp. 284-5.

[3] Joseph Blotner, Faulkner: A Biography, 2 vols (London: Chatto and Windus, 1974), I, p. 381.

[4] Thinking of Home: William Faulkner’s Letters to his Mother and Father, 1918-1925, ed. by James G. Watson, 2^nd edn, (New York: Norton, 2000), p. 11.

[5] For leading accounts of this re-mapping see Hosam Aboul-Ela, ‘The Poetics of Peripheralization: Faulkner and the Question of the Postcolonial,’ American Literature, 77 (2005), 483-509; Ramon Saldívar, ‘Looking for a Master Plan: Faulkner, Paredes, and the Colonial and Postcolonial Subject’, in The Cambridge Companion to William Faulkner, ed. by Philip Weinstein (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 96-120; John T. Matthews, ‘Recalling the West Indies: From Yoknapatawpha to Haiti and Back’, American Literary History, 16 (2004), 238-62; and Edouard Glissant, Faulkner, Mississippi (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

[6] See Charles S. Aiken, William Faulkner and the Southern Landscape (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009); Mark Royden Winchell, Reinventing the South: Versions of a Literary Region (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006);Daniel J. Singal, William Faulkner: The Making of a Modernist (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997).

[7] Philip Cohen and Doreen Fowler, ‘Faulkner’s Introduction to The Sound and the Fury’, American Literature, 62 (1990), 262-283 (p. 263).

[8] Watson, Thinking of Home, p. 175.

[9] John Cell’s provocative study The Highest Stage of White Supremacy: The Origins of Segregation in South Africa and the American South (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), relates the postbellum South to the South Africa that emerged from apartheid and by so doing provides a rebuke to the historiographical exceptionalism of Americanist slave studies. For a pertinent link to Brazilian modes of production and how they intersect with American, see Carl N. Degler’s study ‘Slavery in Brazil and the United States: An Essay in Comparative History’, American Historical Review, 75 (1970), 1004-1028. On slave systems in the Caribbean—arguably the most pertinent frame of reference with regard to Faulkner—see Sidney Mintz, especially his essay ‘The Caribbean Region’, Daedalus, 103 (1974), 45-71; see also Arnold A. Sio, ‘Interpretations of Slavery: The Slave Status in the Americas’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 7 (1965), 289-308.

[10] Eric J. Sundquist, Faulkner: The House Divided (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), p. 6.

[11] V.N. Volosinov, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, trans. by Ladislav Matejka and I.R. Titunik (1929; repr. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 80.

[12] Selected Letters of William Faulkner, ed. by Joseph Blotner (New York: Random House, 1977), p. 17.

[13] Ibid, p. 20.

[14] After a brief stay in Montparnasse, Faulkner took a room at 26 Rue de Servandoni, on the north edge of the Luxembourg gardens. Although the present concierge of the building (now a hotel) is unable to provide exact details of which room Faulkner kept, it is probable, unless he was located on the first floor, that Faulkner would have been able to see directly into the park whilst he sat at his typewriter (basin).

[15] William Faulkner, Sanctuary (1931) in Faulkner: Novels, 1930-1935, ed. by Joseph Blotner and Noel Polk (New York: Library of America, 1985), p. 398.

[16] Pound articulated the notion of the vortex in his essay “Vortex” in the first edition of Blast, published in July 1914.

[17] Blotner, Selected Letters, p. 20.

[18] See Noel Polk’s ‘Afterword’ to Sanctuary: The Original Text (New York: Random House, 1981), p. 294.

[19] Novels: 1930-1935, p. 333.

[20] Faulkner in the University, ed. by Frederick L. Gwynn and Joseph L. Blotner (1959; repr. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995), pp.90-91.

[21] Polk, Sanctuary, p. 184.

[22] Polk, ‘Afterword’, p. 294.

[23] Polk, Sanctuary, p. 184, italics added.

[24] Blotner, Selected Letters, p. 13.

[25] Ibid, p. 17.

[26] William Faulkner, ‘Mirrors of Chartres Street’, in William Faulkner: New Orleans Sketches, ed. by Carvel Collins (London: Chatto and Windus, 1958), pp. 15-18 (16).

