Thomas Gustafson – författare

Ralph Waldo Emerson's dictum - 'The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language' - belongs to a long tradition of writing connecting political disorders and the corruption of language that stretches back in Western culture. Representative Words, which gives an account of the tradition from its classical and Christian origins through the Enlightenment, is primarily a study of how and why Americans renewed and developed it between the ages of the Revolutionary and the Civil Wars. It is the first comprehensive treatment of the background to and the appearance of the wealth of theories about language in the early era of American political and cultural discourse. Professor Gustafson's argument demonstrates the interconnectedness of the state of language and the state of society and turns on the question of representation and misrepresentation - whether and how words represent or misrepresent nature, social reality, truth, and value in the new American experiment in representative republican government.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's dictum - 'The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language' - belongs to a long tradition of writing connecting political disorders and the corruption of language that stretches back in Western culture. Representative Words, which gives an account of the tradition from its classical and Christian origins through the Enlightenment, is primarily a study of how and why Americans renewed and developed it between the ages of the Revolutionary and the Civil Wars. It is the first comprehensive treatment of the background to and the appearance of the wealth of theories about language in the early era of American political and cultural discourse. Professor Gustafson's argument demonstrates the interconnectedness of the state of language and the state of society and turns on the question of representation and misrepresentation - whether and how words represent or misrepresent nature, social reality, truth, and value in the new American experiment in representative republican government.

The Larson icehouse had stood abandoned on the south shore of Black Wolf Lake for the past eighty years. During that time, the building had a rather checkered, some might say sordid past. And now, in the spring of 1980, evil had apparently taken up residence. Jessica Wiggins, Stewart Gregory, and Caleb Anders, eighth graders at Immanuel Lutheran School in Longville, Minnesota, were enjoying their last spring break before starting high school in the fall. Jess had a faith statement to prepare for church, Stewart had a project to complete for the science fair, and Caleb . . . well, Caleb was bored. But Caleb was never bored for long. Some strange men had occupied the icehouse. Caleb's curiosity was an itch that needed scratching. Over the next five days, with Jess and Stewart's help, he would determine who these men were and why their mission was so secretive. In the process, he would put himself in grave danger. There are singular moments in our lives when our actions can truly make a difference. In the spring of 1980, the activities at the Larson icehouse would provide one of these moments in Caleb's short life.

One of the best-known novels taking place in New Jersey, Philip Roth’s 1997 American Pastoral uses the fictional hamlet of Old Rimrock, NJ as a microcosm for a nation in crisis during the cultural upheavals of the 1960s-70s. Critics have called Old Rimrock mythic, but it is based on a very real place: the small Morris county town of Brookside, New Jersey.American Anti-Pastoral reads the events in Roth’s novel in relation to the history of Brookside and its region. While Roth’s protagonist Seymour “Swede” Levov initially views Old Rimrock as an idyllic paradise within the Garden State, its real-world counterpart has a more complex past in its origins as a small industrial village, as well as a site for the politics of exclusionary zoning and a 1960s anti-war protest at its celebrated 4th of July parade. Literary historian and Brookside native Thomas Gustafson casts Roth’s canonical novel in a fresh light as he studies both Old Rimrock in comparison to Brookside and the novel in relationship to NJ literature, making a case for it as the Great New Jersey novel.  For Roth fans and history buffs alike, American Anti-Pastoral peels back the myths about the bucolic Garden State countryside to reveal deep fissures along the fault-lines of race and religion in American democracy.