Richard Slotkin (1942-) is a
cultural criticA cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole and typically on a radical basis. There is significant overlap with social criticism and social philosophers.-Terminology:...
and historian. He is the Olin Professor of English and
American StudiesAmerican studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the study of the United States. It incorporates the study of economics, history, literature, art, the media, film, urban studies, women's studies, anthropology, sociology, and culture of the United States, among...
at
Wesleyan UniversityWesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the now secular university was the first institution of higher...
in Middletown, CT. His award-winning trilogy on the myth of the
frontierA frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary.-Colonial North America:In the earliest days of European settlement of the Atlantic coast, the frontier was essentially any part of the forested interior of the continent beyond the fringe of existing...
in America, which comprises
Regeneration Through Violence,
The Fatal Environment, and
Gunfighter Nation offers an original and highly provocative interpretation of the United States' national experience.
Richard Slotkin (1942-) is a
cultural criticA cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole and typically on a radical basis. There is significant overlap with social criticism and social philosophers.-Terminology:...
and historian. He is the Olin Professor of English and
American StudiesAmerican studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the study of the United States. It incorporates the study of economics, history, literature, art, the media, film, urban studies, women's studies, anthropology, sociology, and culture of the United States, among...
at
Wesleyan UniversityWesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the now secular university was the first institution of higher...
in Middletown, CT. His award-winning trilogy on the myth of the
frontierA frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary.-Colonial North America:In the earliest days of European settlement of the Atlantic coast, the frontier was essentially any part of the forested interior of the continent beyond the fringe of existing...
in America, which comprises
Regeneration Through Violence,
The Fatal Environment, and
Gunfighter Nation offers an original and highly provocative interpretation of the United States' national experience. " Lost Battalions," published in 2005, is a study of Black and immigrant soldiers in World War I, and the conflicts over their status as Americans. He has also published three historical novels:
The Crater: A Novel of the Civil War,
The Return of Henry Starr, and
Abe: A Novel of the Young Lincoln. In his more than 25 years at Wesleyan, he has helped to establish both the
American StudiesAmerican studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the study of the United States. It incorporates the study of economics, history, literature, art, the media, film, urban studies, women's studies, anthropology, sociology, and culture of the United States, among...
and the Film Studies programs. He offers interdisciplinary courses in American literature, history and film. In 1995 he received the Mary C. Turpie Award of the American Studies Association for his contributions to teaching and program-building.
Education
Slotkin received his BA from
Brooklyn CollegeBrooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New York...
, his MAAE from
Wesleyan UniversityWesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the now secular university was the first institution of higher...
and his PhD from
Brown UniversityBrown University is a private university located in Providence, Rhode Island, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III...
.
Regeneration Through Violence
In
Regeneration Through Violence: the Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860 (Wesleyan UP, 1973), the first of his trilogy on the mythology of the American West, Slotkin shows how the attitudes and traditions that shape American culture evolved from the social and psychological anxieties of European settlers struggling in a strange new world to claim the land and displace the
Native AmericansNative Americans in the United States is the phrase that describes indigenous peoples from North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of...
. Using the popular literature of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries - including
captivity narrativeCaptivity narratives are stories of people captured by "uncivilized" enemies. The narratives often include a theme of redemption by faith in the face of the threats and temptations of an alien way of life. Barbary captivity narratives, stories of Englishmen captured by Barbary pirates, were popular...
s, the
Daniel BooneDaniel Boone [October 22 , 1734 – September 26, 1820] was an American pioneer and hunter whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the U.S. state of Kentucky, which was...
tales, and the writings of
HawthorneNathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hathorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and Elizabeth Clarke Manning Hathorne...
,
ThoreauHenry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist...
, and
MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and poet who is often classified as part of dark romanticism...
- Slotkin traces the full development of this myth into a national myth.
The Fatal Environment
In
The Fatal Environment: the myth of the frontier in the age of industrialization, 1800-1890, (Atheneum, 1985) Slotkin demonstrates how the myth of frontier expansion and subjugation of the Indians helped to justify the course of America's rise to wealth and power. Using Custer's Last Stand as a metaphor for what Americans feared might happen if the frontier should be closed and the "savage" element be permitted to dominate the "civilized," Slotkin shows the emergence by 1890 of a myth redefined to help Americans respond to the confusion and strife of industrialization and imperial expansion.
Gunfighter Nation
In
Gunfighter nation: the myth of the frontier in twentieth-century America (Atheneum, 1992), the concluding volume of his highly acclaimed trilogy, Slotkin draws on a wide range of sources to examine the pervasive influence of Wild West myths on American culture and politics. In the third of a three-volume study in the development of the myth of the frontier in US literary, popular, and political culture from the colonial period to the present, Slotkin covers the expression of the frontier myth in such popular culture phenomena as dime novels,
Buffalo BillWilliam Frederick " Buffalo Bill" Cody was an American soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the Iowa Territory , near Le Claire. He was one of the most colorful figures of the American Old West, and mostly famous for the shows he organized with cowboy themes...
's Wild West, the formula fiction of 1900-40, and the Hollywood film. Covering
historiographyHistoriography is the history of history, the aspect of history and of semiotics that considers how knowledge of the past, either recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted...
