Temple University Press, 2000 Paper: 978-1-56639-749-0 | Cloth: 978-1-56639-748-3 Library of Congress Classification E175.9.D39 2000 Dewey Decimal Classification 973
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
This collection of Robert Dawidoff's essays and journalism is peopled by the likes of the Founding Fathers, Fred Astaire, Henry and William James, Sophie Tucker, Trent Lott, and Cole Porter. Drawing together this unlikely cast of characters, Dawidoff probes into the role of outsider groups as well as intellectual and political elites in the formation of American culture.
As a scholar of intellectual and cultural history, Dawidoff takes the stance that historians ought to take an active role in our democratic culture, informing and participating in public discourse. He argues for a broad reach when it comes to cultural expression, resisting the polarization of formal intellectual history and folk or commercial popular culture. In his view, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Katherine Hepburn are equally worthy topics for a historian's consideration, provided that they are treated with equal seriousness of purpose and analytic rigor. In "The Gay Nineties" section that closes the book, he traces key events in the continual struggle for gay and lesbian civil rights and takes on such unresolved issues as safer sex, needle exchange programs to control HIV transmission, and the public controversy around the portrayal of gay and lesbian television characters.
Divided into sections that deal with the patriarchs of American political and intellectual culture, expressive culture, and a historian's public voice, this book is a model of engaged and engaging writing. Accessible and witty, Making History Matter will appeal to general and academic readers interested in American history as well as gay and lesbian political and cultural issues.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Robert Dawidoff is Professor of History at Claremont Graduate University. He is author of Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to Americans with Michael Nava.
REVIEWS
"I would treasure this book for its brilliant essays on music and the lessons against intolerance alone, but there is such wisdom to glean from its pages that I will be reading it again and again for years to come."
—Andrea Marcovicci, Singer/Actress
"Katharine Hepburn, Ben Franklin, Fred Astaire, Thomas Jefferson, Sophie Tucker, George Santayana, Irving Berlin—surely unlikely companions, past or present. Unless they are journeying with Robert Dawidoff, an historian of remarkable range and imagination. Making History Matter provokes, startles, and delights. Page after page Dawidoff reminds me what inspired me to become an historian."
—Mary Kelley, Mary Brinsmead Wheelock Professor, Dartmouth College
"Admirers of Robert Dawidoff's work know the elegance and revelation in his readings of the fate of high intellect in our democracy. In his new book, that fate is shown to be enacted through a perpetually astonishing range of encounters of the ordinary with the extraordinary, the low-down with the high-hat, each inviting and liberating the other's responsiveness. Like good philosophy, this work lets you know what you thought you did not know and shows you how to treasure what your thought you need not know."
—Stanley Cavell, Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Harvard University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
History...but
PART I. THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD WHITE MEN
The Jeffersonian Option
Franklin and Jefferson: Before "the Democratic Fact"
"Tails in the Air": Henry Adams and the American History of the European Middle Ages
Willie's and Harry's Excellent Adventure
Fish Out of Water: George Santayana
In My Father's House Are Many Closets
PART II. LISTENING TO SOPHIE TUCKER Criticism and American Cultural Repair
The Kind of Person You Have to Sound Like to Sing "Alexander's Ragtime Band"
Some of Those Days
Fred Astaire
Katherine Hepburn: "The Heiress of All the Ages"
From Ohio to the Big Rock Candy Mountain: Los Angeles as the Terminus of American Democratic Culture
PART III. DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT
STALKING TH BLUSHING ZEBRA
THE GAY NINETIES: OPINION PIECES
Gay Rights
One Percent or Ten Percent -- The Law Isn't Counting
Clinton Speaks the Haters' Code Word
First, We Demand Recognition
Gays and Lesbians Need a Real Movement
The Feds, Civil Rights, and Camp Sister Spirit
Gays Won't Take Clinton's Betrayal Lightly
Clio in the Morning Papers
Clio in Office?
Seeing the Messiness of America's True History
Lott's Wife
The Politics of AIDS, Safer Sex, and Needle Exchange
How About a Policy on AIDS?
Needle Exchange Can Save Lives
Clean Needles and Bloody Hands
Did the President Use a Condom?
