NEWSLETTER

The Center for the HumanitiesA MEMBER OF THE CONSORTIUM OF HUMANITIES CENTERS AND INSTITUTES

AUTZEN HOUSE OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY SPRING 2005

Center names2005-06 fellows

The Center has awarded 11 residen-tial research fellowships for 2005-

06, including nine OSU facultymembers and two visiting scholarsfrom Pennsylvania State University.Fellows receive a stipend as well as acomfortable office in Autzen House, acomputer, and support services.Visiting fellows are generally inresidence for the entire academic year,while internal fellows receive one totwo terms of support and are includedin all Center events.

VISITING FELLOWS

Adam RomeAssoc. Professor of HistoryPennsylvania State UniversitySustaining the Nation: Environmen-tal Reform and the Emergence ofModern America

Robin SchulzeProfessor of EnglishPennsylvania State University‘Beyond the Yawp’: Nature, NaturalHistory and the Origins of Modernist Poetry

OSU FELLOWS

Kristin BarkerAssitant Professor of SociologyVirtual Communities and ContestedChronic Illness: An Exploration inElectronic Ethnography

It is a joyous thing, is war . . . . Youlove your comrade so in war. Whenyou see that your quarrel is just andyour blood is fighting well, tearscome to your eyes. A great sweetfeeling of loyalty and of pity fillsyour heart on seeing your friend sovaliantly exposing his body toexecute and accomplish the commandof our creator. And then you prepareto go and die or live with him, andfor love not to abandon him. And outof that, there arises such adelectation, that he who has nottasted it is not fit to say what adelight it is.

Jean de Bueil Le Jouvencel c. 1461

At first, the young man who is thehero of the 15th-century

romance, Le Jouvencel, appears tosucceed despite being at odds with thetradition of other such medievalnarratives because of his contempt forflamboyant knights who engage incourt intrigues and wear sumptuousoutfits on the battlefield. All does notgo well with the Jouvencel (theYouth), however. “He finds that hehas been used by the king and thecourt,” says Michelle Szkilnik. A Research Fellow and professor ofFrench literature at the University ofNantes, Szkilnik is working on a newcritical edition and study of LeJouvencel, a romance written between1461 and 1468 by Jean de Bueil, awell-known knight who fought manybattles against the English. The tale,which enjoyed immediate popularity,

is preserved in fourteen manuscriptsand five early editions. In a previousbook, Jean de Saintre, une carrierechevaleresque au XVe siecle, Szkilnikwas concerned with showing how theimage of the knight shifts in the lateMiddle Ages and how the ideal knightbecomes a courtesan whose principalinterests are court politics, dress codesand complex combat rituals. Through analysis of many latemedieval romances, Szkilnik foundthat most fall into one of twocategories: those which imitate 13th-century Arthurian romances; andthose that, though seeming to showdeference to Arthurian literature, goon to undermine its principles. “Jeande Bueil’s romance does not fit thesecategories. Indeed, the term ‘romance’is barely appropriate for a narrative

Michelle Szkilnik

Continued on Page 11

Conintued on Page 11

The plight of a warrior in changing times

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Theater in 20th-century Russia,under the last of the tsars aswell as under the Communists,

mirrored much of what was takingplace in Russian society and inRussian culture. It continues to do sotoday, said Vreneli Farber, “yet worksin English on Russian theater pub-lished in the last dozen years givelittle attention to this rich source ofinformation on post-Soviet Russia.” As a case study of the cultural andsocial evolution that has occurred inRussia since 1991, Farber is examin-ing the status of the Stanislavskitradition of actor training during thepost-Soviet years. A Research Fellowand professor of Russian at OSU,Farber held a previous Centerfellowship during which she workedon her book The PlaywrightAleksandr Vampilov: An IronicObserver (Peter Lang, 2001). “Under the Soviets, theater servedas a means of political organization,”said Farber. “The Soviet governmentgenerously subsidized theaters—andthe training of actors and directors—as long as they followed the line setby the Communist Party.” This gavethe Soviet rulers control over thetheatrical world. “Under Gorbachev,the pattern of support and controlbegan to change. Since the collapse ofthe Soviet Union both the financialsupport and ideological control havepractically disappeared, yet theaterremains alive and well and its impor-tance to Russians has not dimin-ished.” Modern actor training in Russiaand the United States is rooted in thewritings of Konstantin Stanislavski(1863-1938), and it was only in the1980s that the tradition began toerode in Russia, leading to a rush tocatch up with more diverse methodsthat had developed elsewhere. This“revolution” continues in the post-Soviet era, said Farber. “Amidst all

