Thursday, October 8, 2009

Reading Response II

The readings this week were united by the common theme of appearances in society, and often their deviance from the class or culture expectations of what those appearances suggest. George Chauncy , in his research on homosexual communities within New York, draws an important distinction regarding the idea of a united “Gay New York”— while pointing out that there was a less limited view of what it meant to be Gay only within a specific community, a “world” rather than a “closet,” he also makes a case for not a single gay world, but rather multiple communities made up along lines of class and culture. Drawing both from investigative reports of the time, during which homosexuality was still classified as a psychological disorder, as well as anecdotes of individual’s experiences, often from memoirs, Chauncy creates an effective image of “forgotten” communities. Chauncy also takes on a bigger picture, something that adds depth to his research: the use of terminology, in this case “normal” versus “queer” or “gay,” and what the repetition of that terminology implicates. This is as relevant now as it was sixty years ago, applicable outside the realm of sexual orientation when dealing with how any cultural group is compared with a supposed societal norm, often a standard set by a smaller group than the word “normal” should imply. Chauncy’s discussions of homosexual “passing” recalls race and class situations outside of the context of sexual orientation.

A different aspect of this “passing” as something while feeling or being different applies to the subject of the other two papers we read this week—both Karen Hulttunen and David Waldstreicher’s exploration of “Confidence Men,” the wily charlatans who took advantage of the naïve and new-comers to the emerging cities of 18th and 19th century America. Reading about these characters reminded me instantly of the Artful Dodger or the Duke and the Dauphin, literary characters who share traits with the confidence men described in the 19th century reports. Though obviously a character-type of young America, I found it interesting, and somewhat weakening to the essay, that the descriptions of confidence men in Hulttunen’s article were limited to contemporary warnings against such figures, rather than anecdotes about real situations that occurred. This may be due to the embarrassment of reporting those situations at the time—I don’t know if such anecdotes exist in abundance—but their absence without qualification made me wonder on what the warnings were actually founded. Waldstreicher’s article used the most primary sources of any of the three, with multiple examples of the escaped slaves and their masters about whom he wrote. I enjoyed being able to look at hard numbers and tables, particularly after feeling these lacking in the previous article, and this makes me want to incorporate such evidence into my own paper when I write. I also found his explanation for lack of even greater evidence, the fact that the subject of confidence men itself deals with deception and tracing it would have been intentionally difficult, to be convincing and a good explanation for the lack of evidence used in Hulttunen’s article. From a material perspective, which I enjoy and hope to incorporate because of my interest in archaeology, I found the author’s attention to clothing and the way that it would have been used to manipulate identity expectations to be fascinating, and again, something applicable to today down to the way we present ourselves in interviews or before family versus interaction with peers, the latter of which was itself an increasing phenomenon of the 19th century reorganization of daily interaction—a peer-group emphasis, in which appearance is more easily manipulated, versus a hierarchy in which appearance is dictated or dismissed.

Overall, I enjoyed the writing style of Chauncy, which I found to read more like a book than a paper, but I found Waldstreicher’s use and presentation of evidence to be appealing. All three build their subjects into something that is relevant today, something I hope to do as well.

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