[27] John Dos Passos, Travel Books and Other Writings: 1916-41, ed. by Townsend Ludington (New York: Library of America, 2003), p. 729.

[28] Donald Pizer, Dos Passos’ ‘U.S.A’: A Critical Study (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1988), pp. 10-11.

[29] Ludington, Travel Books, p. 674.

[30] Ibid, 732.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. by John Cumming (1944; repr. London: Verso, 2010), pp. 120-168.

[33] Ludington, Travel Books, p. 775.

[34] Ibid, p. 30.

[35] Ibid, p. 239.

[36] See Eugene O’Neill, Dynamo (New York, Liveright, 1929), for a similar account of the terrifying (sexualised) power of the machine.

[37] Ludington, Travel Books, p. 775.

[38] The Fourteenth Chronicle: Letters and Diaries of John Dos Passos, ed. by Townsend Ludington (Boston: Gambit, 1973), p. 294.

[39] Ibid, p. 794.

[40] Ludington, Travel Books, p. 20.

[41] Ludington, The Fourteenth Chronicle, p. 302.

[42] Ludington, Travel Books, p. 658.

[43] Ludington, The Fourteenth Chronicle, p. 299.

[44] John Dos Passos’ Correspondence with Arthur K. McComb, or ‘Learn to Sing the Carmagnole’, ed. by Melvin Landsburg (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1991), p. 190.

[45] Ibid, p. 192.

[46] Ibid, p. 197.

[47] Ibid, p. 203.

[48] Ludington, Travel Books, p. 162-3.

[49] The undated letter from John Dos Passos to Ernest Hemingway, penned during the summer of 1928, is held at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia, 5950, box 4.

[50] Ludington, Travel Books, p. 90.

US STUDIES ONLINE

AMERICAN GEOGRAPHIES: A REPORT ON THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR AMERICAN STUDIES POSTGRADUATE CONFERENCE, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 2010

AARON R HANLON AND STEPHEN ROSS

© Aaron R Hanlon and Stephen Ross

The 2010 BAAS Postgraduate Conference, ‘American Geographies’, took place on 13 November at Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute and was a great success. In addition to noting the high standard of the panels we ourselves had the pleasure of attending, we were gratified to receive positive feedback from many of the participants, who hailed from universities including UC Berkeley, Cambridge, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford, Sussex, Thessaloniki, UCL, Yale, and more.

We were also especially privileged to have two outstanding keynote speakers, both of whom delivered impressive and engaging talks. We felt Donald Pease’s thoroughgoing meditation on transnationalism and its relation to American Geographies complemented Nick Selby’s rich and eloquent talk on American nature poetics very nicely. Overall, the ‘American Geographies’ conference theme proved to be as inclusive and stimulating a topic as we’d hoped it would be.

While our 39 papers covered a range of topics across disciplines, we were able to construct ten strong panels centered on themes such as border studies, early national literature and politics, and gender and geography. In addition to the panels, participants had the chance to get publishing tips from Professor Dick Ellis, hear about opportunities for study or research abroad offered by the Fulbright Commission and the NYU Summer Scheme in New York, and, between events, convene around coffee and sandwiches to meet other researchers or carry on conversations from prior panels. The atmosphere of collegiality and intellectual curiosity was particularly encouraging.

From our notably strong and abundant selection of papers emerged four contributions that we are proud to see featured in this issue of US Studies Online. David Hering’s ‘Theorising David Foster Wallace’s Toxic Postmodern Spaces’ enhances scholarly discussions of Wallace’s orientation toward postmodernism by calling attention to Wallace’s spatial and geographical narrative strategies. In ‘The Regional Modernisms of William Faulkner and John Dos Passos’, James Harding challenges critical tendencies to regionalize Faulkner and Dos Passos, and reflects on how these tendencies participate in assumptions of ‘American regional specificity’. ‘Charles Henri Ford’s Blues and Regionalism’, by Alexander Howard, recovers Ford from the critical fringe, tracing Ford’s influence on more prominent poets from both sides of the Atlantic, and arguing powerfully for greater critical attention to Ford’s work. Finally, Vidyan Ravinthiran’s ‘Prose-Rhythm and the Aesthetic Claim: A New Reading of Elizabeth Bishop’s “Santarém”’ gives us a fresh and compelling re-reading of ‘Santarém’ in which Ravinthiran explores Bishop’s dramatization, ‘by the very texture of the writing itself’, of the anxiety surrounding Kantian aesthetic judgment.

