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lecture notes |
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Introduction
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attitude check: difficult, demanding exams
not graded on perfection but on meeting requirements and making progress
are we learning? temptation to want praise and congratulations for what we already know
old teacher can just teach what taught before and get by
but always sensitive to criticism of our discipline from conservatives or scientists: "they just teach them what to think (and reward them for agreeing)"
liberal arts education as "indoctrination"
agreed: desire to understand the world, society, and how it works--literary people step out of the world to see it better
but danger of just echoing each other, reflexive, fixed attitudes about a world that's always changing--my own sensitivity
priorities for students > instructor
1. literature as meaning, identity, affirmation (but conflict and resolution in stories) minority
2. > literary devices: much harder to teach, require discipline, training, repetitions
3. > literary and cultural history: many literature students prefer literature as "timeless"
First priority changes rapidly, attitudes and experiences shift
2nd two more permanent, more factual, more of a bedrock of knowledge you can build on
What is human?
trust in knowledge leading to understanding, shared humanity
Thomas B. Edsall, "The Contract with Authoritarianism." New York Times 5 April 2018.
[In 1996], George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at Berkeley, published “Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think,” which argued that
Deeply embedded in conservative and liberal politics are two different models of the family. Conservatism is based on a Strict Father model, while liberalism is centered on a Nurturant Parent model. These two models of the family give rise to different moral systems.
Several approaches to contemporary politics echo the insights of Sipple and Lakoff. The crucial word now, however, is authoritarianism.
The election of Donald Trump — built as it was on several long-term trends that converged in 2016 — has created an authoritarian moment. This somewhat surprising development is the subject of “Remaking Partisan Politics through Authoritarian Sorting,” a forthcoming book by the political scientists Christopher Federico, Stanley Feldman and Christopher Weber, who argue that
Three trends — polarization, media change, and the rise of what many people see as threats to the traditional social order — have contributed to a growing divide within American politics. It is a divide between those who place heavy value on social order and cohesion relative to those who value personal autonomy and independence.
The three authors use a long-established authoritarian scale — based on four survey questions about which childhood traits parents would like to see in their offspring — that asks voters to choose between independence or respect for their elders; curiosity or good manners; self-reliance or obedience; and being considerate or well-behaved. Those respondents who choose respect for elders, good manners, obedience and being well-behaved are rated more authoritarian.
The authors found that in 1992, 62 percent of white voters who ranked highest on the authoritarian scale supported George H.W. Bush. In 2016, 86 percent of the most authoritarian white voters backed Trump, an increase of 24 percentage points.
Federico, Feldman and Weber conclude that
Authoritarianism is now more deeply bound up with partisan identities. It has become part and parcel of Republican identity among non-Hispanic white Americans.
Last year, Federico, writing with Christopher Johnston of Duke and Howard G. Lavine of the University of Minnesota, published “Open versus Closed: Personality, Identity, and the Politics of Redistribution,” which also explores the concept of authoritarian voting.
In an email, Johnston summarized some of their findings:
Over the last few decades, party allegiances have become increasingly tied to a core dimension of personality we call “openness.” Citizens high in openness value independence, self-direction, and novelty, while those low in openness value social cohesion, certainty, and security. Individual differences in openness seem to underpin many social and cultural disputes, including debates over the value of racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity, law and order, and traditional values and social norms.
Equiano notes
1.4 luxuries few (cf. Woolman); cf. plain style
1.7 beauty relative
1.9 one Creator
1.11, 1.12 cf. Jews > Amerinds
1.14 limiting the goodness of God [universalism]
2.3 local / tribal culture [kidnappers]
2.6 loss / sorrow
2.7 metal working
2.10 snakes in garden
2.12 different languages
2.12-13 sister and loss
2.14 money shells
2.14-15 old world slavery, extended family
2.17 different cultures, Western influence, change in women's status; no sacrifices or offerings (cf. patriarch 1.12)
2.19 slave ship, bad spirits
2.21 contrast Crevecoeur
2.22 technology as magic
2.23 x-Enlightened capitalism
2.27 assimilation to Af Am
3.3 voice, speech contrast Declaration, 1st Amendment
3.4 technology (watch)
3.7 learning English
3.15-16 church and literacy
3.16 talk to the books
3.19 limits on assimilation
4.1-2 literacy and religion
4.2 a Guide to the Indians
4.3-4 loss
4.5 written laws
4.5 dreams of freedom
4.6b talked too much English
5.3 West Indies slavery
5.7-8 wealth creation
5.10 depradations & reversal; white men on black women; black man and white prostitute
5.13 all men created equal; conditions change--slavery bad for whites too
6.3 capitalism
6.6-7 state of free negro
6.8 learning navigation
6.10 trading to buy freedom
6.11 navigation helps unexpectedly
6.14 price of freedom (not born)
6.17 Charlestown
7.1 natural wonder
7.2 Quakers
7.2b Great Awakening
7.4a-b contract, 7.7 written manumission
8.4 law
8.6 I talked too good English
10.1b primitive Christians; cf. Pilgrims
10.2 Conversion of an Indian
10.4 cf. Woolman on sailors
10.6 an unsealed book (literacy?)
12.3 common nature
12.3 light, liberty, science
12.8 economic interests against slavery, grow market
Phillips letter [2] cf. Fuller
1.3 father
white man,
whispered
1.3 part mothers from children, blunt and destroy natural
affection
1.4 see me in the night
1.5 profitable as well as pleasurable
1.7 very different-looking class of people
1.11blood-stained
gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery
2.4 night as slave’s time
2.7, 2.11 double language
3.1-2 garden excludes slaves
3.5 never utter a word
3.7 penalty of telling the truth
4.2-4.5 chiasmus
5.3 evolutionary / capitalist metaphor
5.9 white face, kindly emotions
6.1 by trade a weaver [class]
6.5 literacy, white man’s power to enslave black man
6.6 chiasmus
6.7 city over town, anti-romance
7.2 slavery as injurious to her
7.3 slavery and education incompatible
7.5 bread of knowledge
7.6-7 anti-slavery + Catholic emancipation
7.8 slavers as
robbers, gone to
7.11 Irishmen
7.13 copy-book as board fence
8.2 all ranked together
8.9 brandy and slavery
8.11 knowledge to run away
9.2 Methodist
camp meeting, 2nd
Great Awakening
9.4 learn to read New Testament, broke up
9.7 Covey a professor of religion
10A.1 Covey as “the snake” + 2 power to deceive
10B.2 cf. Emerson
10C.1 chiasmus
10D.
10D.7 turning point in career as slave
10D.8 glorious resurrection from tomb of slavery
10E slaves’ holidays
10E.3 vicious dissipation
10F.2 no pretensions to religion; religion of the south
10G.1
10G.3 society of my fellow-slaves
10G.7 Patrick Henry, liberty or death
10H.5 cf. law enforcement
10H.6 yellow mulatto devil
10H.10 slave traders as pirates
10H.13 stone
prison to
10i.3 class / race conflict
10i.7 Mrs. Auld
10J.3 money to master
11.3 underground railroad
11.5 continued to think
11.7 camp meeting
11.8 civil disobedience
11.13 leave escape unexplained
11.18 marriage ceremony
11.22 change my name
11.23 absence of slaves > wealth
11.28 starting point of new existence
A.2 slaveholding religion