NEH Summer Seminar 2008
"Narrative Theory: Rhetoric and Ethics in Fiction and Nonfiction"
June 16--July 25, 2008
Director: Professor James Phelan
Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Memory & Boricua/Chicana/Latina History
In 2007, Vicki L. Ruiz, chair of the department of history at the University of California, Irvine and John R. Chavez, professor of history at Southern Methodist University, published "Memories and Migrations: Mapping Boricua and Chicana Histories," which features articles by noted scholars such as Gabriela F. Arredondo, Marisela R. Chávez, and Yolanda Chávez Leyva.
Juarez Girl Missing
Please support Amigos de Las Mujeres de Juarez in helping to find 15-year old Adriana Sarmento Enriquez.
Quote of the Day
"I have come to believe over and over again, that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood."
Audre Lorde
Frederick Douglass on American Rhetoric.com
American Rhetoric.com currently features and hosts some of Douglass' most famous speeches, which merit continuing inquiry by scholars. Check 'em out.
What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
Frederick Douglass, July 5, 1852
Frederick Douglass, July 5, 1852
Frederick Douglass, July 4, 1852
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Quote of the Day
"While a slave in Baltimore, Douglass read Caleb Binghams's Columbian Orator. Not only did this book offer him his first formal introduciton to public speaking, it also deepened his hatred of the peculiar institution, gave him the words to meet proslavery arguments, and inspired him to master the art of oratory."
Memory and the American Civil War
American historian and Harvard University president Drew Gilpin Faust's new book "This Republic of Sufferring: Death and the American Civil War" examines the magnitude of loss and memorialization caused by the massive deaths during and after the American Civil War. New York Times book reviewer Geoffrey C. Ward has presented an interesting preview of her book in his review in the NY Times. Also, you can read an excerpt in the New York Times. Gilpin Faust was interviewed by NPR recently, where she talked about nineteenth century views on death, the significance of burials during the causalties, and the challenges of identifying the bodies of soldiers in the bloodiest war in American history.
Memory Studies as an Academic Discipline
The first issue of Memory Studies (SAGE Publications) is currently available. Some noteworthy articles include:
Henry L. Roediger, III and James V. Wertsch, "Creating a New Discipline of Memory Studies"
Susannah Radstone, "Memory Studies: For and Against"
Paul Connerton, "Seven Types of Forgetting"
Ann Rigney, "Divided Pasts: A Premature Memorial and the Dynamics of Collective Remembrance"
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
The Year of Frederick Douglass
2008 will be the year of Frederick Douglass, one of the most important nineteenth century rhetors in American history. Douglass is one of the rhetors at the center of my dissertation. I will be working on my prospectus this month and begin the actual dissertation project in the month of May. Therefore, I will thoroughly research any and all fragments of information about and related to Douglass. In honoring Douglass, I have decided to make this blog more of a “repository” of information about him in order to keep a memory of his work alive.During the holidays, I visited the online Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress, which presents the full online text of Douglass’ first autobiography “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, which was published in 1845. African American scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. has written an excellent introduction to Douglass’ narrative in “The Classic Slave Narratives” in the Signet Classics series.
Some articles that I’m currently reading are:
Bizzell, Patricia. "The 4th of July and the 22nd of December: The Function of Cultural Archives in Persuasion, as Shown by Frederick Douglass and William Apess" CCC 48.1 (Feb. 1997): 44-60.
Brewton, Vince. "'Bold Defiance Took Its Place'--'Respect' and Self-Making in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave" Mississipi Quarterly.
Brignano, Russell C. "Autobiographical Books by Black Americans: A Bibliography of Works Written Since the Civil War." Negro American Literature Forum 7.4 (Winter, 1973): 148-156.
Chaney, Michael A. "Picturing the Mother, Claiming Egypt: My Bondage and My Freedom as
Auto(bio)ethnography." African American Review 35.3 (Autumn 2001): 391-408.
Matlack, James. "The Autobiographies of Frederick Douglass." Phylon (1960-) 40.1 (1st Qtr. 1979): 15-28.
Shelby, Gary S. "An Eloquent Life: The Rhetoric of Frederick Douglass in Biographical Perspective." The Review of Communication 1 (2001): 93-6.
If time allows, I will share some of my notes in my research on Douglass; however, given my commitments to teaching and taking two graduate courses, I may just feature the links to any and all information on Douglass.
So, in sum, I am making this blog more academic this year and I might create a new and separate blog that relates to personal matters but I haven’t decided yet. My current goal in this blog is to compile all sources on Douglass as I continue my research on memory. Therefore, in my research and writing, I am looking at the historical relationship between memory, autobiography, and rhetoric.
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