2022 Frank Albers
Engels: studie van het cultuurgebied – USA
Examen vragen januari:
Albers:
1. We hebben een quote van Composite Nation gekregen over
brotherhood (“A smile or a tear … of man”)
2. Why is America restless in its prosperity (Tocqueville)
3. Conflict Roosevelt-Bourne
4. Why is America not a nation according to Renan.
Ik kan me niet alles herinneren, maar voor UK in ieder geval eerst een
aantal termen die we moesten toelichten, ik kan me Windrush Generation
en iets over Nicola Sturgeon herinneren. Bij de essay vragen vroeg ze naar
het Northern Ireland Protocol, de voor- of nadelen van Schotse
onafhankelijkheid, iets over het verschil in nationalisme tussen Engeland
en Schotland/Wales en de geschiedenis tussen Engeland en Ierland qua
religie.
Class 1: 30/09/2022
Jill Lepore – this America
- Good starting point deals with nationalism. What does nationalism
mean politically?
- Cultural nationalism. What makes that the United States turned into
a nation, culturally.
Nationalism had acquired a bad reputation.
- Communism
- Rise of fascism (Europe)
As a consequence, historians no longer write national history. She regrets
the fact that historians have given up writing books about the nation.
Historians write about larger issues or very small specific issues, but the
nation as such seems no longer a legitimate subject and she regrets that.
Why? If real historians abandon the nation as a legitimate subject/focus,
it’s not going to be the end of nationalism. On the contrary, you leave the
field to nationalists. (Populists, Trump, …) they will write American history
from their point of view.
Nations are the legitimate structure in this world, and we should not leave
it to nationalists.
Crucial idea: America was a state before it became a nation.
Difference between patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism = love for
country, nationalism = hatred for others. Americans are patriotists.
Rodney King, early 90s, black person in Cali. Arrested in LA, during that
arrest, King was beaten to mush by the white cops. Except, this was the
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first time that a private citizen videotaped the incident. Back then it was a
huge shock when that footage went viral. The cops were members of the
white supremacist movement. The white cops got free because they acted
out of self-defense. LA exploded because they were off the hook, because
the system is not fair. During the riots, a Korean man is standing in front of
his store going up in flames. He is crying. CNN films him live on TV, he
points at it and says, ‘this is not the real America’. It is a fantastic example
of the love for their country. He means, ‘this is not the America I believe
in.’
Plea for taking the nation seriously, not leave it up to nationalists in the
nation. That’s Lepore’s argument. Exclusion laws after exclusion laws in
America.
She holds a very romantic plea for what she calls a new Americanism at
the end. Final chapter, a new Americanism would mean a devotion to
equality, liberty … Her plea for a new Americanism is the proof of the
repetition of what has always been there in the myth. For all her critical
distance scrutiny of nationalism, she ends up with reaffirming the dream
as we know it. Very typical structure of American culture criticism. Almost
always assumes the form of a jeremiad -> klagen -> refers to the
structure of the sermon as it used to be delivered by the puritans, they
told everyone they were sinning all the time. Then there would be a
rhetorical shift, but if you respect the ideals of our church, you can do
better. We can try to live up to the ideals. Jeremiad is a warning but also
an invitation to do better, to live up to the ideals of the culture. This
structure is used now as well, speech about how bad America is, turns into
belief and hope that one day America will be not an ideal idea, but a fact.
To reassert your ideas in the culture and in America. Lepore does the
same when she ends with the new Americanism.
Many native American cultures refer to themselves as ‘nations’ instead of
tribes.
We have a tendency to refer to ‘American Indians’ which is a huge
simplification because there are so many differences. The different tribes
have different rules for marriage for example, they speak different
languages and don’t understand each other, etc.
Frederick Douglass,
one of the greatest African American writers. He was a slave and ran
away. He basically inaugurated the genre “slave narratives”. Most slaves
couldn’t write or speak, but some of them did. There was a lot of content
which was not published, because it was written by slaves. Now there is a
genre about it.
He talks about how it was being born on a plantation, not knowing who
your father was, … he had to work there, being taken away from his
mother. The bond between mother and child was being broken.
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Theodore Roosevelt
Did good things for America. Very important president. We will read a
chapter in which he rejects the notion of the hyphenated American. The
American who identifies with this double identity. (American / African /
Jewish / German / …) Roosevelt lashes out at that idea. He says that there
is no such thing. You should be loyal to your American identity and nothing
else. You should be/feel/act American and nothing else. This is a plea for
full and total assimilation.
He is a famous character in American history. Randolph Bourne reacted to
Roosevelt’s critique with his own essay. We will read those two back-to-
back because it is an interesting fight. R.B. takes issue with
Roosevelt’s idea. He says that a double identity makes America
stand out.
Alexis de Tocqueville. An outsider’s perspective.
Young man, studied law in Paris. Was fascinated by what happened across
the ocean. Travelled 7-8 months through America and wrote a 2-volume
book about it in 1848. He believed that everything that happened in
America was bound to happen in Europe. He went to get a sneak peek and
was confronted with ‘democracy’. His book weighs the pros and cons
about the democracy happening in America. He questions the “majority
wins”. He says that it is not because there is a majority, the majority
is right (death penalty e.g.)
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