We would like to thank BAAS once more for their support throughout the planning process, as well as our keynote speakers, Professor Donald Pease of Dartmouth College and Dr Nick Selby of the University of East Anglia. Many thanks also go to our panelists and participants for helping us put on a truly stimulating and productive conference.

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

AMERICAN GEOGRAPHIES: A REPORT ON THE BAAS POSTGRADUATE CONFERENCE, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 2010

STEPHEN ROSS AND AARON HANLON, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

THE REGIONAL MODERNISMS OF WILLIAM FAULKNER AND JOHN DOS PASSOS

JAMES HARDING, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

THEORISING DAVID FOSTER WALLACE’S TOXIC POSTMODERN SPACES

DAVID HERING, UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL

CHARLES HENRI FORD’S BLUES AND REGIONALISM

ALEXANDER HOWARD, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

PROSE-RHYTHM AND THE AESTHETIC CLAIM: A New Reading of Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘Santarém’

VIDYAN RAVINTHIRAN, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

British Association for American Studies

Annual General Meeting 2011

  The 2011 AGM of BAAS was held on Friday 15 April at the University of Central Lancashire at 3:15pm.

Elections:

Secretary            Jo Gill                                                                        (to 2014)

Committee            Nigel Bowles                                                            (to 2014)

Sue Currell                                                            (to 2014)

Sylvia Ellis                                                            (to 2014)

The Treasurer circulated copies of the Trustees’ Report and the draft audited accounts, which she asked the AGM to approve. Dick Ellis (Birmingham) proposed that the accounts be approved; Will Kaufman (UCLAN) seconded the motion, and it was carried unanimously.

The Treasurer noted that the bank accounts (as at 13 April 20011) were as follows: General Deposit, £36,647.42; Short Term Awards, £1,883.38; Current, £7,379.97; making a total of £45,910.77. The US Dollar Account has $9,454.27.

TS reported that fully paid up members as at April 2011 currently stand at 302 (104 postgraduate). This compares favourably to the position last year, which was 294 (with 118 postgraduates). With no change to SO the number of members rises to 424 (130 postgraduate). TS reminded the AGM of the need to update Standing Orders (to inform the bank of the new BAAS membership fees) as those who have not done so are not full members and therefore are not entitled to vote in the elections.

In terms of the accounts, TS noted a healthy surplus of £2,222 this year.

The Chair offered a comprehensive verbal report in which he reflected on the past twelve months, noting that the past eight months in particular have been the most turbulent during his – and many colleagues’ – time in Higher Education. Attacks on the foundation of higher and further education in the UK have gone on at such speed that it has been hard to catch breath or to examine alternatives to the HEFCE cuts that we all face this autumn, before higher fees start in autumn 2012. The government have claimed that their decision to cut state support for undergraduate fees is blind to any subject area, but it is clear that 100% cuts to arts and social science subjects – those underpinning our American Studies community – is not the equivalent to smaller percentage cut to STEM subjects.

With most universities intending to charge £8000-£9000 fees per year, 2012 will be a difficult year for undergraduate recruitment across the sector, particularly for non-school subjects with school leavers’ choices likely to become more conservative, swayed by the prospect of £40,000+ debts after a 3-year degree. The government have not fully considered the knock-on effect on 4-year degrees with a year abroad, or recruitment to postgraduate degrees where higher fees and mounting debt is likely to deter many. The fact that fees will not be paid up front, and the ‘graduate contribution’ will be staggered across a life-time’s working, might become normalized in a few years’ time.

Against this turbulent climate, MH thought it would be helpful for us to think about the very beginnings of BAAS in 1955. A fortnight ago, the Secretary and MH visited the BAAS Archive at the University of Birmingham and consulted the articles and constitution from the first BAAS meeting held at University College Oxford in July 1955.

The articles state that: ‘The purpose of the Association shall be the encouragement of study and research in the history, institutions, literature and geography of the United States’; the focus of BAAS should be ‘the holding of conferences; the periodical publication of papers; the establishment of a centre of record for research materials in the UK, including microfilm; and the investigation and encouragement of the means of travel and study for British scholars in the US.’

Clearly, our work is broader and more inclusive than 56 years ago, but also remains close to the original articles. The breadth of what we do now is clear from the spread of subjects being presented at this conference, including politics and international relations, film and visual culture, intellectual, social and cultural history, music, theatre, law, material culture, social networking, and publishing. It is also evident in the special panel on ‘American Studies in India’, for which we are grateful to the US Embassy in New Delhi for their sponsorship, and the ‘Fulbright Panel’ which has been organized by our colleagues at the Fulbright Commission. We remain, as ever, very grateful to the US Embassy in London for their personal and financial support, and to the Eccles Centre at the British Library that continues to enhance the range of awards available to our community, including an exciting new award for 2011: a Writer in Residence at the British Library.

MH reflected that it is heartening to know that BAAS has stuck to our core principles and purpose over the last 56 years. Although we might be a more diffuse community now than five years ago, when there were more American Studies departments, the subject is thriving at degree, course and module level. Undergraduate admissions were strong in 2010 and look very good for 2011; so, although we face tough times in 2012 and 2013, we do so from a strong base. Reorganization has taken place recently at the University of Sussex and the University of Nottingham – the School of American and Canadian Studies at Nottingham will be a department within a broader School from autumn 2011, and Film Studies has already broken away from American Studies to join another unit – and BAAS remains concerned over the future of the US concentration at the Institute for the Study of the Americas. BAAS will keep making the institutional arguments for the visibility of American Studies, but there is still much that keeps our community visible and vibrant. To take just three examples: (i) Iwan Morgan’s First UK Survey of US Presidents; (ii) Sue Currell’s major contribution to the 3-part BBC documentary ‘Glamour’s Golden Age’, and (iii) the new BAAS website which was launched as a prototype at last year’s AGM, and is now fully functional.

Appointments/Promotions

MH reported that it has been a very good year for appointments and promotions.

• From September 2011 Dr Nigel Bowles (University of Oxford) will become full-time Director of the Rothermere American Institute and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford from September 2011.
• Professor Heidi Macpherson (previous Chair of BAAS) has been appointed as Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research at De Montfort University.
• Professor Philip Davies (Director of the Eccles Centre) has been appointed the President of the European Association for American Studies for one year until April 2012.
• Professor Geoff Plank joined the School of American Studies at UEA as Professor of American History in autumn 2010.
• Dr Andew Warnes has been promoted to a Reader at the University of Leeds
• Dr Mark Whalan (Exeter) has been appointed as Associate Professor and the Robert D. and Eve E. Horn Chair of English at the University of Oregon, to start in autumn 2011.

Grants

• A double congratulation to Dr Celeste-Marie Bernier (University of Nottingham) who has been awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize worth £70,000 for her research in the History of African American Art and an AHRC Fellowship worth £48,000 for work on Horace Pippin.
• Dr Sue Currell (Sussex) has been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for her project ‘The History of the New Masses Magazine, 1926-48’ worth £44,283.
• Dr Jo Gill (Exeter) has been awarded a Leverhulme International Network Grant for a Suburban Cultures Network worth £68,836.
• Professor Will Kaufman (University of Central Lancashire) was awarded an AHRC Fellowship worth £34,488 for his project ‘Radical Guthrie’.

