“A Very Yankee Sort of Oriental”: Cosmopolitanism and Orientalism in Henry David Thoreau’s Engagements with Eastern Religions

Until quite recently, due to the prevalence of the myth of American literary autonomy during the early national period, few studies have addressed the international influences upon American works. Following the work of Wai Chee Dimock, Paul Giles, Susan Manning, and Andrew Taylor which positions American literature as a form of world literature, this paper explores the interactions between American Transcendentalism and Eastern religions in the writings of Henry David Thoreau.

Segments of Eastern texts appear in Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, and his journals, and Thoreau translated Eastern texts into English (from French and German translations) in the “Ethnical Scriptures” column in The Dial. Thoreau’s writings on the East can be conceived in two ways. First, they reflect an emerging cosmopolitan American identity that features a positive opening to the richness of foreign cultures. For example, in the Artist of Kouroo parable, Thoreau combines Eastern and Western perspectives to create a culturally harmonious work. Conversely, Thoreau’s writing is as a continuation of a conventional Western Orientalist perspective that essentializes the East and uses its representation as a means of defining the West. In Walden Thoreau portrays the East as backward, mythologizes different religions and cultures, defines the East with a Western lens, and commodifies religious practice. Thoreau’s writings are therefore cosmopolitan and Orientalist and, this conflicted state of being reaffirms Laura Dassow Walls’ argument that the two identities frequently overlap.

While there has been a lull of scholarly interest in Thoreau’s connection to Eastern religions, my research paper aims to spark the debate by demonstrating the theoretically problematic nature of this relationship. Furthermore, given Thoreau’s foundational role in American literature, his works suggest that the early American canon was an international product that permeated borders.

Sarina Isenberg, Queen's University

Whose National Myth?

Any of us can easily recall numerous examples of the appropriation or reinterpretation of the mythic narratives and characters of the Old West by creative artists and writers from outside America—particularly in film, we think of Akira Kurasawa’s Seven  Samurai, Sergio Leone’s “spaghetti  Westerns” in the 1950s and 1960s or even more recently Willem Dafoe’s “le cowboy” character who arrives to console a grieving Parisian mother in Nobuhiro Suwa’s contribution to Paris, Je t’aime! (2006)  The appeal of the Old West myth with its larger-than-life characters and spaces seems to be global, rather than national.  But what can these reinterpretations of the Old West by creative artists from outside the US tell us about the cultural values that motivate them?  Are the elements of the Old West myths so universal that they can fit into any cultural context with a consistent meaning?  

My approach takes an intentional transatlantic context by comparing examples from 20^th century American and European, particularly German, interpretations of the Old West and its characters.  Through this approach I hope to show that the myth of the Old West is infused with values that reflect ideas and attitudes which are more indicative of European rather than American concerns.

Although his writings are hardly known in North America, the novels of the Wild West by the late 19^th century German author Karl May have exerted an influence on the national psyche of Germany for over a century, forming a fixed image of the American West for several generations of Germans that simply cannot be supplanted by the more recent imaginary visions of TV and film Westerns or by any actual first-hand experience of the American West.  In contrast to the North American stereotypes of Western characters, in May’s Western novels the Native American is the “good guy”, the hero, rather than the Cowboy.  May’s admiration for the Native American follows the European tradition of the “noble savage”, but May develops this stereotype even further as he imbues his fictional Western characters, the Apache Winnetou and his white (German) companion Old Shatterhand with personal credos and world views that reflect the author’s own commitment to the principles of the late 19^th century International Peace Movement.

Separated from May by two World Wars and much of Germany’s terrible recent history, in his famous 1974 performance piece, I like America and America likes Me, German artist Joseph Beuys revives the concept of the encounter with an essential spirit of the American West that can catapult modern man into a new ideal relationship with his surroundings.  Winnetou’s murder at the end of May’s trilogy signals the end of this noble race and Beuys begins his encounter at this tragic moment: “I believe I made contact with the psychological trauma point of the United States’ energy constellation: the whole American trauma with the Indian, the Red Man.”  Just as May’s vision of the American West was infused with the philosophical ideals of the International Peace Movement, Beuys too filters his conception of the American West through a philosophical system: the philosophy of spiritual freedom found in the writings of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy.

