What I’m Reading This Winter Break

I covet this shelf.

I think my favorite book recommendations these days haven’t come from Amazon (sorry, overlords), but from friends and colleagues. As a result, I was inspired by Rebecca Onion’s blog post about her holiday reading docket, and I decided to write a similar post cataloging  my book reading ventures over the next month. These’ll be keeping me very busy for a few reasons: I have a lot to absorb to be able to write a solid MA report this spring (!), and I’m taking a complete break from the internet for a week when I return to Texas (!!) so will have my nose deep in books and articles without distractions.

So, without further ado…

 

Doing Weird, Awesome Things in Graduate School

Big surprise: school happened and I dropped off the face of the Earth. Well, kind of – this Earth. I’ve been busy elsewhere doing – as I’ve suggested – some weird and awesome things that have really made this semester fulfilling, as frenzied as it’s been thus far.

Over this summer, I worked with a colleague in my department to create a social media presence for my department at UT. We launched a Twitter feed in July that delivers interesting links of interest to American Studies scholars and researchers, local announcements, news about our illustrious faculty members and students, and blog updates.

And, natch, we have a new blog! AMS :: ATX is our other baby, which was launched in late August and features lengthier content: interviews with faculty members, graduate and faculty research updates, interesting lists, departmental announcements, and more. We also have a centralized space there for calls for papers, a calendar of campus and local events, and updates about local museum exhibitions here in Austin.

Anyway, if you’d like to see what I’ve been writing over there, check it all here.

Needless to say, it’s been a lot of work, and the work continues – so that’s where I’ve been spending most of my blogging/internet time. We’re also hard at work redesigning the website, so keep an eye out for lots of new bells and whistles as far as the aesthetics are concerned.

I’ve also been hard at work writing for LaughSpin, which I’ve really been digging. We’ve been writing and pushing lists a lot lately (like this), so it’s been fun to write lengthier content for the site. Writing for LaughSpin has left me hoping to spend some time meditating on the place of comedy in American life, especially subversive, political comedy. Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce, I’m coming your way.

Last, I’ve been fortunate to be in a class on documentary that’s encouraging a little more creative expression than I’ve had in other graduate seminars, so I’ve been really thrilled to expand my creation beyond paper writing and note-taking. In the near future I’ll put up some of the things I’ve made for that class so you can get a sense for how awesome American Studies is (we can do fun things!).

 

6 TV Shows American Studies Scholars Should Watch

I somehow imagined that I would have a glut of time this summer to write several blog posts of various topics, but, as it turns out, I am very good at taking on lots of tasks and not actually having free time!

But I digress. I’ve been thinking a lot about representations of America in popular culture, and especially TV. This raises a question that I hope to provide a few answers to: what TV shows should American Studies scholars watch?

I know it’s sort of the hip thing nowadays to eschew TV and hold out not owning TV as some marker of superior intellect or hispterdom. And perhaps that’s true to an extent. The summer TV season always leaves something to be desired, but if you look hard enough, and into the past (thanks, Netflix!), you can find some incredible series that are worth some careful, even scholarly, watching. What better means of tapping into our cultural zeitgeist than through TV, after all?

So, without further ado, a few shows you should watch if you’re in the wonderful field of American Studies – or simply aspire to be:

 

Restrepo vs. Armadillo: War Documentaries and [Un]Realism

For the past two years or so, I’ve been on a fairly substantial documentary film kick – thanks in large part to Hulu and Netflix, dissatisfaction with traditional news media, a general interest in the real (or more real). My craving, though, has escalated within the past six months, as these films often directly address many of the issues we confront in school – and, frankly, I don’t like just reading about these ideas. Who does, really, when there’s a real world to learn from?

So, this week, in preparation for a summer job on film, I watched two documentaries that I think are worth considering alongside each other. They directly confront issues surrounding foreign policy, imperialism, representation [of atrocity], military action, but in starkly different ways. The first is Restrepo, directed by the late Tim Hetherington, and the second is Armadillo, a Danish film directed by Janus Metz…

 

Portlandia is Not About Portland

IFC is my new favorite channel. And it should be yours, if you are a comedy nerd of any flavor. Aside from resurrecting wonderful series like Mr. Show, The Ben Stiller Show, and Freaks and Geeks, IFC also boasts some solid original programming.

Enter Portlandia.

Portlandia stars Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein as various characters in the hipster-yuppie haven that is Portland, Oregon. No one is free from lampooning: ultra-feminist bookstore owners, aggressive bikers, locavores, you name it. Short vignettes depict these characters in their element, and it’s at once hilarious and uncomfortable.

The show’s received rave reviews – and for good reason – but a lot of them seem to miss the mark. Newsweek describes the show as “regional comedy at its best,” spending an entire review describing how right Portlandia gets the Pacific Northwest. And they might be right.

But, at its core, Portlandia is not about Portland. It couldn’t be. Comedy shows rely on recognition of experience – the Homer Simpson “it’s funny because it’s true” paradigm, but more specifically, “it’s funny because it’s true to me.” To make a comedy solely focused upon the idiosyncrasies a small city on the geographic fringe of the country would not have broad appeal. Inside jokes do not a successful comedy make.

So, then, what is Portlandia about? It’s an extended character study. We’re shown the most obnoxious aspects of the hipster-yuppie types that any urbanite – or even suburbanite – encounters on a regular basis, not simply Portlanders. We find humor in seeing the characters who bear close relation to our own experience. Upon watching this clip, for example, my first thought was, “Man, I know so many people like that.” My second thought was, “Crud. Am I really that obnoxious?” It can be unsettling to watch.

To dig a little deeper, Portlandia not only illustrates those common types, it also creates a surreal world in the guise of the Portland name. The characters do not recognize the absurdity of that world, being part of it, but we do. That surreality removes the show from a particular time and place and makes the situations, oddly enough, more universally applicable. Not only is the space not Portland, it might as well be part of another universe.

Here’s a case of the absurd: the dumpster divers, while scrounging for cheap wares, find a mute young man in a dumpster. Normal for Portland, right?

So, in the end, Portlandia presents a world that we can see ourselves and our peers in, but remain separate from. That’s how you do good comedy. Fortunately, the show just got picked up for a longer second season – ten episodes, instead of six – so we’ll get to enjoy more of the awkward.