The Intolerance Wars
In Real Life, the Funnies Aren't
Holiday, Lavender Blue
Gays Saw Between the Lines of Ellen
TV-H: Hazardous to Your Hypocrisy
Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness -- Gay or Straight
Temple University Press, 2000 Paper: 978-1-56639-749-0 Cloth: 978-1-56639-748-3
This collection of Robert Dawidoff's essays and journalism is peopled by the likes of the Founding Fathers, Fred Astaire, Henry and William James, Sophie Tucker, Trent Lott, and Cole Porter. Drawing together this unlikely cast of characters, Dawidoff probes into the role of outsider groups as well as intellectual and political elites in the formation of American culture.
As a scholar of intellectual and cultural history, Dawidoff takes the stance that historians ought to take an active role in our democratic culture, informing and participating in public discourse. He argues for a broad reach when it comes to cultural expression, resisting the polarization of formal intellectual history and folk or commercial popular culture. In his view, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Katherine Hepburn are equally worthy topics for a historian's consideration, provided that they are treated with equal seriousness of purpose and analytic rigor. In "The Gay Nineties" section that closes the book, he traces key events in the continual struggle for gay and lesbian civil rights and takes on such unresolved issues as safer sex, needle exchange programs to control HIV transmission, and the public controversy around the portrayal of gay and lesbian television characters.
Divided into sections that deal with the patriarchs of American political and intellectual culture, expressive culture, and a historian's public voice, this book is a model of engaged and engaging writing. Accessible and witty, Making History Matter will appeal to general and academic readers interested in American history as well as gay and lesbian political and cultural issues.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Robert Dawidoff is Professor of History at Claremont Graduate University. He is author of Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to Americans with Michael Nava.
REVIEWS
"I would treasure this book for its brilliant essays on music and the lessons against intolerance alone, but there is such wisdom to glean from its pages that I will be reading it again and again for years to come."
—Andrea Marcovicci, Singer/Actress
"Katharine Hepburn, Ben Franklin, Fred Astaire, Thomas Jefferson, Sophie Tucker, George Santayana, Irving Berlin—surely unlikely companions, past or present. Unless they are journeying with Robert Dawidoff, an historian of remarkable range and imagination. Making History Matter provokes, startles, and delights. Page after page Dawidoff reminds me what inspired me to become an historian."
—Mary Kelley, Mary Brinsmead Wheelock Professor, Dartmouth College
"Admirers of Robert Dawidoff's work know the elegance and revelation in his readings of the fate of high intellect in our democracy. In his new book, that fate is shown to be enacted through a perpetually astonishing range of encounters of the ordinary with the extraordinary, the low-down with the high-hat, each inviting and liberating the other's responsiveness. Like good philosophy, this work lets you know what you thought you did not know and shows you how to treasure what your thought you need not know."
—Stanley Cavell, Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Harvard University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
History...but
PART I. THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD WHITE MEN
The Jeffersonian Option
Franklin and Jefferson: Before "the Democratic Fact"
"Tails in the Air": Henry Adams and the American History of the European Middle Ages
Willie's and Harry's Excellent Adventure
Fish Out of Water: George Santayana
In My Father's House Are Many Closets
PART II. LISTENING TO SOPHIE TUCKER Criticism and American Cultural Repair
The Kind of Person You Have to Sound Like to Sing "Alexander's Ragtime Band"
Some of Those Days
Fred Astaire
Katherine Hepburn: "The Heiress of All the Ages"
From Ohio to the Big Rock Candy Mountain: Los Angeles as the Terminus of American Democratic Culture
PART III. DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT
STALKING TH BLUSHING ZEBRA
THE GAY NINETIES: OPINION PIECES
Gay Rights
One Percent or Ten Percent -- The Law Isn't Counting
Clinton Speaks the Haters' Code Word
First, We Demand Recognition
Gays and Lesbians Need a Real Movement
The Feds, Civil Rights, and Camp Sister Spirit
Gays Won't Take Clinton's Betrayal Lightly
Clio in the Morning Papers
Clio in Office?
Seeing the Messiness of America's True History
Lott's Wife
The Politics of AIDS, Safer Sex, and Needle Exchange
How About a Policy on AIDS?
Needle Exchange Can Save Lives
Clean Needles and Bloody Hands
Did the President Use a Condom?
The Intolerance Wars
In Real Life, the Funnies Aren't
Holiday, Lavender Blue
Gays Saw Between the Lines of Ellen
TV-H: Hazardous to Your Hypocrisy
Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness -- Gay or Straight
Notes
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC