NEWSLETTER

The Center for the HumanitiesA MEMBER OF THE CONSORTIUM OF HUMANITIES CENTERS AND INSTITUTES

AUTZEN HOUSE OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY FALL 2005

Center calls for06-07 proposals

Julie Green

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The Center is now acceptingapplications from scholars

interested in 2006-07 fellowships forthe resident research program.Applications for visiting fellowshipsmust be postmarked by Monday,December 12, 2005, those for OSUfellowships by Monday, January 13,2006. Each year the Center bringstogether a new group of facultyfellows from OSU and other univer-sities, as well as independent schol-ars, to pursue research and writing inan environment designed to bestimulating as well as protected fromthe usual daily demands of academiclife. Applications from both OSU andvisiting scholars may be for anyhumanities related research, whichshould be understood to include notonly traditional humanities disci-plines but also those projects withinthe social and natural sciences thatare historical or philosophical inapproach, and that attempt to castlight on questions of interpretation orcriticism traditionally found in thehumanities. This also includesinterpretations of science and tech-nology. Awards to visiting scholars aregenerally for a full academic year,while those for OSU scholars are

His right foot, clad in a blue slipper,shook nervously . . . After officialsbegan administering the drugs at12:09 a.m., Johnson blinked threetimes and let out a breath throughpuffed cheeks. His foot stoppedshaking. His eyes slowly dimmed,became glassy and closed to acrescent . . . He asked for a finalmeal of three fried chicken thighs,10 or 15 shrimp, tater tots withketchup, two slices of pecan pie,strawberry ice cream, honey andbiscuits and a Coke.

From The Norman Transcript

When Julie Green begancollecting notices of the final

meals requested by death rowinmates, her source was the localnewspaper in Norman, Oklahoma.Since then numerous websites havebeen created that give details ofexecutions as well as final meals. “What seems to be missing,however, is interpretation of the finalmeal,” said Green, a ResearchFellow and associate professor of artat OSU. “Why does this traditionexist, and what does the selection ofeach meal tell us about theindividual’s race, region, andeconomic background—or evenabout his feelings on life and death?And what should it tell us about ourfeelings?” Green began addressing these

questions in 1999 through works ofart, collectively called The LastSupper, consisting of blue and whitepaintings on porcelain plates, whichillustrate actual last supper choices.The work has been exhibited widelyin the United States, as well as inBritain, often accompanied by alecture delivered by Green. She alsohas lectured on the subject in variousart schools and institutes in China,and the project has been featured in anationally distributed AssociatedPress article and on the public radioprogram The Splendid Table. At the Center, Green is turningfrom painting to the writing of essaysin which she will consider variousaspects of capital punishment in

‘I would appreciate the food hot’

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Adam Rome

In the late nineteenth century,hundreds of American towns

became congested, polluted industrialcities. The vast forests of the Great lakeswere cut down. Millions of acres ofgrassland were transformed into farms andranches. In response to these profoundchanges in the environment, citizens--including many newcomers to activism--organized to stop pollution, conservenatural resources, and preserve wild placesand wild creatures. “Their efforts led to laws, institutions,and government agencies that still shapethe American landscape,” said AdamRome, a Center Research Fellow,Associate Professor of History at ThePennsylvania State University and aformer Rhodes scholar. “Theenvironmental reforms of the period alsohad far-reaching political, social, andcultural consequences. To cite just oneexample, environmental activism was oneof the principal ways women entered thepublic sphere in the years around 1900,and the energy of women in addressingenvironmental problems strengthened thecampaign for suffrage.” Rome is working on a book, Sustainingthe Nation: Environmental Reform andthe Emergence of Modern America, inwhich he aims to tell the story of theformative period of environmentalreform—roughly 1865 to 1915—as partof the story of the emergence of modernAmerica. “In addition to changing the wayscholars understand the history ofenvironmental reform, this project willshed light on the political, social, andcultural history of the United States in theGilded Age and Progressive Era. I hope todemonstrate that the insights of myspecialty—environmental history—arecritical in understanding the emergence ofmodern America.”

