America Reflected: Language, Satire, Film, and the National Mind. Peter C. Rollins

      New Academia Publishing, LLC

      P.O. Box 27420

      Washington, DC 20038-7420

      www.newacademia.com - [email protected]

      To Ray and Pat Browne, who encouraged us to find America and ourselves.

      Foreword

      by Michael T. Marsden

      It is undeniable that popular culture has emerged world-wide as a legitimate field of study. But certainly that was not the case when I entered graduate school more than four decades ago. Nor was it so when Peter Rollins returned from the battleground of Vietnam to complete his graduate work.

      This volume presents selections from a lifetime of Peter’s work in the fields of Popular Culture and American Culture Studies. It clearly demonstrates the impressive scope of his scholarly embrace from Will Rogers and Benjamin Whorf to studies of the history of wars and their depictions on film from World War I to Vietnam. But Peter has also continued throughout his career to examine the cultural significance of major American personalities from Harriet Beecher Stowe to John James Audubon.

      This volume, then, pays witness to an ever active mind searching through the artifacts of the American experience in order to make sense of them. The scholarly work that Peter has done in film and history is well known and well respected. With his dozens of books, hundreds of articles, films, television programs and CDs, Peter has reached out to the general public as well as to the scholarly community with his insights.

      Very early in his career Peter was not content to work only within the confines of his classroom and study, or even only within his professional organizations for that matter. He chose instead to pursue the role of what we refer to as the “public intellectual,” seeking every opportunity to bridge the academic world and the world of public discourse on topics of major importance. Whether it was a focus on the significance of Will Rogers or new insights into the Vietnam conflict, Peter sought to enlighten and inform. As a consequence of this reaching out, his scholarly work found audiences both within the academy and among the several publics who attend to media outlets such as Public Broadcasting, the Discovery Channel, and C-SPAN. For Peter there is no bridge too far, no matter what the effort, if the result is sharing new knowledge.

      Peter’s untiring work on behalf of the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association from their foundings to the present is noteworthy. Whether it was his organizational work for hosting the national PCA/ACA Meeting in Wichita, for the many Southwest Texas PCA/ACA Conferences, or for the PCA/ ACA Meetings in Mexico, Peter’s efforts were everywhere noted and appreciated. Peter was also the founder and co-moderator of the H-PCA/ACA internet discussion list at a point in the organizations’ history when the transition to computer based communication was essential to the long term well being of the organizations. Peter was also there when the late Ray Browne and others wanted to start an endowment for the organizations, the results of which have subsequently supported many graduate students and young faculty members in their scholarly work.

      On yet another level, Peter has been a gracious mentor to many young scholars across the country who have sought and received his wise counsel. A distinguished faculty member at Oklahoma State University, Peter has reached out to those who needed assistance from across the country in the same gracious manner and spirit exhibited to him and to me by the late Russel Nye and the late Ray Browne when Peter and I were finding our way in the scholarly world.

      This volume is but a glimpse into the life’s work of a scholar who may live and work in Oklahoma, but whose scholarly reach knows no state or national borders. Peter has received many awards and recognitions for his work over the years. But his real reward is to be found precisely where Russel Nye’s and Ray Browne’s rewards are to be found in the lives and work of the generations of young scholars they and he have encouraged and supported through the years.

      Michael T. Marsden is Dean of the College and Academic Vice President and Professor of English, American Studies, and Media Studies at St. Norbert College. He is also Co-Executive Editor of the Journal of Popular Film and Television.

      Preface

      As one of my mentors, Alan Heimert, characterized the scholarly method, the goal was to determine not only what was said but what was meant. His understanding became part of my scholarly radar in the 1960s, and I have applied it ever since:

      To discover the meaning of an utterance demands what is in substance a continuing act of literary interpretation for the language with which an idea is presented, and the imaginative universe by which it is surrounded, often tells us more of the author’s meaning and intention than his declarative