Finally, the films of German director Wim Wenders present a much less utopian view of the American West.  From Paris, Texas (1984), his first collaboration with Sam Shepard, through Land of Plenty (2004) and Don’t Come Knocking (2006), his most recent collaboration with Shepard, Wenders examines the legacy of the Old West in the increasingly desperate lives of modern Westerners as they struggle with the loss of that legacy in the face of the social, psychological and political realities of the contemporary America.

What I hope to suggest is that the meaning of the Old West for an entire European nation over several generations can be vastly different from the meanings that our American culture imbues in this national myth.  This can have a significant impact on international understanding and particularly on the practice of and on the premises and purposes of American Studies in the US in comparison with our academic counterparts Europe.

Steven Bradley, Colorado Mesa University

Dani Abulhawa's (Pop Culture and Identity) Post

In a broad sense, my area of research for the conference is in looking at how specific topographical features and landscapes produce and are visible within cultural narratives. More specifically, I’m using skateboarding and it’s origins within the physical landscape of 1960s LA as my example.

The cultural myth at the centre of my research is the documentary film Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001). You can have a look at the trailer for the film here: 'Dogtown and Z-Boys' trailer on YouTube

In the documentary, the origins of contemporary skateboarding begin not, as you might expect, with the production of the skateboard, neither with the Z-Boys themselves – this comes a little later. Rather, it begins with a place, ‘Dogtown’, which is defined as an area within Los Angeles county consisting of three beach communities: South Santa Monica, Venice and Ocean Park. 

When I began analysing the documentary, as a sub-cultural creation myth, I expected to discover inherent codes of behaviour and attitude, which corroborated the range of existing research into skateboarders and skateboarding and my own experiences as a British skateboarder. Things such as, rebellion against a perceived mainstream, the rewriting of dilapidated or ‘edgeland’ (Shoard 2002) urban locations as productive play spaces, participant control (Beal 1996) and supportive/competitive homosocial group dynamics (Borden 2001). I also expected to learn more about the relationship between skateboarding and surfing, since what marked the Zephyr team as different from mainstream skateboarding in the 1960s, was their crouching, gliding and generally surf-inspired approach to movement.

What came as a surprise was a particular strand of the narrative that suggests the major significance of simulations of topographical features and landscape to the progression of skateboarding, and an inescapable sense of ‘flow’ as a defining characteristic of the subculture.

As someone whose first-hand experience of skateboarding is based entirely in the UK, when analysing Dogtown and Z-Boys, I couldn’t help but feel like somewhere between LA and the UK, this particular narrative strand had become transformed.

This has led me to consider a number of questions, which I’m hoping to explore in more detail in preparation for my paper in November. These questions are quite broad; I was hoping that perhaps people reading this might have ideas about some of these questions and examples they could raise either inside or outside of a skateboarding context:

ª      How might place contribute to the development of cultural identity?

ª      How might the topographical features and landscape of a place appear within cultural narratives?

ª      If specific cultures are closely linked to landscape, what happens when these cultural narratives are adopted in other places?

Also, because I’m thinking about how place relates to cultural narratives and identity, It’s tricky for me to think about the larger scope of national narratives, since nations consist of such a diversity of places and landscapes.

These are the main questions and concerns I’m working around at the moment, and I’m really keen to hear any perspectives.

Dani Abulhawa, University of Chester

Eric Larson's (Transnational) Post

Left, Right, or Center? Narratives of National Decline in U.S. History

The unprecedented downgrading of the U.S. credit rating has led to a rejuvenation of one of the handiest political billyclubs around: the specter of national decline. Decline narratives have been particularly useful for conservatives in the last several decades, but they appear in a variety of forms in U.S. history, including in terms of racial decline. (See, for instance, Frank Usbeck's post on racial purity, Native Americans, and U.S. and German nationalism.)

Casting debt-and-credit problems as symptoms of a pernicious, all-encompassing national decline is only one variant in this election season’s versatile lexicon of “declinism.” Columnist Deneen Borelli linked economic decline to “moral decline,” violence, and “flash robs” by poor, often African American, youth. (http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/14/obamas-policies-are-causing-economic-and-moral-decline/) For Tim Pawlenty, the country’s “murky” foreign policy signals the emasculating “shrink[ing]” of the country’s fatherly global stature. (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57900.html) (Would an adjective like “mushy” – see Usbek’s post and his use of Jacobson’s Barbarian Virtues – have worked as well as “murky” for the Minnesota governor?) More generally, both E.J. Dionne, Jr. and Politico.com have suggested that decline could be the main issue in the 2012 elections. (http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/american-decline?page=0,0); (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51309.html).

My NEASA paper, “Family, Country, and Foreign Competition: National Narratives and Union Reform in the 1980s,” will examine how the liberal and labor left brandished the decline idea in the 1980s. Decline, indeed, knows no partisan boundaries, and I will examine how unionists in the 1980s blamed “unfair foreign competition” for a variety of social and political ills, including, of course, “national decline.” Competition from businesses in East Asia, Germany, South Africa, and South America did indeed challenge a variety of unionized industries in the 1980s, and as the murder of Vincent Chen in 1982 suggests, nationalist narratives and specters of decline articulated themselves with racial and economic violence in tragic ways.

How and when have narratives of decline gained widespread political and social traction, and how and when have they remained the province of doomsdayers and eccentrics?

How would comparing U.S.-based narratives of decline with those of other countries enrich our understanding of U.S. history? In my own work on Mexican history, for instance, the gendered and sexualized nature of such narratives illuminates the power discrepancies between the two countries. Just as Pawlenty articulated U.S. decline as resulting from “shrink[ing]” from global challenges, a common narrative of decline in Mexican history is based on U.S. ascendancy – ascendancy in terms of its increasing economic, political, and cultural penetration of an open, vulnerable Mexican society.

William Stark's (Religion and Identity) Post

Two Women across the Cultural Divide: the Tolerance of Intolerance

As iconic figures of American history, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Anne Marbury Hutchinson stand in stark contrast to one another. Comparing these two outstanding women invites many burning questions. When we cross national, linguistic and cultural divides, such an association reminds us that historically America has represented, and continues to represent, many things to many people. It recalls for us that we all occupy other selves and different geographies.

When we consider the cultural implications and historical narratives of Anne Hutchinson of New England and Sor Juana of New Spain, the veil that separates geopolitical, cultural, religious and linguistic perspectives lifts to reveal two women whose lives and works figure prominently in discussions concerning the conflict of authority with intellectual liberty and religious tolerance in America. Narratives that recall details of their lives also emphasize both women’s ties to issues of gender and feminist rights as they have developed historically in America.

                 Ultimately, this examination traces a line in space that extends from north to south: from Portsmouth, Rhode Island to Mexico City; and in time: from the twilight of the Elizabethan age to the present.

William Stark, Department of Modern and Classical Languages, University of Rhode Island.

Frank Usbeck's (Transnational) Post

Who's the Barbarian Here? Or: Exceptionalism in German and American Group Identity around 1900

While analyzing the German interest in Native American topics, I came to understand the interrelation of German nationalism and identity formation with this interest for Indians. Following this thread, I became very interested in ways how German nationalists claimed German uniqueness by way of alluding to the primitive, and the same time I discovered numerous parallels in American nationalism and in the myth of the frontier. I want to share and discuss these parallels in this blog and possibly use them as premises to our presentations and discussions in November. I'd be interested in how far similar parallels and claims to exceptionalism  using the same trope existed among other groups.

Reaching back to the first phase of European expansion, the German infatuation with Native American topics has become a phenomenon of popular mass culture during the 19th century and has, in varying adaptive expressions, prevailed until now. Termed German "Indianthusiasm" by American Studies scholar Hartmut Lutz, this phenomenon has been found to be more revealing about German perceptions of self and the American other than about (Native) America itself. The depiction of contemporary Native Americans helped German nationalists of the 19th century to relate Germans to their Germanic ancestors, and thus ascribe to both Germans and Native Americans positive "national/racial" character traits which enhanced a notion of German-Indian sameness. In my dissertation project, I described two major tropes of Indianthusiasm which helped  build a sense of German exceptionalism by way of Indian imagery and allusions to primitivism/barbarianism, the German Sonderweg.