REF 2014

MH reported that much of the correspondence in his first eight months as Chair concerned the Research Excellence Framework 2014. It was BAAS’s hope to ensure that we had 9 Americanists on the various subpanels to which American Studies work will be submitted: Area Studies, History, English, Politics and International Relations, and Cultural and Communication Studies. BAAS submitted names of nominated colleagues and, although our intentions were not fully realized (largely due to HEFCE wanting to limit the overall number of panelists), he thanked all colleagues who agreed to have their names but forward, and particularly the successfully nominated panelists: Heidi Macpherson (De Montfort) and Brian Ward (Manchester) on the Area Studies Subpanel; Martin Halliwell (Leicester) on the English Subpanel; Susan Mary Grant (Newcastle) on the History Subpanel; and John Dumbrell (Durham) on the Politics and International Relations Subpanel. MH noted that other colleagues in the broader community have also been chosen as panelists: Susan Hodgett (Queen’s, Belfast) on Area Studies; James Dunkerley (Queen Mary) on Politics and IR, and Yvonne Tasker (UEA) on Cultural and Communication Studies. This provides American Studies with a good spread of expertise within REF Panels C and D, and there may be the possibility of bringing in Independent Assessors for busy subpanels later in the process.

Invitations

The Chair noted that during the course of 2010-11 he attended a number of meetings and consultations at the British Academy, the AHRC, the ESRC and the Academy of Social Sciences. The research councils’ flat-cash settlement and the maintenance of QR funding (members should note that 2* research will not receive QR funding in the future) was a much better outcome than many feared, but with administrative costs slashed at the research councils and the need for councils to ‘manage demand’ there will be fewer and bigger grants, with the probability that consortia bids for PhD studentships and networks will be the way of the future. BAAS notes with some concern the loss of the British Academy Small Research Awards; the British Academy made the case to the government that these should continue, but lost that argument in their funding settlement. This makes the BAAS Awards even more important to American Studies scholars needing to conduct archive work abroad.

Other Activities

The Chair noted that there have been a number of other activities this year; among them the following four:

1. In September BAAS wrote to Craig Mahoney, Chief Executive of the HEA, and Vice-Chancellors to lobby for the continuation of the range of Subject Centres. Unfortunately, this lobbying was unsuccessful, and the Subject Centres look set to fold into a centralized resource in York. BAAS is uncertain what the future holds for ‘Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies’ as they are currently represented in the Subject Centre at the University of Southampton.

1. The Chair wrote to David Willetts, the Universities Minister, the day the Browne Report was published in October to indicate the threat of high fees to American Studies, particularly the four-year model with a year abroad. MH received a reply some weeks later, but without real engagement with the detail of the letter. As a follow-up, a letter written by BUTEX  (British Universities Transatlantic Exchange Association) with input from BAAS has gone to David Willetts and Alan Langlands at HEFCE this week, including co-signatories from a number of interested parties, including the Chair of the British Association for Canadian Studies, the Director of the Eccles Centre, and a range of Modern Languages Association. At the Heads of American Studies Meeting, held at the ISA in December, attendees discussed this issue and the possibility that universities might either agree (i) to students paying 1/3 fees for the year abroad or (ii) that dedicated scholarships can be offered for four-year degrees including an accredited year abroad, in order not to deter applicants.

1. At that Heads meeting attendees also discussed an idea generated by the BAAS Executive of appointing an intern to map key changes within the American Studies community between the decade of 2000-10. This would focus on institutional change and the RAE, but also developments in study abroad, changes in the postgraduate community and BAAS’s external relationships with the US Embassy, the Fulbright Commission, the Eccles Centre, Schools, etc. The internship was advertised in association with the Fulbright Commission, and the BAAS Officers interviewed from a strong field of early career scholars in early April at the University of Birmingham. Richard Martin from Birkbeck College was appointed BAAS Intern. Richard will be working closely with the Development Subcommittee during 2011-12 and BAAS aims to present the results of this study at next year’s BAAS Annual General Meeting at the University of Manchester.

1. BAAS is also delighted to announce a new Graduate Teaching Assistant to add to the three we currently administer at the Universities of Virginia, New Hampshire and Wyoming. From 2012 we will be adding a GTA in Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi.

The Chair concluded his report by thanking all the members of the Executive Committee, and particularly those colleagues whose term on the Executive has come to an end.

