EVENTS AT RUTGERS NEWARK

Film Series: Exploring Metropolitan and Urban Issues Around the World

Wednesday, May 8, 2013
2:30pm – 4:30pm

Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies

This is session VI of the film Series. This session features “The Agronomist.”

The remarkable account of Jean Dominique and his radio hosting days is that his struggle was able to last as long as it lasted. While almost a majority of any repressive society would silence its critics, Radio Haiti-Inter wasn’t silenced for decades. The Agronomist gives a serious recount of Haiti during its numerous regimes.

The film will fill the first hour of the session and will be followed by a discussion of themes and topics present in the film.

Click on the link to register: :http://www.formstack.com/forms/?1385962-qHWlmmgDvq

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NOTABLE BOOKS, PERFORMANCES, & IDEAS

Molly’s Rosner’s work (American Studies PhD) has been been featured on the Brooklyn Navy Yard Center Blog. Congrats to Molly!

Confronting Censorship

“Every letter sent to and from soldiers during World War II underwent scrutiny by official censors. Above, you can see that once the censor had read the letter and removed any material that might be deemed dangerous. Sometimes this information was something as innocent as a description of the weather! The censor stamped the letter or the envelope. At BLDG92 now, you can view an official censor is currently on view.

In 1945, The Saturday Evening Post printed a plea on the behalf of a censor, entitled “We Censors are Frustrated Humans” (Sept 22, 1945 p. 34). The author explained how difficult it was to read thousands of letters every day without becoming emotionally invested in the stories he read. He explained how sometimes he wanted to intervene in order to clear up a misunderstanding. The censor, who so many people despised, is made human here:

“When you see initials scrawled in a ring stamped in the lower left-hand corner of the envelopes you receive don’t be too angry. To that censor you are nameless, but he has probably been sad with you, laughed with you, wanted to help you, and he may even have helped your husband sweat out the time before your baby was born. His wife gets her mail with the little round stamp on it too. And sometimes as he writes he hopes that the censor who reads his mail is sympathetic, has a broad sense of humor, is very understanding, can’t spell too well and is also human.”

See more at the BNY blog. Follow Molly (@Mollyr318 and @BKInLoveAndWar) or read her blog here.

REGIONAL EVENTS

Thursday May 2 at 6:30pm, Hildegard Hoeller (College of Staten Island/CUNY Graduate Center)

From Gift to Commodity: Capitalism and Sacrifice in Nineteenth-Century American Fiction (University of New Hampshire Press)

In this rich interdisciplinary study, Hildegard Hoeller argues that nineteenth-century American culture was driven by and deeply occupied with the tension between gift and market exchange. Rooting her analysis in the period’s fiction, she shows how American novelists from Hannah Foster to Frank Norris grappled with the role of the gift based on trust, social bonds, and faith in an increasingly capitalist culture based on self-interest, market transactions, and economic reason. Placing the notion of sacrifice at the center of her discussion, Hoeller taps into the poignant discourse of modes of exchange, revealing central tensions of American fiction and culture.

Salon Talks are an opportunity for local American Studies scholars to share their published work with an intimate audience. They tend to be small, lively, and informative; light refreshments are served. This semester all Salon Talks will be held in the Faculty and Staff Lounge, on the 8th floor of the West Building, Hunter College (Lexington Avenue and 68th Street).

For directions, more information, or to rsvp, contact Sarah Chinn at sarah.chinn@hunter.cuny.edu

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