the change, disruption, controversy,and hardship of the past thirteenyears, Russian theater has not onlysurvived but has revitalized itself.” Farber’s study focuses on the wayactors are trained in Russia today, andthe philosophy behind the curriculum“in order to reveal what persists fromthe Stanislavski tradition and to showwhat is new since 1991, and, conse-quently, how thinking and approacheshave or have not been modified.”Because developments in actortraining reflect challenges andproblems faced by other institutions—in the arts and sciences—they offer“insight into post-Soviet Russia andallow me to draw broader conclusionsabout Russian culture and society.”

Farber has direct access to the theaterworld through her own performance,particularly a sabbatical year spentaffiliated with the St. Petersburg StateTheatre Arts Academy, one ofRussia’s foremost theatrical institutes.In addition to the usual scholarlyresearch, Farber attended actingclasses at all four levels of the actortraining program, each level for sixweeks. She also interviewed teachers,administrators, and students, attendeddiploma performances by students,and attended twenty-five dramaticproductions in eight different profes-sional theaters in St. Petersburg andMoscow.

“I discovered that, although thepast thirteen years have witnessedmany changes in theater and in actortraining—sources of funding, adminis-tration, choice of repertoire, newmethodologies and so on—thereremains much continuity with the past.The core of this continuity is theStanislavsky tradition which neverthe-less has been affected by the views ofpost-Soviet Russia.” Training informshow actors interpret a text andapproach a role, what meanings theydraw from and emphasize in scripts,and how they interact with directors.“The training, then, both influencesthe actors’ outlook and illuminates theoutlook of the times.”

Vreneli Farber

Konstantin Stanislavski

Theater offers insights into post-Soviet Russia

‘Glasnost’ is also bringing with it thedemythologizing of . . . Stanislavskiiand a reassessment of his System . . .Experimental workshops employingeverything from yoga to behavioralscience are sprouting everywhere as theyounger generation strives to catch upwith the latest trends in actor training.

“Revolution in the Soviet Theater,” Alma Law, TheHarriman Institute Forum, Vol. 2, No. 7 (July,

1989), 2.

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When Southern Baptistmissionary Lottie Moon wascensured for preaching in

China, an activity denied to women,she threatened to resign and return tothe United States. The church backeddown, but this did not signify animproved position for women withinthe denomination, which historicallyhas excluded them from positions ofauthority within the church andcharged them with submissiveness athome. “Despite these oppressive pro-nouncements, and often women’s ownacceptance of the beliefs,” said SusanShaw, “many women have found theirexperiences in Southern Baptistchurches to be empowering.” The keyto understanding the seeming contra-dictions, she has written, may be foundin the “way these women have appro-priated and embodied Baptist theologyitself, in particular the doctrines of thepriesthood of believers, the autonomyof the local church, and religiousliberty.” A Research Fellow and Director ofWomen Studies at OSU, Shaw is a co-author, with Mina Carson and TisaLewis, of Girls Rock! Fifty Years ofWomen Making Music (UP of Ken-tucky, 2004). The book chronicleshow women performers in the heavilymale-dominated rock music genre havemanaged to succeed—with difficulty,as it turns out. Shaw’s current book,also contracted with Kentucky, isCompetent Before God: SouthernBaptist Women, Agency, and Au-tonomy. The book explores how Baptistwomen, particularly during the firsthalf of the 20th century, “constructedgendered identities as Baptist women,how they understood, accepted, andchallenged Southern Baptist ideasabout women and how they found inBaptist theology the impetus toconstruct themselves as leaders,

missionaries, teachers, and interpretersof Scripture while remaining stronglyconnected to the churches anddenominations that at times sought toplace limitations on their roles.” The project is of wide significance,said Shaw, in that Southern Baptistsnow claim sixteen million members in42,000 churches, mainly in the South,where they “exert an incredibleamount of social and political influ-ence, which ultimately affects theentire nation.” In addition to personal interviews,important sources include the South-ern Baptist Historical Library andArchives and the Woman’s MissionaryUnion Archives, which contain lettersand other writings of Southern Baptistwomen. “These women lived throughtimes in which the rights of womenwere dominant social issues—fromsuffrage in the nineteenth century tothe Women’s Movement, ERA, andabortion rights in the twentieth,” saidShaw. That Southern Baptists have nocreed is critical to her exploration.The denomination’s confessionalstatement, The Baptist Faith andMessage, is not binding on localchurches or on any individual Baptist.