Standard surveys of the period give littlespace to environmental issues, said Rome.“Though a few classic works aboutresource conservation and wildernesspreservation addressed issues of greatsignificance for political and culturalhistorians, much of the recent work onthose subjects has sought to explain theroots of contemporary environmentalproblems, not to contribute to a deeperunderstanding of the historictransformation wrought byindustrialization, urbanization, andimmigration.”

In what he describes as a “holistic”approach, Rome is analyzing the various

forms of activism that prevailed at thetime, including the conservationmovement, wilderness preservationcampaigns, anti-pollution efforts, andattempts to “green” the urban landscape.Most scholars have focused on only oneform of activism, said Rome, even thoughat the time “many people participated inmultiple reform campaigns. Activists indifferent causes often used similarstrategies and made similar arguments. Byanalyzing similarities and differencesamong all forms of environmental reformin this period, I hope to make fresharguments about their significance. “Though some people argued between1865 and 1915 for a new ethic to guidedecisions about land use, the commondenominator in the activism of the periodwas a sense that the vast transformation ofthe environment wrought byindustrialization, urbanization, andimmigration had unintendedconsequences that threatened the nation’sfuture. In different ways, mostenvironmental reformers sought to sustainthe nation materially and spiritually.” Rome’s book The Bulldozer in theCountryside: Suburban Sprawl and the

Rise of American Environmentalism(Cambridge UP, 2001) received theFrederick Jackson Turner Award, givenannually by the Organization of AmericanHistorians for the best first book on anytopic in American history.

Modern America is rooted in nature reform

During Winter Term, the Centerwill host a biweekly colloquium onNature and Culture co-led byvisiting Research Fellows RobinSchulze (English) and Adam Rome(History) of Pennsylvania StateUniversity. The colloquium will begin byconsidering how Americans thoughtabout nature in the decades around1900, when many “modern” ideasabout nature first were articulated. “Nature writing” became a popularphenomenon then. The relationshipof humans to the non-human worldalso was an important subject for

Invitation: Nature &Culture colloquium

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Kirsi Peltomaki

He removed the wall between thegallery office and the exhibition

space, which remained empty. Henamed the lobby of the Los AngelesMuseum of Art after himself. Hepublished a catalogue of works thatthe Museum of Modern Art hadremoved from its permanentcollection, thereby causing the curatorserious discomfort. He is Michael Asher, aninternationally known Los Angelesartist and the subject of KirsiPeltomaki’s current research. “Asher does not physically makeobjects. Instead, he works through theremoval, displacement, substitution,and reconstitution of objects thatalready are situated within theinstitution, “said Peltomäki, aResearch Fellow and an assistantprofessor of art at OSU. “Asher’s site-specific installations, often associatedwith minimalism and conceptual art,are made exclusively for their site,typically a museum.” Based in Los Angeles, with workdating back to the late 1960s, Asher isconsidered to be one of the threemost influential artists of the firstgeneration doing “institutionalcritique.” Peltomäki defines the termas “art that investigates itsinstitutional frame of reference, forexample by calling attention to theideological underpinnings of amuseum or gallery context.” While in residence at the Center,Peltomäki will complete much of thefirst draft of a book about Asher andthe role of the human subject in hiswork. The artist is cooperating withPeltomaki, and has granted her accessto his personal archives. “This project is significant for tworeasons. It will provide a

comprehensive critical account ofAsher’s materially ephemeral artisticpractice, and it will be among thefirst studies in contemporary arthistory to center upon the role of thesubject—the artist, viewer orcurator—as opposed to the object ofart. It will also be the first book-

length study of this influential artist’swork.” The anti-material aspect of Asher’spractice has often been analyzed bycritics and art historians in thecontext of the “dematerialization” ofthe art object in the 1960s and 1970s,said Peltomäki. “On a formal level,however, Asher’s works are moreconcerned with the participatory roleof the human subject than they arewith the definition of an object.” The study will focus on fourprimary aspects of the role of thehuman subject in the artist’s work.One will be the way in which heconstructs a phenomenologicalexperience for viewers bymanipulating the physical propertiesof the exhibition space. “In hisuntitled work for the 1970 groupexhibition Spaces at the Museum ofModern Art in New York, forexample, Asher soundproofed hisallocated room so that, by

