A Hero for the Cold War

Read “Iron Man is Born!” the 1962 debut story of Stan Lee’s Iron Man, which ran in Tales of Suspense #39. (Note that the Iron Man story is the first of two that ran in that issue; you don’t have to read the second story.)

Respond to one of the following prompts in a short paragraph:

• How does “Iron Man is Born!” compare to the version of the hero’s origin story in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? (For a refresher on the movie version, check out the first 50 seconds of the trailer from the 2008 feature film). In answering this, please focus on a particular aspect of the comic vs. the movie: tone, characterization, setting, etc..
• What’s this comic trying to suggest through its characterization of the Vietnamese warlord Wong-Chu?
• What’s this comic trying to suggest through its characterization of weapons designer Tony Stark? (Note that Stark is a more complex character than Wong-Chu, so you should probably focus on one of his character traits, or on a telling contrast between two of them.)
• What does the new hero, Iron Man, symbolize? Feel free to give an imaginative answer, but try to stay grounded in the visual and story details of the comic in front of you.

The Struggle for America’s Soul

I’ve spoken repeatedly about the fraught debate that occupied America for over two years after Britain and France declared war on Germany on Sep 3, 1939. Isolationism started out in ascendancy, but most historians agree that interventionism was steadily winning ground before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor cut debate short on Dec 7, 1941.

Lynne Olson wrote an excellent book about this period, Those Angry Days. For class today, I’d like you to read Chapter 2, which takes up the story with Lindbergh’s return to the US in April 1939, at a moment when war in Europe had come to seem inevitable. Olson’s account is full of interesting details. For homework, highlight something you found revelatory or just interesting.

Note: before posting, skim through the contributions of your classmates; if someone has already posted on your topic, either post on a different topic OR write your post as a response to theirs.

Making Casablanca

Robert McLaughlin and Sally Perry chose to open their book on WWII American cinema with an account of the scene in Casablanca when Victor Laszlo leads a rousing chorus of the French national anthem (“Introduction“). For class today, please read their analysis of that scene (pp1-6) as well as their account of the complex process of making the movie (pp15-19).

In a brief ¶, how does their account of Casablanca confirm or challenge your impression of the movie? Answer by reference to a particular scene other than the singing of the Marseillaise.

The Case for Intervention

For eight full months after France and Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, all three nations hesitated, unwilling to launch a full-scale offensive. While some mocked it as the “Phoney War,” most correctly perceived that the combatants were playing for time, building supplies and armaments for the inevitable clash.

This gave time for the debate in America to play out in largely abstract terms: what role would America need to play in the coming war? Or, to reframe the question in terms more amenable to isolationism, what role should American play? Should we avoid becoming entangled in yet another of Europe’s endless wars? Should we supply armaments to our longtime ally? Should we drop everything and fight?

For homework today we’ll be examining an essay, several political cartoons, and two superhero comics that make the case, in one way or another, for intervention. Read all five of them, then write a concise response to one of the following prompts:

• Rear Admiral Yates Stirling wrote an essay advocating support for Great Britain—one of three essays published in the Nov 1939 issue of Forum and Century debating the neutrality question. Thinking back to Lindbergh’s Sep 1939 radio address, what principle(s) does Stirling appeal to? On balance is he more or less of an idealist than Lindbergh?
• Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, creators of Superman, published their thoughts on war in a short strip that ran in the Feb 27, 1940, issue of Look magazine. According to comic-book lore, their editor at Detective Comics wouldn’t allow such an explicitly political story. But what, exactly, is the message here? In telling “How Superman Would Win the War,” what were Siegel and Shuster saying about what America should do? In answering this question, take note of how the comic mixes a fictional fantasy hero with two real-life villains.
• After the real fighting broke out in May, 1940, the tone of the debate over intervention shifted somewhat, as witness the two political cartoons below. Responding to one or or the other cartoon, what principle(s) does it appeal to? On balance is it more or less of idealistic than Lindbergh?

  

  Walter Enright, Dec 1940

  

  Bruce Russell, Jan 1941

  
  
• In Mar, 1941, artist Jack Kirby premiered a new hero, Captain America, co-created with writer Stan Lee and published by Timely Comics (rebranded “Marvel Comics” in the late 1950s). Based solely on the comic’s cover, what’s Kirby’s argument for American intervention? Is his fantasy any different in its political implications from Siegel and Shuster’s Superman comic, above?

Keeping America Pure

Charles Lindbergh first achieved fame for the first solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927. He and his wife Anne retired from the public spotlight after their infant son was kidnapped and murdered five years later, but England’s declaration of war on Germany in 1939 brought him back from self-imposed retirement as one of the most eloquent exponents of isolationism, frequently speaking on behalf of the antiwar America First Committee.

For class today, read his September 15, 1939, radio address. In responding to one of the prompts below, remember this week concision is our watchword.

• How does Lindbergh’s opening invocation in section 1 differ from the politician’s cliché, “My Fellow Americans”? Quote and analyze his words in considering the consequences.
• How does Lindbergh’s account of American history in sections 1 and 2 serve his political vision? Quote and analyze his words in considering how this history functions as a rhetorical appeal.
• In section 3, Lindbergh makes a crucial distinction between two types of war to argue that the war in Europe is not one worth intervening in. Quote and analyze his language (both word and metaphor) to tease out the implications of this distinction.
• How do Lindbergh’s arguments compare with the case made in one of the antiwar cartoons just below? Quote from the visual details of the cartoon you choose to focus on.

Post your HW as a response to the appropriate header, below:

The Politics of Futurism

Our discussion of Metropolis last Friday suggested a kinship between technophilia and Fascism. Among other factors, as Prof Guendel noted, director Fritz Lang left Germany after Hitler’s rise to power but his wife and scriptwriter, Thea von Harbou, remained behind and flourished under the Nazi regime.

Walter Benjamin explores this kinship in the final section (XIX) of the essay we’ve been working on (page #s 41-42). As becomes clear in his critique of what he terms the fascist aesthetic, Benjamin was himself a Marxist. Most Americans tend to think of Fascism and Communism as similar but opposite flavors of bad, but Benjamin regards fascism as the far greater danger. Can you tease out why? Use quotation to support your analysis of his reasoning.

Remember, we’re working on concision this week: keep your HW short but impactful.

The Politics of Protest

As I mentioned at the start of class yesterday, the sometimes violent street protests over the weekend demand our attention, raising powerful issues of the ethics of protest—as well as the rhetorical power of violence. To prime our discussion, please listen to the Monday morning episode of The Daily, a podcast produced by The New York Times. The episode is 41 minutes long in total, but the vital portion runs from 10:30 to 17:30, just seven minutes. To listen on your laptop, use this link; on your phone this link should load in your podcast app.

To Infinity—And Beyond!

You discussed Italian Futurism with Prof Guendel in Humanities last week, and we all discussed the glamor of industry in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. For class today I’m hoping to interrogate and better understand the rhetorical appeal of Futurism by close-reading the Futurist Manifesto.

Written in 1909 by Italian poet Filippo Marinetti, the Futurist Manifesto looks forward to a new era defined not simply by its embrace of speed and technology but by its rejection of tradition and the past.

After you’ve read the manifesto in full, what do you see as its most striking rhetorical appeal? In a short ¶ that quotes one of Marinetti’s key phrases, discuss who would have found his words inspiring and why.

A Start on Essay One

The prompt for Interdisciplinary Assignment 1 asks you to use a secondary source on McQueen’s film as a jumping-off point. That means presenting your thesis claim as a response to someone else’s opinion. This is a move that writers make all the time. If you state your thesis in a vacuum, your reader may well wonder why you’re bothering to argue it. But if you state it as building on or complicating or even refuting a prior writer, suddenly the significance of your thesis becomes crystal clear.

Your intro ¶s in high school likely proceeded in two stages: Topic, followed by Thesis. The first section engaged the reader’s interest in your essay’s broad topic, while the last voiced your thesis about that topic.

You can build on this familiar structure by adding a middle step to your intro: after introducing the topic, give a brief summary of your prior writer. Then present your thesis claim as response to that writer’s account.

Alternatively, you can use your secondary source right at the start, leveraging his or her article to do the work of engaging our interest in the essay’s topic. This works especially well if your source stakes out a controversial position.

For HW, write a draft of your essay intro that references a secondary source (academic or journalistic) on McQueen’s film as a lead-in to your thesis claim. Post in the comments below.

The Silent Movie Era

We will be watching Metropolis together at the watch party on Thursday evening—and we’ll be discussing that movie in our second Interdisciplinary Forum on Friday.

To give you a broader sense of early cinema, we will spend time in class discussing the development of cinematic techniques over the industry’s first three decades. If you have time, check out a short passage from Benjamin’s essay and a few of the following clips (I especially recommend Harold Lloyd).

• Section X of Benjamin’s essay (pp 29-31)
• Louis Lumiere, Exiting the Factory (1895)
• Georges Méliès, A Trip to the Moon (1902)—if you’re short on time, just the middle five minutes
• Edwin Porter, The Great Train Robbery (1903)—if you’re short on time, just the last five minutes
• Charlie Chaplin, The Pawn Shop (1916)—if you’re short on time, just the first five minutes
• Harold Lloyd, Safety Last (1923)—if you’re short on time, focus on the first five minutes of the action scene starting at 52:30

To fuel discussion, I’ll screen short bits from each of these clips during class.

Photography as Art

In “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1935), Walter Benjamin explores how the ease with which photographs can be reproduced stood as a challenge to the aura of uniqueness that had for millennia enveloped most art objects. It’s a difficult essay, so I want you to read just sections III through VII (pp 21-27 of the printed book), skipping the last two ¶s of section VI.

I’m particularly interested in Benjamin’s notion that the human face becomes the final redoubt for cult value so far as photography is concerned (see esp p 27). Let’s consider that claim by looking at a group of images created by photographers working under contract for the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression. The agency hoped to justify government support for farming by making rural poverty visible. Thus these images were created with a clear rhetorical aim; yet many of them have an equally clear claim to aesthetic beauty.

In a brief ¶ focusing on ONE of the photographs below, consider what makes it a work of art—and whether that claim is based chiefly in what Benjamin calls its “exhibition value” or on its “cult value.”

Scholarship on 12/Twelve Years a Slave

Use the BU Library portal to find a scholarly source on McQueen’s movie or Northup’s narrative. Post a Chicago-style bibliographic entry, followed by a brief annotation, like we did for the Bibliography assignment last semester.