I had the privilege of attending the 11th Biennial Public Address Conference this past weekend in Madison, Wisconsin. My first impressions of Wisconsin were not positive because all I knew of it was Superior, but a few days in Madison and I have thoroughly changed my attitude.
It should be noted that Wisconsin is a farm state. On my drive down from Duluth I spent the full 330 miles driving through farmland. Even as one gets closer to Madison one gets the feeling they are very much in cow country. Although I expected this I was surprised, quite frankly, at how much more rural Wisconsin feels than Minnesota. At nearly every highway exit is a very large sign indicating CHEESE for sale. (Comparatively, "Food and Gas" get textual short shrift in the Badger State.) I was lucky enough to be caravanning on the way down with my colleagues Elizabeth Nelson and David Beard (together with his lovely wife, Kate). We stopped at a Noodle Co. for some lunch, and my tomato bisque was superb.
The first night was an interesting lecture on liberalism and John F. Kennedy. The responses focused on how there are probably many different versions of liberalism around and that Dwight Eisenhower was a proponent of liberalism. (Most people don't realize that Reagan was America's first "conservative" president - even Richard Nixon ran as a "liberal." George W. Bush may be the last.) Anywho, after a learned evening we repaired to Dotty Dumpling's Dowry where I had the best cheeseburger of my life, together with some delicious cheese curds and french fries.
My two favorite presentations of the conference were on Friday. Angela Ray gave a great talk on the feminine style. Her argument, if I understand it, was that the concept needs revisiting in light of the fact that essentialism drives our discussions of the feminine - gender, of course, exists on a continuum. (How could you get man without woman?) Stephen Browne responded by pointing out how "style" and "feminine" are both problems to undersand in their own right. Afterwards, Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, a scholar who made her career by writing about the feminine style said she thought we should do away with the term. Indeed, there was universal consensus in the room that we needed to know more about masculinity and gender generally.
Friday afternoon Jim Aune gave a great presentation on American religion. His paper was an analysis of the little known Treaty of Tripoli, signed by President John Adams on 26 May 1797. The peace treaty over the Barbary pirates has an article stating that "the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." This is really the first instance in American law, so far as I know, that says as much and signed, to boot, by a very Christian president. In any event, there are many who would say that America is a Christian nation, while there are many who would say it is not. (To give one a sense of how complicated the question is, I read recently that 25% of "Christians" in the USA believe in reincarnation.) Anyway, the words of the treaty are clear. Aune is definitely among those who worries about church/state separation. After the speech, there was a lively exchange between Aune and Marty Medhurst about this point. Medhurst has said elsewhere that the separation of church and state is not the same thing as the separation of religion and politics, while Aune is worried about the way religion gets used for votes and power.
On Friday night we convened to watch the Presidential debates. It was fun to watch them with a crowd, even though things were not quite as rowdy as I'd have liked.
On Saturday morning I spent some time tooling around Madison. It is a very cool college town. Madison is located on an isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Menona. Much of campus, including the student union overlooks Lake Mendota. It was a beautiful morning reading on the shore and watching sailboats. The facilities at UW-Madison are exceedingly fine. On my drive home that afternoon I couldn't help reflecting on how rich we are as a people and how amazing it is that farmers gave us all this opportunity.
3 comments:
Woo! DG is a' bloggin' . . . . Blessed be.
I loved Madison, too, and enjoyed very much your collegial company.
db
It was splendid to see you in Madison, David, and I'm gratified that you enjoyed my paper. I know what you mean about feeling appreciation to the farmers of Wisconsin and places like it. I've been doing more work lately on the intellectual efforts of young men on the frontier in the 1830s and 1840s, and despite all the necessary caveats (they were not broadly inclusionary folks), one can't help but be impressed at the utopian ideal of an educated citizenry.
Post a Comment