, Slotkin also discusses the exploration of the significance of the American frontier experience in
Theodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States. He is well remembered for his energetic persona, his range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" image. He was a leader of the Republican Party and founder of the short-lived Bull Moose Party...
's
The Winning of the West and
Frederick Jackson TurnerFrederick Jackson Turner was an American historian in the early 20th century. He is best known for The Significance of the Frontier in American History.-Early life, education, and career:...
's
The Significance of the Frontier in American History"The Significance of the Frontier in American History" is a seminal essay by the American historian Frederick Jackson Turner which advanced the Frontier Thesis of American history...
.
Lost Battalions: The Great War and the Crisis of American Nationality
“ A work of stunning density and penetrating analysis . . . Lost Battalions deploys a narrative symmetry of gratifying complexity.” — David Levering Lewis, "The Nation" During the bloodiest days of World War I, no soldiers served more valiantly than the African American troops of the 369th Infantry— the fabled Harlem Hellfighters— and the legendary 77th “ lost battalion” composed of New York City immigrants. Though these men had lived up to their side of the bargain as loyal American soldiers, the country to which they returned solidified laws and patterns of social behavior that had stigmatized them as second-class citizens. Richard Slotkin takes the pulse of a nation struggling with social inequality during a decisive historical moment, juxtaposing social commentary with battle scenes that display the bravery and solidarity of these men. Enduring grueling maneuvers, and the loss of so many of their brethren, the soldiers in the lost battalions were forever bound by their wartime experience. Both a riveting combat narrative and a brilliant social history, Lost Battalions delivers a richly detailed account of the fierce fight for equality in the shadow of a foreign war. http://books.google.com/books?id=xerEKCB9QZYC&dq=Richard+Slotkin&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3DRichard%2BSlotkin%26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=1&cad=author-navigational
The Crater: A Novel of the Civil War
The Crater tells of an incident which took place on July 30, 1864, during the Union siege of Petersburg, Virginia. Union troops dug a 500-foot tunnel under Confederate lines, then used gunpowder to blow a huge crater in their defenses. Even so, the subsequent Union assault against the Confederates failed and the war continued for nearly another nine months. Slotkin creates a literary reenactment of the people and cultures involved in the so-called Battle of the Crater, emphasizing that distinctions of race and class did not end with the Civil War, but continued to be the defining social issue of the subsequent century.
The Return of Henry Starr
A fictionalized account of Old West outlaw
Henry StarrHenry Starr {1874-1921} was a cool but bad man specifically, a horse thief and train robber. He was also convicted of murder once, of U.S. Deputy Marshal on December 13, 1892. Henry Starr claimed in court to not have known he was a U.S. Marshal and only to know that a man had opened fire on him...
, who was killed in 1921 while attempting to rob a bank. Starr, who was part Cherokee, committed crimes at least in part as a form of vengeance against the white man's taking of Cherokee land. He portrayed himself in an early silent movie.
Our mythologizing of the Old West is the theme of this epic novel about an Oklahoma outlaw who eventually immortalizes his own career in the silent movies. The eponymous hero Henry Starr, half-Cherokee nephew of Belle Starr and grandson of one of the last great Indian leaders, nourishes his imagination on dime novels celebrating the exploits of historic desperados like Jesse James and on tales of the golden age of the Cherokee nation and its defiance of the white man. But, coming of age at the turn-of-the-century, he sees the Cherokees broken in spirit and prey to vindictive government agents and greedy white landowners and bankers. Inspired by his criminal ancestors, his reading and his anger at abuses of the Indian, Starr embarks on a bankrobbing spree that earns him status as a legend. As the story opens, Starr is in prison waiting to be hanged. He is released, though, and many years later, wins fame as the star of a silent-film series based on his criminal career. While imaginatively reliving his past, Starr becomes victim of his own mystique to the point where he ``couldn't see clearly where the made-up parts left off and the life began.
Pursued by the ghosts of his past, he resumes his earlier criminal vocation. Historian Slotkin (The Crater) renders sharply observed period detail and speech in a rich, often lyrical prose especially engaging for history buffs. Although slow-moving, this lengthy saga is certainly provocative in the way it explores the siren song of our frontier myths.
Abe: A Novel of the Young Lincoln
A work of historical imagination, Abe immerses the reader in the isolating poverty and difficult circumstances that shaped Abraham Lincoln's character.
Marked by his mother's horrible death and the struggle to keep reading and learning in the face of his father's fierce disapproval, Richard Slotkin's Lincoln comes of age during a dramatic flatboat journey down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans. Along the way, Lincoln and his companions see slavery firsthand and experience the violence — and the pleasures — of frontier settlements and the cities of Natchez and New Orleans. Transformed by what he has seen and done, Lincoln returns to make his final break with his father and to step out of the wilderness into New Salem —and history.
Citations
Slotkin has been cited by John Selton Lawrence and Robert Jewett in their text
The Myth of the American SuperheroThe Myth of the American Superhero is a scholarly nonfiction book by Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence.It describes the idealized, fantasy violence so distinctive for American pop culture. The authors show that the American heroic ideal, conveyed in formula stories of "the American monomyth,"...
, and Bradford W. Wright's Comic Book Nation: Transformation of a Youth Culture.