The figures in this work by Michael Asher are paid participants, hired to view the most-reproduced and the least-reproduced work for 30 minutes at a time, at the 74th AmericanExhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1982. Photo by Luis Medina.

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Visual art manifested as events, gestures or acts

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Charlotte Headrick and Bantry

A woman “who raised her headabove the parapet was a woman

who would not win.” So wrote Irishwriter Maeve Binchy about life forwomen in Ireland in the 1930s. “By the end of the twentiethcentury, one would have thought thatthe situation would be drasticallyaltered, not only for women in general,but also for theatre artists,” saidCharlotte Headrick, a Research Fellowand professor of communication andtheatre arts at OSU. “But it has been along and continuing struggle in bothNorthern Ireland and in the Republicfor women to gain the recognition theydeserve.” Headrick is devoting her CenterFellowship to collecting, editing, andcontributing to a book of essays aimedat filling in the gap in Irish theatrehistory where women writers belong.In explaining the need for such a book,Headrick described a controversy thatfollowed the appearance of a three-volume set of what was touted as the“best” of Irish writing, published as aproject by the Field Day TheatreCompany founded by five Irishmen. “What happened next is the stuff ofacademic legend,” Headrick recountedwryly. “After the third volumeappeared in 1991, it seemed thatIreland had been blessed with onlymale writers.” When scholars raisedan outcry, a fourth volume waspromised to “give women their placein Irish letters.” The years went by, theField Day Theatre ceased to be a forcein Irish theatre, and there was nofourth volume. A group of Irish scholars, allwomen, took up the task, and in 2002a fourth volume was published byCork University Press, followed by a

fifth volume when a single book provedinsufficient. In addition to poetry, drama,and literature, the anthology includedwomen’s contributions in the socialsciences, history, theology and oraltradition. While this was “an excellentbeginning in reclaiming the position ofwomen in Irish letters, more needs to bedone. There are women playwrights,directors, designers, stage managers,actresses, company managers, critics,and artistic directors who have shapedwhat Irish theatre is today.” A prime example is the all-femaleCharabanc Theatre Company, foundedin 1983, which changed the face of Irishtheatre history. “These women, alongwith emerging artists, are prime forcesin both the historic and contemporaryIrish theatre scene—they are the moversand shakers of Irish theatre.”

Headrick is also the author of theforthcoming book Women of

Ireland: Irish Dramatists, which, whenpublished, will be the second anthologyof Irish women dramatists in print. Asthe past president of the AmericanConference for Irish Studies, WesternRegion, Headrick organized aconference, “Women of SomeImportance,” which was held at theCenter for the Humanities in October.The presentations included papers byscholars from France, Northern Irelandand throughout the U.S., as well as theperformance of a dramatic monologueabout Irish-American suffragist ClaraDillon Darrow, a screening of shortfilms from Ireland and Northern Ireland,and the Elizabeth Kuti play Treehouses,directed by Headrick and performed byThe University Theatre.

Filling the gap in Irish theatre history

many writers who seemed not to bewriting about nature at all. Thoughthe colloquium will begin with theUnited States in the decades around1900, professors Schulze and Romehope that the discussion will rangewidely across time and place. The organizational meeting for thecolloquium will be at 4 p.m., January17, in the Center’s conferenceroom. Humanities facultymembers with teaching or researchinterests in environmental issues whomay wish to participate, please emailrobin.schulze@oregonstate.edu oradam.rome@oregonstate.edu.