In the Fellow Peoples motif, many nationalists assigned positive character traits to Germans. In the sense of Anderson's concept of imagined community, these character traits served as group markers believed to be ancient and inherent, and thus declared the German people per se to be honest, brave, loyal, untiring, and hospitable. While these traits were mentioned in early Roman texts about Germanic peoples (i.e. Tacitus' Germania), they also fit the description of the proverbial noble savage. Because it was claimed (and believed) that Germans had preserved their character traits, customs, and social structure, and thus their peoplehood, since the days of ancient Rome, and since 19th-century descriptions of Native Americans mirrored the character traits Germans had assigned to themselves, the similarity and familiarity seemed obvious. This similarity, on the other hand, invited the notion of exceptionalism because it set the Germans as a people apart from other Europeans who where excluded from these inherent group markers.

In the Common Enemy motif, long-standing rivals and perceived threats to the German self were identified as alien and anti-German, massive changes in the socio-political structure due to industrialization and secularization caused people to blame basic principles of the Enlightenment. Germans, believing to be indigenous people and thus soul-mates with Native Americans, perceived the introduction of modernity as the intrusion of alien concepts (such as liberalism), as well as the economic and military threat of invasion by expansive outsiders. In this sense, Germans often saw parallels with Native Americans as the victims of French, British, and American trickery, greed, and cultural pressure.

In order to preserve Germanness, then, politicians, philosophers, writers, and academics time and again invoked virtues and character traits such as honesty, bravery, fierceness, loyalty, or hospitality, all traits that were said to be inherent and inheritable national/racial character traits. Ominously, all these traits were present and valued in Indian imagery as well.

One of the most puzzling and fascinating insights of my study was the perception of uniqueness among many German nationalists who did not seem to realize that the positive relation to a people perceived as original and thus the identification with what was seen as primitive was by no means a unique treat of identity formation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Academic literature both in Germany and the Americas at the time could have shown that these character traits did not describe a unique group but were items in what a colleague described as the "barbarian catalog." Following a suggestion after a conference presentation, I researched discourses on Americanness  at the same time and stumbled over statements by Theodore Roosevelt which were very similar to many German ideas about the positive role of barbarian virtues in the formation of national identity:

"Over-sentimentality, over-softness, in fact washiness and mushiness are the great dangers of this age and of this people. Unless we keep the barbarian virtues, gaining the civilized ones will be of little avail " (Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues 3).

Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis of the Frontier as the main tool of American identity formation dwells on the recurrence of "primitive" stages of development, on the fact that immigrant pioneers are turned  into Americans by having to start from scratch and having to rely solely on the resources the American continent provided. Roosevelt's quote emphasizes the same idea - the notion that American greatness grew out of originality and simplicity, and that the spoils of modernity have weakened the essence of the people by distracting them with material wealth.

Both German Indianthusiasm and American nationalism's concept of barbarian virtues interpreted aspects of what they saw as "primitive" and "barbaric" as sources of strength and believed their own groups were unique in being strong by way of the barbarian catalog. At the same time, both Americans and Germans also developed national(ist) narratives in which the primitive was portrayed as a contemptible or even dangerous other.

 
   Frank Usbeck, Universitat Leipzig.

Sample post (from NEASA Council member Jonathan Silverman)

Welcome to the NEASA conference blog. We're doing a little experiment here to see if we can begin conversations that will culminate at our conference in November. Each week a different panel will present on their subject (or anything American Studies related).

I'm going to be the host of sorts with participation with others from the NEASA council, a group with wide subject and disciplinary interests, also helping me. In the spirit of collaboration and "you first," I'll begin with a little post that models what we hope to be

doing here.

In graduate school, we used to play a game: song or paper topic. Someone would name a subject--"Captain Crunch" comes to mind--and we would figure out whether it would better be explored as a song or paper topic. Almost everything ended up as a paper topic, because in our department at least, and I think, American Studies scholars generally and graduate students in particular often have an openness to exploration, a curiosity about the how and why of everyday culture matters.

It’s with this spirit that I’m approaching my current project on class and architecture at racetracks. As a reporter that covered horse racing from both a social and sports perspective, I saw that racetracks both small and large, prominent and obscure, included class divisions in their architecture, and that they included a type of class play. My paper here focuses on one part of racetrack culture, the type of influence that British traditions have on American ones, and how racetrack goers in the United States, and track owners, use these traditions as a vehicle for their own class performances.

I focus here on the fancy hats women sometimes wear—and tracks often sell. These fancy hats are a type of fashion architecture that exists idiosyncratically almost exclusively at racetracks. What do they mean? How do we contextualize them? Those are the types of questions I’m asking in this paper and in a longer work as well.