The preamble to the statementstresses this point: “The sole authorityfor faith and practice among Baptistsis the Scriptures of the Old and NewTestaments. Confessions are onlyguides in interpretation, having noauthority over the conscience . . . Wehonor the principles of soul compe-tency and the priesthood of believ-ers.” As a consequence, said Shaw,“through the Convention’s 158-yearhistory, individual Southern Baptistwomen have continued to believewhat they choose to believe, to serveGod in whatever ways they feel Godhas called them to serve, and toconstruct their identities as SouthernBaptist women in whatever ways haveseemed right to them. Of course, thishas also meant that a great diversity ofbelief and experience has alwayscharacterized the gendered identitiesSouthern Baptist women con-structed.”

Another seeming contradictionwithin the denomination has to

do with race. The Southern BaptistConvention was born out of supportfor slavery in the South, yet manyBaptists found in their faith a demandfor social justice, and they opposedracism in society and in the church. Prominent among Shaw’s inter-view subjects are the Southern Baptistwomen of her mother’s generation.“While these women probably wouldnot choose to use the word, they arethe ones who taught me feminism.While purporting to accept theologiesthat deemed women subordinate,these women were leaders—in thehome, church, and community. Theywere strong, opinionated and outspo-ken. They struggled against sexistoppression, while drawing strengthfrom a sexist institution. This is thecontradiction that intrigues me.”

Baptist women create powerful identities

Susan Shaw

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A medieval Gandhi preachingpeace, love and understanding? A

naïve and quixotic wanderer? Achampion of the crusading ideal?Which of these, if any, accuratelydescribes St. Francis of Assisi when in1219, with the armies of the fifthcrusade besieging Damascus, hecrossed to the Egyptian camp topreach to the Sultan al-Kamil? “Though we know very little aboutthis event, writers from the thirteenthcentury to the twentieth, unencum-bered by mere facts, have portrayedFrancis alternatively as a new apostlepreaching to the infidels, a scholastictheologian proving the truth ofChristianity, and a crazed religiousfanatic,” said John Tolan. “My studyof the varying depictions of thislapidary encounter will attempt tothrow into relief the changing fearsand hopes that Muslim-Christianencounters inspired in Europeanwriters over eight centuries.” A Research Fellow and professor ofmedieval history at the University ofNantes, Tolan is the author ofSaracens: Islam in the MedievalEuropean Imagination (ColumbiaUP, 2003), Petrus Alfonsi and his

Medieval Readers (UP of Florida,1993), and the forthcoming Points ofContact: Fourteen Centuries ofEuropean-Arab Relations. His current project examines howdifferent European authors and artistshave presented the encounter betweenFrancis, archetype of Western sanctity,and Al-Kamil, powerful Sultan andnephew of Saladin, making it fit intotheir preconceptions of proper relationsbetween Christian Europe and theMuslim East. The encounter, saidTolan, is not mentioned in any Arabicsources. As far as is known, St. Francisand friar Illuminatus crossed over tothe Egyptian camp to preach and aftera number of days returned, havingapparently spoken to the Sultan. Jacques de Vitry, bishop of Acre, whowas with the crusading army whenFrancis arrived, wrote in 1220 thatFrancis “came into our army and,burning with zeal, did not fear to crossover to the enemy army and preach tothe sultan for several days; then, havingaccomplished little, he returned.” SaidTolan, “For Jacques, as for other 13th-century crusade chroniclers, Francis’sattempt to convert the enemy, howeveradmirable, was doomed to failure. This

underlines, for many of them, thenecessity of crusade.” In contrast, some other medievalauthors depict Francis skillfullydebating with the Sultan’s men,offering rational proof of the superior-ity of Christianity. “For these authors,Christian missionaries, throughexemplary piety and proper training,can foil objections to Christianity andhope to bring Muslims and otherinfidels into the fold.” Certain Franciscan hagiographers ofthe 13th century used the incident as atestimony to their founder’s sanctity.They described the Sultan as propos-ing a debate between Francis and theSaracen “priests,” which Francisrefused by arguing that faith isbeyond reason. Francis then asked theSultan to order the lighting of a fire,saying he would enter it with thepriests to see which religion wassuperior. At this, such accounts relate,the Saracen priests fled in fear.Francis proposed to enter the firealone but the Sultan declined, fearingit might provoke a scandal. Even though this version describedthe Sultan as rejecting Francis’s offer,

Continued on Page 5

John Tolan

Saint’s visit to sultan is recast to suit the times

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Center ProgramAdvisory BoardKerry Ahearn, English

Joan Gross, Anthropology

Maureen Healy, History

Robert Iltis, Speech Comm/Theater Arts

Michael Scanlan, Philosophy

Rebecca Warner, Sociology

Robert Wess, English

Jun Xing, Ethnic Studies

Ex-officio

David Robinson, Center Director

Wendy Madar, Associate Director

said Tolan, some artists in latercenturies show St. Francis preparing tostep into the fire. They were followingthe lead of Giotto, who in the early 14th

century painted two church frescoesdepicting the scene this way. “Giottotransformed the confrontation into aChristian victory over Islam, andGiotto’s image of the trial by fire wasreproduced by many fifteenth-centuryartists.” In the 16th and 17th centuries, as theOttomans pressed into Europe, fewdared to hope for the peaceful conver-sion of Muslims, and few artistsdepicted Francis’s mission to theSultan. “The Turkish threat to Europefaded after the failed siege of Vienna in1683, and the authors of the Enlighten-ment could look differently onFrancis’s mission.” When Voltaire presented Francis as awild-eyed fanatic and the bemusedSultan as a just and cultured monarch,

Catholic authors defended theirhero, including Joseph Roman-Joly,whose 1786 epic poem describesFrancis converting the Sultan insecret despite epic battles in whichhe and the Franciscans are beset bydemons and defended by angels. The encounter also has intrigued20th-century scholars, who affirmvariously that: Francis had no desirefor martyrdom, nor did he want toconvert the Sultan but rather sought“ecumenical reconciliation”; he wasa pacifist opposed to crusading; hewas on a “mission of peace.” SaidTolan, “In the twentieth century as inthe thirteenth, the varying portrayalsof this touchstone encounter shedmore light on the hopes, fears andideas of their authors than on whatreally happened in Damietta inSeptember, 1219.”

. . . St. Francis continued

People were not necessarily sicker inearly New England than they are

now, but the mechanisms for dealingwith illness were different, as was theattitude toward suffering. “One doesnot have to travel far in early modernnarratives of daily life to encounterillness,” said Ben Mutschler. “Almostany source from the period, fromdiaries and letters to the proceedings ofcourts and assemblies, reveals a worldbeset by morbidity.” A Research Fellow and assistantprofessor of history at OSU, Mutschleris working on a book The Province ofAffliction: Illness in Eighteenth-Century New England, which isscheduled to be published by theOmohundro Institute of Early Ameri-can History and Culture inWilliamsburg, VA.

While there has been muchscholarly work on medical thought,healing practices, and public health

in early America, said Mutschler, hisstudy takes sick people and thoseimplicated in their afflictions as itscentral concern. “What happens to ourportrait of eighteenth-century life if weplace the social relations of illness atits center? How was a society animatedby work, striving, and industry able toabsorb the regular occurrence ofsickness, with all its disruptions andwrenching changes?” Sickness was just one of manymisfortunes in daily life—fromaccidents and injuries to changes inweather—that were understood to beMan’s fate to accommodate andendure. “New Englanders worked hardto resign themselves to fate,” saidMutschler. “They struggled to acceptthe inevitability of hardships large and

Ben Mutschler

New England: ‘province of affliction’

Continued on Page 10

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New methods for teaching literacyin developing regions are likely to

