America Reflected: Language, Satire, Film, and the National Mind

C. Rollins Peter

Description

America Reflected offers eclectic film criticism and considerations of distinctive American voices from the ante-bellum era to the present.Rollins examines the roles of language, satire, and film in reflecting the American consciousness through such diverse sources as Orestes Brownson, Benjamin Lee Whorf, Will Rogers, and Hollywood. Readers of America Reflected are in for a delightful voyage as they travel through American history and culture with Peter Rollins as their guide providing personal and scholarly insights into the shaping of the American mind.Ron Briley is the Assistant Schoolmaster, Sandia Preparatory School, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and editor, The Politics of Baseball: Essays on the Pastime and Power at Home and Abroad (2010).From cowboy philosopher Will Rogers to popular perceptions of two world wars and Vietnam, from the history of language to the language of film and television, Peter Rollins has devoted his career to exploring the intriguing ways in which the creative impulse both shapes and reflectsAmerican culture. His observations are fresh, illuminating and of enduring value.John E. OConnor, co-founder and long-term editor of Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies Even those who have known and admired Peter Rollins acclaimed works will here find enlightening surprises. Epistemology, language theory, wars polemics, filmed history, and an array of significant creators of American culture are all elegantly displayed. This book will make you a wiser person and charm you while it does it. John Shelton Lawrence, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Morningside College.Two decades ago I was privileged to work on a book, America Observed, with Alistair Cooke. Now we have America Reflected by Peter Rollins, one of the most respected cultural historians working today. Not only does Rollins make good observations about our lives and times, his reflections on a diverse set of subjects helps us to see the meanings of our observations.Ronald A. Wells is Professor of History Emeritus at Calvin College, Michigan.In America Reflected, Rollins gathers together glimpses of our shared worlds, so that we may observe their interconnections across media, genres, and time. From down-home values and front-porch philosophy, to tales of wars and chronicles of lives, the subjects considered here are all part of the stories we tell about ourselves and our social worlds.Cynthia J. Miller, President, Literature/Film Association.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Popular culture

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 21 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780984583201
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

America Reflected:
Language, Satire, Film, and the National Mind
 


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See excerpts at: www.newacademia.com
 


 
 
America Reflected:
Language, Satire, Film, and the National Mind
 
 
by Peter C. Rollins
 
 

New Academia Publishing
Washington, DC
 


Copyright © 2011 by Peter C. Rollins
 
Published in eBook format by New Academia Publishing
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system.
 
ISBN-13: 978-0-9845-8320-1
 

New Academia Publishing, LLC
P.O. Box 27420
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www.newacademia.com - [e-mail]
 


 
 
To Ray and Pat Browne, who encouraged us to find America and ourselves.
 
Foreword
by Michael T. Marsden
It is undeniable that popular culture has emerged world-wide as a legitimate field of study. But certainly that was not the case when I entered graduate school more than four decades ago. Nor was it so when Peter Rollins returned from the battleground of Vietnam to complete his graduate work.
This volume presents selections from a lifetime of Peter’s work in the fields of Popular Culture and American Culture Studies. It clearly demonstrates the impressive scope of his scholarly embrace from Will Rogers and Benjamin Whorf to studies of the history of wars and their depictions on film from World War I to Vietnam. But Peter has also continued throughout his career to examine the cultural significance of major American personalities from Harriet Beecher Stowe to John James Audubon.
This volume, then, pays witness to an ever active mind searching through the artifacts of the American experience in order to make sense of them. The scholarly work that Peter has done in film and history is well known and well respected. With his dozens of books, hundreds of articles, films, television programs and CDs, Peter has reached out to the general public as well as to the scholarly community with his insights.
Very early in his career Peter was not content to work only within the confines of his classroom and study, or even only within his professional organizations for that matter. He chose instead to pursue the role of what we refer to as the “public intellectual,” seeking every opportunity to bridge the academic world and the world of public discourse on topics of major importance. Whether it was a focus on the significance of Will Rogers or new insights into the Vietnam conflict, Peter sought to enlighten and inform. As a consequence of this reaching out, his scholarly work found audiences both within the academy and among the several publics who attend to media outlets such as Public Broadcasting, the Discovery Channel, and C-SPAN. For Peter there is no bridge too far, no matter what the effort, if the result is sharing new knowledge.
Peter’s untiring work on behalf of the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association from their foundings to the present is noteworthy. Whether it was his organizational work for hosting the national PCA/ACA Meeting in Wichita, for the many Southwest Texas PCA/ACA Conferences, or for the PCA/ ACA Meetings in Mexico, Peter’s efforts were everywhere noted and appreciated. Peter was also the founder and co-moderator of the H-PCA/ACA internet discussion list at a point in the organizations’ history when the transition to computer based communication was essential to the long term well being of the organizations. Peter was also there when the late Ray Browne and others wanted to start an endowment for the organizations, the results of which have subsequently supported many graduate students and young faculty members in their scholarly work.
On yet another level, Peter has been a gracious mentor to many young scholars across the country who have sought and received his wise counsel. A distinguished faculty member at Oklahoma State University, Peter has reached out to those who needed assistance from across the country in the same gracious manner and spirit exhibited to him and to me by the late Russel Nye and the late Ray Browne when Peter and I were finding our way in the scholarly world.
This volume is but a glimpse into the life’s work of a scholar who may live and work in Oklahoma, but whose scholarly reach knows no state or national borders. Peter has received many awards and recognitions for his work over the years. But his real reward is to be found precisely where Russel Nye’s and Ray Browne’s rewards are to be found in the lives and work of the generations of young scholars they and he have encouraged and supported through the years.
Michael T. Marsden is Dean of the College and Academic Vice President and Professor of English, American Studies, and Media Studies at St. Norbert College. He is also Co-Executive Editor of the Journal of Popular Film and Television .
 