He thanked Will Kaufman (Vice Chair of BAAS in 2010-11 and Chair of Development for a number of years); Mark Whalan (Chair of Publications); Robert Mason (who has worked on both the Conference Subcommittee and during the last year looked after the BAAS GTAs); and our Teaching Rep, Chris Bates.

Finally, the Chair thanked Catherine Morley who is stepping down after four years as BAAS Secretary, but who has been on the BAAS Exec for 9 years, first as Postgraduate Representative when she was also Editor of US Studies Online, then Editor of American Studies in Britain, before taking over as Secretary in 2007. MH noted that the Secretary was the driving force behind the new BAAS website, she also works closely with the Chair of Awards, and she approaches all tasks with good cheer and enthusiasm. He added that she would be missed on the BAAS Executive Committee.

Conferences:

George Lewis began his report by acknowledging what a huge success the UCLAN conference had been so far, and offered public congratulations to Theresa Saxon and her team of for the hard work they had put in before and during the conference. GL noted that this year he had visited the 2012 conference site at Manchester with Ian Scott, the 2012 conference organiser. The conference will be based at the University of Manchester (12-15 April 2012) and preparations are already well underway with the three plenary speakers already confirmed. He noted that the call for papers would be available soon and members were asked to consider submitting proposals early to allow for planning.

The 2013 (18-21 April) conference will be held at the University of Exeter, organised by Jo Gill, Sinéad Moynihan and Paul Williams. The University of Birmingham will host the conference in 2014 (10-13 April). There are currently two tenders for the 2015 conference. GL invited suggestions for future conferences.

GL concluded his report by thanking all members of the Conference Subcommittee, especially his predecessor Dr Sarah Maclachlan.

Publications:

Mark Whalan reported that it had been a busy year for the BAAS Publications Subcommittee, with a number of key personnel changes making this a year of transition. In April MW took over from MH as Chair of the subcommittee and by the end of 2010 the Journal of American Studies, American Studies in Britain and US Studies Online all had new Editorial teams.

At the Journal of American Studies, Professor Susan Castillo retired as Editor after working with the journal for a decade. MW thanked her, on behalf of BAAS, for the extraordinary skill and intellectual vision she brought to this position. BAAS was pleased to welcome Professor Scott Lucas (Birmingham) to the role of Editor, assisted by Dr Celeste-Marie Bernier (Nottingham) and Dr Bevan Sewell (Nottingham) as Associate Editors.

The March 2011 issue of JAS was the last supervised by Professor Castillo. The new team have already begin discussions with Cambridge University Press about the framing of the journal to ensure that it is not only seen as a location for individual, high-quality essays, review articles, and reviews but as an entity putting forward interrogations of ‘American Studies’ in the 21st century. The June 2011 issue will feature a statement by the new Editors. It will also out forth a revised presentation on the electronic side, as part of the move of published selected articles in electronic-only format. It is hoped this policy will expand the journal’s provision of material, allow it to clear the backlog of material that is currently delaying the lead-time of articles. This June issue will then be followed by two special issues: September 2011’s ‘Ten Years After 9/11’ and March 2012’s ‘Oil and American Studies’. Three other proposals for special issues are under consideration. The JAS editors welcome ideas for roundtable reviews, especially on recent titles they feel are deserving of in-depth attention and debate.

Supporting this development is CUP’s introduction of ScholarOne for the electronic-only handling of submitted essays and the reader/reviewer process for all contributions to the journal. After a period of transition, the new system has established its effectiveness.

On the editorial board, Dr Sabine Broeck (Bremen) came to the end of her term of service and was replaced by Professor Jacques Pothier of the University of Versailles.

At American Studies in Britain, BAAS thanked Dr Alison Kelly for her hard work during her term as Editor over the past two years. In September 2010, Dr Kaleem Ashraf (Sheffield) was appointed to the role. BAAS members will have noticed and appreciated the facelift Dr Ashraf has provided to the design of ASIB, and can look forward to new features soon to be instituted in the newsletter, including a regular interview slot with people of interest to the American Studies community.

