1)Why Benjamin Franklin?

  1. “America’s favorite founding father”
  2. “accessible founding father”
  3. “first American”
  4. Prose stylist and “first” American autobiography
  5. “founder’s chic”
  6. Why does B.F. matter, why do the “founding fathers” matter?
  7. Why do so many people think they matter?
  8. How, what we think they mean for America—culture, civics, politics, faith—affects our lives and actions? (example: religion and the founding fathers; gun rights; free speech, etc.)
  9. Questioning:
  10. What were the values and ideas of the “founding fathers,” incl. BF?
  11. What do they mean to us?
  12. How and why should we emulate their ideals?
  13. What ideals/values need to be revisited or reinvented?
  14. The “founding” texts of America:
  15. the minds, ideas, and documents of the “Founders” are often thought as ideal, perfect, or infallible texts in the tradition of Scriptural/Biblical authority
  16. Q: What would it mean to read (i.e. interpret, analyze, criticize, even deconstruct) the “Founders,” especially BF like any other literary text?
  17. Benjamin Franklin’s writings:
  18. They invite us to a game of literary interpretation and dissection
  19. He calls attention to the construction of literary and public identities or personae
  20. In his Autobiography, for instance, he constantly calls attention to the “textuality” of his identity, especially by comparing his body to a text

The Epitaph of Young Benjamin Franklin

The body of

B. Franklin, Printer

(Like the Cover of an Old Book

Its Contents torn Out

And Stript of its Lettering and Gilding)

Lies Here, Food for Worms.

But the Work shall not be Lost;

For it will (as he Believ'd) Appear once More

In a New and More Elegant Edition

Revised and Corrected

By the Author.

  1. BF and the playing/construction of personae/roles:
  2. Scene from John Adams, part 3 (HBO Miniseries)
  3. calling attention to the difference between “essential” and “constructed” identities
  4. Is he just playing the American?
  5. Questions for the semester: how does Franklin construct different identities, not just through his public appearances, but especially through his writing (these range from B. Franklin printer, to Franklin the statesman, to various fictional personae, including Silence Dogood)
  6. Thus: BF invites us to pay attention to and question the construction of identities
  1. The writing and rewriting of Franklin’s life
  2. How did Franklin continually write and re-write his life?
  3. How are we re-writing his life?
  4. What are the cultural, historical, social, political, and literary needs or interests or agendas that drive the re-writing of BF? What drives our investment in Benjamin Franklin today?
  5. If BF influenced American culture so heavily, which BF do we choose?
  6. Walter Isaacson (The Benjamin Franklin Reader, p. 4: “Franklin’s writings likewise flow together to give a narrative of both his own pilgrim’s progress and that of the new nation he helped to shape. He was the greatest inventor of his time, but the most interesting thing that he invented, and continually reinvented, was himself. America’s first great publicist, he was, in his life and his writings, consciously trying to create a new American archetype. In the process, he carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it in public, and polished it for posterity.”
  7. But: has BF become not just a cultural icon or archetype, but also a cultural farce, or even a “simulacra” (a fake, reproduced image)
  8. E.g. BF in POP CULTURE, on the $100-bill, etc.)
  9. Has BF also become a mockery of cultural authenticity?

______

FRANKLIN—THE ICON ANALYSIS:

“icon”: 1: a usu. Pictorial representation: IMAGE 2: a conventional religious image typically painted on a small wooden panel and used in the devotions of Easter Christians 3: an object of uncritical devotion: IDOL 4. EMBLEM, SYMBOL 5. a: a sign (as a word or graphic symbol) whose form suggests its meaning b: a graphic symbol on a computer screen that suggests the purpose of an available function.

How did Benjamin Franklin become an icon of American culture?

-an icon of his own making?

-A product of American cultural myth-making

FIVE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS:

  1. What are the many personae of Benjamin Franklin?
  2. How did BF construct or fashion or “write” different identities or personae?
  3. How and why do we construct Benjamin Franklin as an “icon” of American culture?
  4. What values or ideals did BF represent?
  5. How do we relate to these values and ideals?

OUR JOBS:

1)AS LITERARY CRITICS

  1. Understanding and analyzing the textual Franklin

2)AS HISTORIANS

  1. Recovering a multi-faceted Franklin
  2. Which “face” are we missing or intentionally leaving out
  3. What did Franklin mean to his contemporaries?
  4. When and how did he become an “American” (rather than a British subject or a colonist?) What does it mean to “become” American? Did it mean the same in his time as it does now?

3)AS CULTURAL CRITICS

  1. Understanding and critiquing the uses to which BF is put (cultural, political, economical)

4)AS LEARNERS

  1. What can and should we learn from BF?