Preface
As one of my mentors, Alan Heimert, characterized the scholarly method, the goal was to determine not only what was said but what was meant . His understanding became part of my scholarly radar in the 1960s, and I have applied it ever since:
To discover the meaning of an utterance demands what is in substance a continuing act of literary interpretation for the language with which an idea is presented, and the imaginative universe by which it is surrounded, often tells us more of the author’s meaning and intention than his declarative propositions. An understanding of the significance of any idea, or of a constellation of ideas, requires an awareness of the context of institutions and events out of which thought emerged, and with which it strove to come to terms. But the full apprehension depends finally on reading, not between the lines but, as it were, through and beyond them. (Heimert 11)
Because the chapters of America Reflected involve so much personal interpretation, it seems desirable to assist the reader by offering some background information at the outset, giving some exposure to the mindset of this particular cultural historian.
The Brookline Influence
After service in World War II as a Marine officer, my father resumed participation in the political scene of Brookline, Massachusetts—an independent suburb of Boston since 1705—in the tradition of his father, who had been a judge in the municipal court for decades.

Captain Daniel G. Rollins, 1945
Grandfather, who was a Theodore Roosevelt Republican, iterated and reiterated to us the maxim of mens sana in corpore sano , echoing his political hero’s belief in the necessity of a “strenuous life,” while Father, by taking us to concerts at Boston’s famous Symphony Hall, showed us that a real man also should be interested in the arts—even avant-gardism (which to him meant Stravinsky, Le Six, and early 20th-century composers of the French school). On the political front, Dad brought me along to multiple evenings of Brookline’s town meetings where I observed him in a professional role: he led the singing of the national anthem at the opening of each evening session; as the Town Counsel (i.e., the municipal lawyer), he rendered real-time judgments on procedure and any legislative motions proposed by the assembled 100-plus elected representatives. These events—amplified by daily telephone calls from agencies and interested parties and occasional hand delivery of confidential documents by uniformed Brookline policemen—gave me an insider’s perspective on governmental affairs. I learned that politics required decisive leadership, often by an elite with the best interests of the polity in mind. And certainly one of the fundamental lessons was that public servants more often attempt to do what is right than to garner benefits from the perquisites of office—although there were some lagniappes which were enjoyed. How decisions and political images played out in the press was a regular topic of discussion at home (see Chapter 24 and interview with Wilson of Americana ).
In the process of preparing four book reports during the spring break of freshman year (1956) at Brookline High School, I discovered that intellectual pursuits propelled the mind across space and time, and that such explorations were enormously stimulating. Creative writing and the history classes at BHS opened up vistas of intellectual growth and Atlantic Monthly prizes for poetry and fiction reinforced the lessons of closely-supervised writing experiences.
The Dartmouth Opportunity
Then on to Dartmouth College in a Rollins tradition since t