EN Intercult

- Main Question: Could there be a president like a Obama in another country? -> American Exceptionalism, American Dream

- slave trade for aprox. 300 years

- only 4% of slave ships went to US

- majority of enslaved africans: Caribbean and Brazil

- Portugal = last country to abbolish slave trade

- used indigenous people first, got sick, crops very intensive work

- France abolishe slavery in 1848

- US in 1865

- 1860, poem

- wrote Moby Dick

- Paradox: freedom / slavery

- the world's fairest hope = concept of freedom & the US & the government 

- foulest crime = slavery

- Melville = abolitionist

- 1845

- slaves narratives

- book before Civil War (Antebellum)

- enjoyed relatively more rights than slaves from the south

- Abolitionist: movement of the end of Civil War to end slavery

- Connection To Freedom: Freedom to identity, to know who you are

- essay, 1849

-  "that government is best which governs least" = anti-federalist belief

- right to rebel & revolution (fight for rights), fight unjust rights, power of a free man =right to refuse & chose allegiance (question of trust)

- inspired by John Locke; life, liberty and the pursut of hapiness

-  unjust laws: referring to slavery (obey them, try to get rid of them or obey them while they are still in action, or disobey/transgress them at once

- to transgress (=disobedience, meaning of civil disobedience)

- Transcendentalism: developed in 1820s, organized religion & parties corrupt the purity of the individual

- Main question:  what is the role of an individual in a society, in this kind of democracy?

- 1885

- Hemingway said: “modern novels started with Huckleberry Finn”

- freedom from limitations, civilized culture

- incipit = opening page

- written post Civil War, slavery abolished; action took place when slavery still existed

- artistic liberty: illiterate voice telling the story, mistakes in writing, ungrammatical sentences, breaking away from conventions

- Freedom vs. Civilization

- essay

- Emerson = Transcendentalist

- new country needs a new wrtiting style -> create a new cultural identity and don't imitate European writer, impact of nature on imaginations

- US culture to break ties with Europe

- opposes materialism

- aspect of Transcendatlism in this context: calling for US identity, human & nature -> communion with nature to explore the true meaning of the self, ultimate truth is within self, belief in self-reliance, corruption of man-made institution like government or organized church -> corrupted the essence of being a human being 

- eastern aspect, belief

- aspect of individuality: interconnectiveness universe/individual, question of moral duty in society/democracy (= change as a moral responsibility)

- relation of soul & body, nature, freedom, individuality

- Leaves of Grass -> 12 poems

- interconnectiveness (solidarity), communion of individuals, observing nature,  communion, interconnection with generations,     setting aside instutionalized organizations, nature without limit 

- social significance, effect on post WWII-generation (hippies etc.)

- writing style: no rules & no patterns

- End of poem: “We contain multitudes. Do I contradict myself?” – Paradox (so what I contradict myself, I contain multitudes)

- Piece of legislation, extract from federal law; Act establishing Yellowstone National Park -> created first national park

- Historical Context: After Civil War, movement to West in 1840s: explained by saying it is God’s will (-> Manifest Destiny), space of Native Americans taken over by white settlers

- Concern from government: certain land could disappear, sense: certain parts need to be protected, relationship to nature &  paradise that could be lost, protection of land, enjoyment of rich people

- Result: displaced Native-Americans, strict control of Government, tourism, enjoyment at the exploitation of native americans

- seminal essay by American historian

- frontier: moving line between West/East, unknown and untamed, open land

- frontier shaping American characteristics -> expansion to West changed view of American people on their culture, renewal & to start over again, reinvention, democratic views as a primary result of frontier, movement away from the past & Europe, courage is needed (rugged individualism), new product that is America

- rugged individualism = not afraid of difficulties, being independent & self-reliant

- Closing of Frontier = symbolic, Wild West, not yet “socialized” or a civilization

- Black Elk spoke Nakota, son translated

- four-legged = animals, Wasichus = white people with a negative connetation

- Neidhardt made notes used it for his book, islands = land grew smaller and smaller

- first line: people & animal living together, Americans coming (greed), bringing civilization

- Themes: loss of land, loss of movement, loss of culture (many tribes didn’t have written culture, only oral epic; therefore much is lost as they die), Paradise Lost

- Part of Beat Generation ( = Counterculture)

- Refers to Witman: Where is the America that you wrote about? ("dreaming of you enumerations" -> writing style Whitman)

- Consumerism, food = land of plenty, everything you could possibly want; relationship to nature: pork chops, killing, denatured, do bananas grow naturally in the US? -> unnatural;  when your inspiration can only be found in a super market;people like products ready to be picked up the shelves, we have become objects of consumption 

- Journey = important Metaphor in Beat (not the destination is important, but the journey), Ginsberg refers to an Odissey, The drifter  = from place to place, moving without choosing where to go, carrying along, without a particular aim, Rootlessness

- Supermarket = metaphor for a new myth, atomic age myth, as an inspiration

- shade to shade =  reffered to in Mythology

- reference to Garcia Loca ? poet & playwriter (both gay)

- Beat Generation (also gay)

- Historical Context: before Vietnam War, post World War ll, during Cold War (Eisenhower years, role in WW: general who led D-Day), impact on the youth of 60s, part of the counter-culture (against mainstream culture)

- Beat: 1950s, rejection of standard narrative values, rejection of materialism,  spiritual quest, exploration of religion (Buddhism)… also experimentation with psychedelic drugs, sexual liberation, consciousness & awareness, how do you discover yourself in the mainstream context?

- Beat: Blissness, beatitude = bliss, Beat = rhythm of Jazz, beaten down = feeling nothing, numb

- On The Road: journey across America; poetry, Jazz, Drugs; goal: journey, find something, truth larger than the self, self-awareness  

(- Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac included in book)

- Kerouac writing style: “spontaneous prose”, not edited, speed and wandering is represented in style of writing, eliminating period, using rhythm, oral aspect, immediate

- Comparison to Yellowstone, landscape that dazzles imagination

- Journey that never ends, vastness, emptiness & open space, connection to Kerouac

-  denatured out environment, turned it into art (connection to Ginsberg)

- Historical Context: during great depression, people were already quite poor during storm

- Dust Bowl = Ecological Catastrophe, dust storm, destroyed economy (farms, killed lifestock etc.), people lost everything

- Area: Texas, Oklahoma (natural grasslands where farmers had settled, they removed grass and added cultural systems to grow crops, top soil was destroyed, consequence horrible drought so soil became like powder, combined with wind from North, dustbowl was huge moved just to NY –> many people (65% of population) left and took Route 66 with destination: California (paradise, population grew, why cali? Sesonal vegetables so people could find work -> but got discriminated and had harsh living conditions)

- Connection to Dorothea Lange photo ‘Migrant Mother’

- 1930s Migration: Great Depression, Dust Bowl (moving to west)

- Basic idea: constant change, rootlessness, ever moving, American has no time to tie himself to anything, Average American moves a lot compared to the rest of the Western Civilization

- 1950s: building highways, connections, traveling

 - Paradise Lost: cultures, languages disappearing (Native American), but also the sense that America has changed -> idea that some space needs to be protected

- Road/Journey: movement, also in the sense of migration (drought -> California / Great Migration)

- Transcendentalism: Connection to nature, Understanding one self & the larger picture (universe), No constitutionalized organizations, Interconnectiveness of human beings, Non-conformism (rejecting truth of society), What is our role in a society or a democracy? –> morale human-beings (Thoreau -> Civil Disobedience)