At US Studies Online, BAAS thanked Dr Felicity Donohoe (Glasgow) for her work as Editor over the past two years and wished her luck as she began a Fellowship at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr Michael Collins (Nottingham) kindly stepped in as interim editor to take charge of the conference issue and in January 2011 BAAS appointed Carina Spaulding (Manchester) as Editor. It was also agreed the Editor of US Studies Online should be accorded voting rights on the BAAS Publications Subcommittee and that BAAS should pay their travel expenses to subcom meetings and to the annual BAAS PG Conference.

At the Edinburgh University Press BAAS Paperback series, BAAS was pleased to see the publication of Kasia Boddy’s The American Short Story Since 1950 and Theresa Saxon’s American Theatre: History, Context, Form. Forthcoming titles include Rachael McLennan’s American Autobiography. The co-editor of the series, Carol Smith (Winchester) is also keen to remind BAAS members that the series editors welcome new proposals at all times, and are happy to advise at any point in the process.

For the BAAS website, MW thanked all involved in the launch of the much-improved site, especially Catherine Morley. The website now features regular news and welcome message updates from the Chair of BAAS, automated subscription forms, RSS feeds on the news and events pages; links to an expanded archive of American Studies in Britain and past notices on the website; and the usual range of news and hyperlinks detailing the activities of the Association and giving access to related intellectual resources.

At the British Records Relating to the Americas in Microform (BRRAM), several new titles have been released. The United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Records relating to Canada (19 reels) and letters sent to, and received from, the United States (1 reel) have been completed. And 12 reels of USPG material relating to the West indies and Latin America has been microfilmed and sent to standing order customers. An online version of the Bolton-Whitman material has also been made available by Microform Academic Publishers, an extensive collection relating to the Bolton Whitman Fellowship – an appreciation society in Bolton, Lancashire dedicated to the study and appreciation of Whitman and his work.

MW concluded his report by thanking all involved with the Publications Subcommittee.

Development:

Will Kaufman began his report by mentioning how much he had enjoyed working with all colleagues on the Development Subcommittee. He noted that during his tenure of office as subcommittee Chair two issues had been predominant: Schools Liaison Activities and the funding of American Studies conferences. With regard to the first issue, BAAS has been hugely concerned with maintaining and strengthening contacts with secondary schools. The committee has benefited enormously from the energies of our outgoing Teachers’ Representative, Chris Bates, who developed a Schools Liaison Strategy which the new Teachers’ Representative will take up. In terms of the second issue, WK noted that applications to BAAS for small conference support has risen enormously (which has inevitably put pressure on funds) and over the coming year the Development Subcommittee would have to develop a strategy regarding which conferences to support. This has been especially contentious around the subject of BAAS’s support for other established associations and the issue continues to be one of debate for the Development Subcommittee.

WK concluded his report by expressing thanks to the US Embassy for the substantial grants they have provided year on year. Thanks to this support, in the past year BAAS has been able to contribute funds for the organisation of conferences such as the Nottingham Poetry series, the APG BAAS Colloquium, Congress to Campus, Studies in Youth, the American Genders Conference, UEA’s Tennessee Williams Conference, the annual conference of the British Group of Early American Historians, the Symbiosis Biennial Conference, the HOTCUS Annual Conference and the Afromodernisms conference.

All members of the Development Subcommittee were thanked for their contributions during the year.

Awards:

Ian Bell began his report by thanking the anonymous judges who contributed to the successful business of the Awards subcommittee. He noted that the success of the Awards had meant that this work had grown exponentially in the past few years and the Executive Committee will continue to encourage members to volunteer their services in the adjudication of BAAS Awards.

IB noted that it had been an exceptionally busy year in terms of the numbers of awards processed. This year there have been 49 applications for STAs alone. This is double the number of STA applications received last year and testifies to the vitality of the Association, especially amongst our younger members.

IB thanked the Chair of BAAS for his hard work in securing the new GTAship at the University of Mississippi. He also noted that Dr Malcolm McLoughlin (UEA) will take over the management of the Arthur Miller Centre prizes. He thanked Catherine Morley and Robert Mason with their help in managing the Awards. Finally, IB thanked the US Embassy for their support, as well as the individual members of BAAS who donate funds to support the Short Term Travel Awards.