resemble the Trojan horse, said LauraRice, bearing “within them innuendosand subtexts that demean the verypeople they intend to help.” In hernew book Imagined Lives, Rice isinvestigating international literacyconditions, with an emphasis on theexperiences of rural North Africanwomen. The women, she said, “live atthe intersection of 3R literacy,indigenous knowledge, and large-scaledevelopment programs.” By “literacy,” Rice means “theknowledge needed to cope witheveryday needs,” while “3R literacy”refers to reading, writing andnumeracy. A Research Fellow and associateprofessor of English at OSU, Riceheld a previous fellowship at theCenter during which she worked onher book Departures (City Lights,1994), co-authored with KarimHamdy. She also was acting directorof the Center in 1993 while then-Director Peter Copek was on sabbati-cal. Rice’s current project draws onwork done with the help of a 2001-02Fulbright grant, which took her toremote locales to interview Bedouinwomen, and supported visits todevelopment projects promotingliteracy. In summer of 2004 shereturned to Africa to do final inter-views with Bedouin women and theirextended families. Literacy in this study of adultsdoes not refer to the linear, individu-ally experienced, progressive acquisi-tion of 3R skills associated withchildren.” It is, rather, “a complex,non-linear, and spatially-experiencedset of social practices.” 3R literacy is becoming morecentral to Maghribi oral cultureswhere print culture has become fixedthrough the processes of nation-statebuilding and globalization in much

the same way that computer-literacy isbecoming more central to the printcultures of the industrialized West,said Rice. “But one does not suddenlybecome illiterate in the knowledgeneeded to cope with everyday needswhen a new literacy technology takesover.” Imagined Lives has two parts, thefirst an analysis of current literacyconditions internationally, in the Arabworld in general, and in rural NorthAfrica in particular, the secondfocused on the discourse of literacy indevelopment projects, North Africannovels and memoirs, and the lifeexperiences of rural women. Usinggender analysis and post-colonialtheory, Rice has identified twopractices in development efforts thatshe considers particularly germane toher study. “First, local facts are extractedfrom their contexts and tailored to fitWestern paradigms. Second, top-downagendas are imposed, ignoring indig-enous knowledge, alienating localstakeholders, and underminingprojects before they start. It seems tobe hard for development experts to‘learn from below’ in this situation. Itis important to avoid ‘doing good withcontempt in your heart,’ as GayatriSpivak has put it.”

Imagined Lives employs aninterdisciplinary approach includingliterary criticism/discourse analysis,applied international development,and ethnography. The project, saidRice, has required her to think acrossthe border between what has beencalled two “social imaginaries,” onebased on Western social contracttheory where individuals think oftheir identities as autonomous, theother based on collective, relationalidentities. Rice participated in developmentwork, and conducted scores ofinterviews, initially based on ques-tionnaires and then expanding intoopen-ended conversations. Sheselected the life stores of threewomen and their extended families tocapture the idea of literacy as acomplex, nonlinear, and spatially-experienced set of social practices. “Except in quoted material, Iavoid the word illiterate because itsets up a binary vision of the world,”Rice said. “Overall, we can say thatdevelopment projects promoting 3Rliteracy for adults have had littlesuccess. New literacy theory andpractices have evolved to address thefacts on the ground, but powerfuldevelopment institutions have beenmaintaining the status quo.”

Don’t try to do good with‘contempt in your heart’

Laura Rice and andinformant at herhome in Figuig,Morocco

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Meriam is one of six siblings.She is the first among them, in

a remote village in Southern Tunisia,to get a chance to go to school. Hertwo younger siblings, Ali and Leila,also go to school. Meriam, a preco-cious and gifted student, is often indemand, her 3R-litearacy skillsfrequently being needed by hermother, father, and neighbors, andeven by the local grocer who ischarged with distributing the mail. Her mother asks her to read thedirections on medication. Her fatherhas her look over the grade reportssent home with Ali and Leila. Herneighbor, Khadija, asks her to readthe letters from her husband inFrance. Her older siblings ask her tofill out job applications.

Although she holds the presti-gious position of scribe for thesetasks, Meriam, a dutiful child, isgreatly attached to her parents, heremotional and material support,and very respectful toward eldersaround her. To her, her father is ahero and a wise man. She loves hermother’s nightly storytelling. Sheis constantly amazed by the travelsundertaken, the perils faced, andthe sagas related by hosts ofcharacters, appearing and disap-pearing, following the shuttle ofthe narrative, which only hermother can weave together withsuch harmony. Meriam, an avid reader ofstorybooks from the bare-bonespublic library, is fascinated by her

Qol li-man yada’ee fil‘ilmee ma ‘rifatan;“Hafidhta shay’an waghaabat ‘anka ashyaa ‘u.”

