Through the Gates
Faculty
by Dan Rosen
Photograph by Joshua Simpson
Through the Gates
PANEL
by Merri Rosenberg ’78
Illustration by Francisco Martins
in context speaking with professor lisa gordis
In 1630, the poet Anne Bradstreet, a well-educated woman, emigrated with her family from Britain to America. Among her fellow travelers was her father, Thomas Dudley, who had been the steward to the earl of Lincoln. What remains of Bradstreet’s life upon arrival is her poetry. Bradstreet composed both sweeping poems about the history of the world and shorter poems addressing events in her more personal history, including births and deaths. She prepared a manuscript edition of her poetry, which her brotherin-law had printed in England as The Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung up in America (1650). In a later poem, Bradstreet complained about errors introduced when friends “less wise than true…exposed” her book “to public view.” It’s unclear how widely Bradstreet intended her poems to be distributed, and whether she ever intended her poems to be published in print. Professor Lisa Gordis, who teaches early American literature in the English department and will assume the role of department chair this July, says the fact that a 17th-century writer like Bradstreet would choose to have her work circulated as a manuscript rather than printed on a press was not unusual for the time: often written works were published scribally, with readers copying texts and passing them to other readers in a chain of social connections. Now, with new options for publication such as blogs, websites, and other technological innovations, Gordis says that examples from literary history give context to the contemporary conversation. “It’s useful to be able to look at shifting modes of publication today and consider them in light of changes in publication practices over the last four centuries.” It’s also the type of contribution Gordis feels she and her colleagues should make. Their field of study benefits, she wrote in 2006 in the journal Early American Literature, “when others understand that it is relevant rather than dry and dusty.” Connections and comparisons to present-day circumstances, she adds, “help bring the texts and issues 8
of early American cultures alive to our students.” Early American texts sometimes need help coming alive. While books of the period’s history have often been numbered on the best-seller list, writings from that time aren’t quite as popular. “Most early American texts are not beach reading,” Gordis says. The texts require a great deal of effort up front, she acknowledges, but it’s worth it. “To understand these texts in literary terms, one often needs to know something about theology and history. So, for example, one needs to understand how Jonathan Edwards thought salvation happened, to understand why he would write about grace as a taste of honey but also give a sermon in which he represented the sinners as a spider dangling by a thread over the fires of hell. “Part of my job,” Gordis adds, “is to help students work their way into these writings so that they can see how interesting and exciting these texts are.” At Barnard she teaches a variety of courses, mainly on early America, including American Literature to 1800 and American Literature 1800–1870. Gordis uses technology to support her students’ efforts. Thanks to increasingly accessible digital archives, she can introduce primary materials in the classroom with greater ease than in the past. For example, in teaching Moby-Dick recently, she was able to share period political cartoons featuring shipwrecks and whales. A class blog helps students in big lecture classes engage with one another and the material. Gordis came to her subject as a college student at Harvard; she entered expecting to obtain a degree in biology. But in an American history class, she became fascinated with Anne Hutchinson. The more Gordis studied Hutchinson’s story, the more it drew her in. Hutchinson, the daughter of a minister, who came to Continued on Page 71
Shopping our Way to Salvation EXPERTS CONSIDER THE HIDDEN COSTS OF CONSUMER CULTURE It’s hard to escape the “I shop, therefore I am” culture. Yet
what we buy, where we buy it, where our products come from and are made, and even whether we should buy something in the first place have serious implications for the global economy and the environment. That was the premise of a provocative April panel discussion held in The Diana Center Event Oval: Can Consumption Save the World? Moderated by Peabody- and Emmy Award–winning journalist Alison Craiglow Hockenberry ’88, adjunct professor at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, the conversation, driven by Hockenberry’s questions, explored the complicated issues surrounding production and consumption. The panel featured Paige West, Tow Professor of anthropology; Sandra Goldmark, assistant professor of professional practice in the theatre department; Eleanor J. Sterling, director of the American
Museum of Natural History’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation; and Dean Cycon, founder of Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee Company. The panel explored the hidden environmental and economic costs of items like coffee and clothing, as well as ways for the audience to think about the urge to consume. The existential dilemma, expressed by West, came down to “How do you live life with the constant anxiety about what you buy and what you don’t?” Consider the Oreo cookie. “The larger question is how consumption is often dispossessing someone somewhere else,” said West, linking the palm-tree oil used as an ingredient in the cookie—and many other products, from tennis shoes to lipstick—to these issues. For example, in comparison to our society, said West, many of those in the developing world leave a gentler Continued on Page 72 Barnard Magazine Spring 2014 9