Libraries and Resources:

Dick Ellis reported that he had six items to discuss. Firstly, the reduction in support to HE will have an impact on library resources. BLARs are exploring strategies to develop resource sharing. He noted that this has been a fraught issue in the past but hoped that the growing importance of e-resources might make the issue less contentious. BLARs have drawn up a paper regarding the various forms this resource sharing might take (with an emphasis on e-resources) and will submit a revised plan to the BAAS Executive Committee shortly. The second major item of business has been the attempt to establish a list of librarians that have links to American Studies. He noted that this list has reduced sharply in the past years. When finalised this list will go online and BAAS members are asked to peruse it and make additions or suggestions. The ultimate plan to develop a dialogue amongst AS Librarians regarding resource sharing and allow scholars to negotiate with the providers of e-resources. DE’s third item of business concerned the BLARs journal, Resources in American Studies. In the most recent issue there is a report on interesting library acquisitions and the Editor, Dr Matthew Shaw (BL), is keen to acquire more information on this topic and also interested in receiving suggestions for future articles. DE’s fourth item was to thank the US Embassy, especially Sue Wedlake, for their support, without which the work of BLARs would be impossible. His fifth item was to thank the participants in the BLARs panel on Social Networking which attracted a good audience and his sixth item was a reminder of next year’s BLARs panel on intellectual property.

DE concluded his report by officially saying goodbye to Dr Kevin Halliwell who takes early retirement and by thanking all members of BLARs, especially Jayne Kelly (BLARs Secretary), Matthew Shaw, Phil Davies and colleagues at the British Library. He also mentioned the Discover American Studies CD which is now available to download from the LLAS website (and amenable to editing which means it can be tailored to specific universities). He noted that this may be a useful tool to help keep recruitment up (especially with the potential threat to 4-year degrees) and he urged BAAS members to exploit this resource before the site disappears.

EAAS:

Phil Davis reported that his main item of business concerned the EAAS Board meeting he had attended in Rome on the weekend of 8-10 April 2011. The meeting opened with the news that the incumbent president, Professor Hans Jürgen Grabbe, had resigned on health grounds. Discussions revolved around this issue for much of the meeting and on 10 April PD was elected president for one year. At the next conference in Izmir PD will be eligible for re-election to this position, should he wish to stand. The EAAS Executive Board members were reviewed at the Rome meeting: Philip Davies is now President, Meldan Tanrisal is Vice President, Gert Buelans will be the new Secretary and Stephen Matterson will remain the Treasurer.

PD reported that the dominating board business in Rome had been the selection of workshop panels, whittling 42 proposals down to 25 panels. He stressed that selection discussions rarely, if ever, turned to issues of nationality but focused on content, disciplinary issues and possible overlap. There were just six UK workshop proposals, four of which were accepted. In contrast, there were 13 French proposals, 7 of which were accepted. The EAAS Secretary has written to all those who submitted workshop proposals and a CFP will be issued shortly. There will be eight papers in each workshop, so plenty of opportunities for BAAS members to offer papers.

PD noted that one of the main items of business at the meeting was the consolidation of a European-wide web database of Americanists. The French EAAS Representative and EAAS webmaster, Jacques Pothier, is investigating the possibility of such a venture.

A volume of selected papers from the EAAS Oslo conference is in press and will appear soon. Also, the Conference volume for the Dublin conference will be published later this year.

The 2012 EAAS conference will be held in Izmir, Turkey, on 30 March – 2 April. The 2014 conference will be held in The Hague and the 2016 conference will take place in Constanța, Romania. Exact dates will be finalised soon. Also, the 2013 Executive Board meeting will be held in Moscow.

PD ended his report by noting that he had also asked to take on joint editorship of the EAAS journal, looking after History and the Social Sciences, a position which he accepted. He reminded the membership to consider the journal as a potential outlet for future publications.

AOB:

Alan Rice informed the membership that the next meeting of the Collegium of African American Research (CAAR) would be held in Atlanta in 2013 (dates to be confirmed on http://www.caar-web.org/metamenu/home.html). He also reminded members of the conference field trip.

The AGM concluded at 5.00pm.