(Tell those who claim toknow all; “In learning athing or two, you missedthe rest.”)

father’s wisdom but is confused bythe fact that he cannot read andwrite. Likewise,she finds her mother’s tales to bemore compelling than books, butthey are not recorded and keptsafely in a library. The paradox Meriam struggleswith – respecting and valuing theknowledge of her parents who donot read and write while beingaware of the status of reading andwriting as skills that make one“smart” – is one that underpins theliteracy stories examined here.Imagined Lives is about the localtexture of lives interlaced witheach other and threaded into thelarger patterns of the globalframework.

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Photographs of Steens Mountain,Summer Lake, the Painted Hills,

Catlow Valley, Malheur Refuge,Harney Basin, Warner Valley and theAlvord Desert are among sixty strikingimages of Eastern Oregon now onexhibit at the Center for theHumanities. This is not the “EasternOregon” of Bend and the outdoorwinter playground, but of the realeastern half of the state where rock,sky and evidence of ranching past andpresent dominate the landscape. The pictures were taken by fivephotographers who have traveledoften during the past five years—together and separately—east of theCascades, and have pooled their workto create the exhibit, “FivePhotographers: Perspectives onEastern Oregon.” The sixty-plus printsin various photographic media are byOwen Bentley, Rich Bergeman andAllan Doerksen, of Corvallis, andKurt Norlin and Bob Ross, of Albany.

“The show explores how differenteyes perceive the same subject,” saidBergeman. Although they sometimesphotographed in the same places, suchas the abandoned Shirk Ranch atGuano Lake, the petroglyphs at thebase of Hart Mountain, and the ghosttown of Richmond, the artists createdwidely different works that reflecttheir personal styles. Doerksen and Bergeman offerclassic black-and-white studies ofweathered wood-plank buildings,abandoned interiors and other scenestaken with large-format cameras.While Doerksen uses the traditionalsilver-gelatin papers to print his work,Bergeman prints in the historicplatinum process and also shows somesmall, manipulated-color Polaroidprints. Ross, a well-known naturephotographer, presents color imagesmade with a digital camera. His workreveals a fascination with the land and

a wide-ranging interest in subjectmatter, from wildlife and scenery todetailed close-ups of lichen on rocks.Norlin is showing two distinct stylesof work—a selection ofpanoramic color prints that reveal thescale of the Eastern Oregonlandscape, and a set of photographsmade with a toy camera, whose softfocus and distortion add a dream-likequality to the images. Bentley presents large-formatblack-and-white prints that find theironic and playful in the small townsand deserted homesteads that dot thedesert landscape. The exhibit is on display throughJune in the Center’s public meetingrooms in Autzen House, 811 S.W.Jefferson Avenue, Monday throughFriday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Forinformation, call 737-2450.

Five photographerssee Eastern Oregonwith different eyes

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CalendarApril

4 Arculf: A Frankish Pilgrim in ArabJerusalem in the Seventh Century.Seminar by John Tolan, Center ResearchFellow, Professor of Medieval History,University of Nantes. 4 p.m. AutzenHouse.

18 We’ve a Story to Tell: The Perils,Pitfalls, and Occasional Rewards ofBeing a Southern Baptist Woman in theMinistry. Lecture by Susan Shaw,Center Research Fellow, Director ofWomen Studies, OSU. 4 p.m. AutzenHouse.

25 On Editing the ‘Jouvencel.’ SeminarbyMichelle Szkilnik, Center ResearchFellow, Professor of French Literature,University of Nantes. 4 p.m. AutzenHouse.

May

2 Conflict and Cooperation: Research-ing the Operation of Tea OutgrowerSchemes in Zimbabwe. Seminar byJoseph Mtisi, Center Research Fellow,Lecturer, Dept. of Economic History,University of Zimbabwe. 4 p.m.Autzen House.

9 Imagined Lives: Women and Literacyin North Africa. Lecture by LauraRice, Center Research Fellow,Associate Professor of English, OSU.4 p.m. Autzen House.

16 The Province of Affliction: Illness inEighteenth-Century New England.Lecture by Ben Mutschler, CenterResearch Fellow, Assistant Professorof History,OSU. 4 p.m. Autzen House.

23 Citizen Reviewers: Popular Culture,Technology, and the Circulation ofCultural Power. Lecture by Lisa Ede,Center Research Fellow, Professor ofEnglish, OSU. 4 p.m. Autzen House.

