This Thursday, as part of Ian Laws' "American and Vietnam" module, novelist and Vietnam War veteran Edward Wilson (A River in May, The Envoy) will be talking about "The Vietnam War: Imagined and Remembered." All are welcome, so spread the word.
Two very different portraits of university life in America. First, as part of their Pinched: Tales from an Economic Downturn series, Salon presents "I live in a van down by Duke University", Ken Ilgunas' account of his experiences, well, living in a van by Duke University:For some, van-dwelling may conjure images of pop-culture losers forced into desperate measures during troubled times: losers like Uncle Rico from "Napoleon Dynamite," or "Saturday Night Live's" Chris Farley who'd famously exclaim, "I live in a van down by the river!" before crashing through a coffee table, or perhaps the once ubiquitous inhabitants of multicolored VW buses, welcoming strangers with complimentary coke lines and invitations to writhing, hairy, back-seat orgies.In contrast, this week's This American Life profiles Penn State - recently crowned #1 party school in America:
In my van there were no orgies or coke lines, no overweight motivational speakers. To me, the van was what Kon-Tiki was to Heyerdahl, what the GMC van was to the A-Team, what Walden was to Thoreau. It was an adventure.
Living in a van was my grand social experiment. I wanted to see if I could -- in an age of rampant consumerism and fiscal irresponsibility -- afford the unaffordable: an education.
So we wondered: What is it like to be at the country's top party school? This American Life producers spent a recent football weekend at Penn State to figure this out. There, we learned the definition of "fracket" (think frat plus jacket); the best way to clean up beer cans after a big party (snow shovel); and how hard it is to get college kids to drink less (really hard).So how does these stories compare to your experiences, at home or across the pond?
They say that three's a trend, but two examples will suffice as confirmation, if confirmation was needed, that HBO's The Wire is now fully ensconced within the university. First, the New York Post reported that "HBO's gritty series about life in the Baltimore ghetto, is about to become a course at Harvard [...] taught by sociology professor William J. Wilson." Then, for the Guardian, Steve Busfield produced two reports from "The Wire as Social Science Fiction?" conference hosted by the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change - "What is The Wire?" and "The Wire: taking sociology forwards?". So, everyone excited about Treme?
We are very happy to announce that the provisional programme for the British Association for American Studies Conference, April 8-11 2010 is now available here. Whilst still subject to change, it gives a tantalising introduction to next year's events.
It's our third Thanksgiving at Containing Multitudes - so give thanks for our giant Thanksgiving link round up:
If you're a UEA School of American Studies alumnus then this post is especially for you. We're very pleased to announce that we've just launched the American Studies Netcommunity site - an online home for alumni and friends of the University. This is a perfect way for you to keep in touch with both us in AMS and your friends and fellow alumni. If you haven't already registered for Netcommunity then why not take a minute and do it now? You can edit your personal profile to let us know what you're up to now, or find out what your contemporaries are doing. Rest assured, we'd love to hear from you. Please spread the word.
At this week's research seminar, Jennifer Terry (Durham University), will be talking about:
With the release of The Men Who Stare at Goats earlier this month, talk has yet again turned to those irrepressible urban myths and tall tales that surround the US military - from alien autopsies at Roswell, TX, to experiments in mind control, and the psychic super-spies of the new George Clooney movie. Jon Ronson and Mark Pilkington have compiled their all time top 5 of military conspiracy theories for the Guardian. For those of you interested in finding out more about alien close encounters right here in Norfolk, check out this link to local ET-watchers.
Sarah Palin has just released her autobiography, Going Rogue: An American Life, and she's been dominating headlines all week. Her signing tour has been attracting large crowds - the National Post evokes 2008 by calling it "Palin Fever" - and she's been on Oprah, too, though was (unsurprisingly) coy about her plans for the 2012 Presidential race. Most controversial, however, was the Newsweek cover, above, which borrowed some shots that Palin had done for Runner's World. She accused them of sexism - and others, Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic for example, agree. In the Guardian, Jessica Valenti also thinks it's sexist, but notes that Palin's is "a gender politics of convenience, one that insults all women in politics." At the Huffington Post, however, Andy Ostroy asks whether a comparable magazine cover of Obama is also sexist, whilst John Dickerson asserts that Palin is not the future of the Republican Party for Slate. Either way, she'll be around for a while yet.
In 1861, 8 year old George Evans Patten was taken to Springfield, Illinois by his father, journalist James Alexander Patten. There, he met the soon-to-be inaugurated Abraham Lincoln. Back at school, he boasted to his schoolmates about this encounter - but none of them believed him. In an effort to curtail their teasing, Patten's teacher wrote to the White House asking for corroboration of the meeting. Above, you can see Lincoln's response: "Whom it may concern: I did see and talk with Master George Evans Patten, last May, at Springfield, Illinois. Respectfully, A. Lincoln." This letter is now being put up for sale by the Raab Collection and according to the Guardian has been priced at $60,000 - which is pretty small beans compared to a letter written by Lincoln to a group of abolitionist school children in 1864 which sold for $3.4 million last April.