The most sympathetic thing I everheard my father say about my

mother was, ‘How’d you like to be thatfat?’ It was raining and I was in thebackseat of the Impala, eleven yearsold, my sister Helen beside me, andmy brother Timmy leaning against theother window. We were on a vacationin Maine, looking for a motel. My

father thought reservations werelimiting — he liked to take each dayas it came, find a motel on the edgeof a sleepy town no longer on themain road, cut off from theInterstate by ten miles. A motelmanaged by an old couple – TheSwaying Pines or The Whale andSchooner – dark paneling, dustylampshades, a Howard Johnson’sashtray, a sign welcoming huntersand snowmobilers even in summer,and rock-bottom rates.

The opening passages of KeithScribner’s novel in progress, Houseof Stairs, describes two relatedscenes told in the voice of narratorMax Phelan, the first a typicalmoment on a family vacation, thesecond the death of a young man whoplunges from a rooftop at prepschool. “In part, the novel is aboutmemory, how memories change overtime and how they can be created orimagined,” said Scribner, a ResearchFellow and assistant professor ofEnglish at OSU.

The book merges three mainnarratives; one in 1963, one in 1976,and one present-day narrative at thebeginning of the twenty-first century.The 1963 narrative is about MaxPhelan’s maternal uncle, Richie, whogoes to college but drops out to jointhe army and is killed in Vietnam.Max recreates Richie’s story fromimagination, with little real informa-tion. Others in the family also areobsessed with the story of the lostRichie, each believing privateversions in which he’s a hero whosaved his platoon, or a martyr whojoined the army to bring honor to adishonored family, or a victim of theSixties. “The novel explores thesesorts of fabrications and the ways inwhich family members can live theirlives in response to each other,” saidScribner. “In a more general sense, itexplores the ways in which Americanmythology can influence a family’smythology.”

Novel links family mythology & myths of nation

Keith Scribner

Continued on Page 10

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Most of the novel concerns the1976 narrative about Max in prepschool. A scholarship student, he ismotivated by class aspiration andfeelings of resentment and inad-equacy. He is compelled by Richie’sstory because he comes to realizethat, like everyone else in the family,his life is a reaction to the life he hasimagined for Richie. “I think of the 1963 narrative asthe ‘beginning’ of the Sixties, and the1976 narrative as the ‘end’ of theSixties. Richie is killed in the summerof 1968 – perhaps the height of theSixties – a year of assassination,paranoia, and chaos. Richie stumbles

into the beginning of the Sixties andsocial freedom he can’t navigate. In1976, Max and his friends are beset bya feeling of having just missed theSixties, longing for what they see as amore socially liberal time that haspassed them by.” In 2004, Max Phelan’s teenage sonhas an accident that he may or may notsurvive. The novel links the death ofRichie with the death of ToddHarrington, the young man who fellfrom the school roof – a death thatMax turns out to have been moreinvolved in than is revealed earlier —and both are linked to the possibledeath of Max’s son. “Max’s redemp

tion and the salvation of his soninvolve Max’s revisiting the earlierdeaths and symbolically saving Richieand Todd through an act of forgive-ness.” The screen rights for Scribner’snovel The GoodLife have beenoptioned by Killer Films, which hopesto raise the money to produce a moviestarring Sarah Jessica Parker, MattDillon, and Allison Janney, to bedirected by Scott Elliot. Scribner alsois the author of the 2003 novelMiracle Girl, and is completing, TheOregon Experiment, about a fictionalsecessionist movement in the PacificNorthwest.

small, and to discern the benefits ofthe changes that life’s trials visitedupon them. At the same time, thepeoples of the region created prac-tices to meet the immediate socialchallenges of affliction.” Mutchsler’s book explores thecreative challenges that grew out ofthe everyday nature of crisis andsuffering, focusing on the problemsroutinely presented by illness, thedisruptions it caused and the pres-sures it placed on the afflicted andtheir caregivers. Even for the well-connected, illness could presentserious challenges to efforts toachieve and maintain “competen-cies,” or a middling level of subsis-tence. At the other end of the spectrumwere the sick poor and an evenbroader array of persons brought intodependency through forces thateveryone considered to be beyondcontrol. Epidemics and war werechief among them. War removedhealthy bodies from households and

returned them injured, desperately illor chronically infirm, while epidemicscut through towns, leaving not onlymany dead but survivors who struggledto survive the aftermath. “The book attends to the starkdifferences that separated the experi-ences of the well-connected and themarginal, but it argues as well thatboth were united in facing a dynamicof dependency in daily life. Illnessacted as a force pulling the strickenand those charged with their outwardcare towards dependency.” Thedemands of sickness spread outward,from families and households toneighborhoods and towns, and throughall layers of government. Mutschler also examines the chang-ing fate of illness in a society thatincreasingly embraced health assomething that could be achievedthrough proper habits and the timelyintervention of charitable institutions.New institutional responses to illnessincluded state programs aimed athelping “paupers,” and charitable help

for the sick, including dispensaries,female societies, and hospitals. “Here the challenge lies in probingthe ambiguous terrain that illnesscreated in a liberal society—betweenthe worthy and the vicious, betweenthe sick body as a source of height-ened sensibility and of shame.”

Family mythology continued . . .

“Illness acted as aforce pulling the

stricken and thosecharged with their

outward care towards dependency.”

Illness continued . . .

11

that, albeit following the adventuresof a young knight, also amply dealswith war techniques and ethics.” The protagonist of Le Jouvencel isa poor nobleman who, throughbravery and audacity, quickly rises inthe military hierarchy. Sent to rescuea foreign king, he succeeds in savinghim and marries his daughter, thusbecoming regent of the kingdom. “Hisremarkable career at first seems tocontradict my findings about whatmakes a successful knight in the 15thcentury. While staying away from thecourt and refusing to abide by itssocial practices—in one instance hesays he would rather spend moneyransoming a bowman than buyingclothes—he does manage to reachquite an enviable social position. Heowes his success not to some courtlyfavor, but to personal qualitiesextolled by the narrative, notablyausterity, modesty, and braverycombined with shrewdness.” Eventually, however, the Jouvencelrecognizes that his position is notwhat he assumed. “Although hepretends to take it lightly, one is left

with an ambiguous message. Could itbe, after all, that political intrigues area better means to social ascendancythan military prowess? The Jouvencelthus reflects with some unease on theplace and the role of the warrior inthe changing society of the lateMiddle Ages, on his relation to theprince and the court.” The ongoing literary impact of LeJouvencel is of particular interest toSzkilnik. “I believe that its influencecan be felt in the image that 17th-century war memoirs, such as those ofLa Rochefoucauld, Campion orBussy-Rabutin, give of the idealmilitary leader.” Also of interest is the“complex reworking of sources.Medievalists have long acknowledgedthat rewriting is the basis of literaryproduction in the Middle Ages.” Jeande Bueil, for instance, drew on textsthat agreed with his own reflectionson war, strategy, and military duties. Preparing a new critical edition ofthe romance is complicated by theexistence of numerous manuscriptsscattered around Europe, as well asby the length of the text. One

important copy fills 122 folios (thisincludes notes by Guillaume deTringant). Some of the manuscriptswere lavishly illustrated, one by the15th-century painter Jean Fouquet.

The only available edition of LeJouvencel dates from the 19th

century (reprinted in 1996), but “theedition is hardly a critical one. Whilecontaining a long historical andbiographical introduction, it providesvery few variants, no glossary, noanalysis of the language, no criticalnotes and no justification of editorialdecisions.” Szkilnik’s new criticaledition is under contract withChampion (Paris), to be issued in theClassique Francais du Moyen Agecollection.

Nicole von GermetenAssist. Professor of HistoryRace and Society in ColonialCartagena de Indies

Evan GottliebAssist. Professor of EnglishRomanticism, Globalization, andthe Modern World Order

Julie GreenAssoc. Professor of ArtThe Last Supper

Research fellows continued . . .Charlotte HeadrickProfessor of SpeechCommunication/Theatre ArtsWomen of Some Importance: Essayson Artists Who Influenced Theatre inthe Twentieth Century

Sarah HendersonAssist. Professor of Political ScienceDeveloping Democratic Governancein Contemporary Russia: CitizenActivism in Russia

William HusbandProfessor of HistoryNature in Modern Russia: A Social History

Jon LewisProfessor of English‘If You Can’t Protect What You Own,You Don’t Own Anything’: Piracy,Privacy, and Public Relations in 21st

Century Hollywood

Kirsi PeltomäkiAssistant Professor of ArtRepositioning the Subject: The Art ofMichael Asher

Le Jouvencel continued . . .

Could it be, after all,that political intriguesare a better means to

social ascendancy thanmilitary prowess?

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