Nature and Culture continued.

. .

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Robin Schulze

I too am nota bit tamed,

I too am untranslatable,I sound my barbaric yawpover the roofs of the world.

“Song of Myself”Walt Whitman

In the opening decades of thetwentieth century, many Americanssensed that modern, urban-

industrial life was exacting a painfulprice—the loss of a direct relationshipwith nature.

“As more and more people tradedthe nature-centered rhythms of rurallife for the rush of industrial urbanity,white middle-class Americans beganto sense that their modern lives werebecoming increasingly artificial,” saidRobin Schultze, a Center ResearchFellow and professor of English atThe Pennsylvania State University.“The ‘conquest’ of nature thatProgressives heralded as the basis ofAmerican achievement brought with itdisconcerting unnatural consequences.Spurred by a growing sense ofdetachment from the organic world,middle-class white Americans turnedtheir minds and bodies to nature inrecord numbers.”

The resultant nature crazeproduced a “sprawling set ofpopular institutions and artifacts,”including the Nature StudyMovement, the Country LifeMovement, the rise of “organic”architecture, the popularization of

nature books, a vogue for hiking, and adramatic increase in visitors tonational parks.

The nation’s emerging sense of theloss of its former relationship to thenatural world was a much-debatedsubject of modernity, said Schulze,and among those deeply engaged inthe debate were certain modernistpoets. The poets and their response tothe shifting popular attitudes about thehuman relationship to nature are thefocus of her current book,“Beyondthe Yawp”: Nature, Natural History,and the Origins of Modernist Poetry.

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“Prize Plants, Grades IV-VII, Upsala Street School, June 1900,” from Nature Study andLife, by Clifton F. Hodge (New York: Ginn & Company, 1902)

Poetry

I, too, dislike it: there are things that areimportant beyond all this fiddle.Reading it, however, with a perfect contemptfor it, one discovers that there is init, after all, a place for the genuine.Hands that can grasp, eyesthat can dilate, hair that can riseif it must, these things are important notbecause a

high-sounding interpretation can be putupon them but because they areuseful; when they become so derivative as tobecome unintelligible, thesame thing may be said for all of us--that wedo not admire whatwe cannot understand. From Poetry (1919)

Marianne Moore

Poets reimagined nature to fit scientific age

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The 21st Annual Meeting of theAmerican Conference for IrishStudies, Western Region, met at theCenter in October. Drawn by thetheme “Women of SomeImportance,” participants came fromacross the country, as well asNorthern Ireland and France.Keynote speaker Northern Irishdramatist Nicola McCartney, aCreative Writing Fellow at theUniversity of Edinburgh, delivered atalk titled “Accidental Playwright.” In addition to academicpresentations, the conferenceincluded a performance with originalwords of the song “Women ofIreland” by OSU musicians, a one-woman dramatic presentation on thelife of Suffragist Clara DillonDarrow, a revival of the OSU TheatreDepartment’s play Treehouses,directed by conference organizerCharlotte Headrick, a reading ofselections from McCartney’s plays,and screenings of several short films.Prior to the film Field of Bones,which is based on an Irish poem, partof the poem was read in English byHeadrick and in Irish by Êmer

Deane, the Consul General ofIreland. The conference was sponsored bythe Center, the Consul General ofIreland, the National Conference ofIrish Studies, the OSU President’sOffice, the College of Liberal Arts,the University Theatre, and thedepartments of English, WomenStudies and Speech Communication.

Women of Some Importance draws IrishStudies scholars to the Center

Northern Irish dramatist NicolaMcCartney delivers the keynote

addresss, “Accidental Playwright.”

Charlotte HeadrickCenter Reseach FellowConference Organizer

Scott Palmer, Nicola MaCartney, andIrish Consul Êmer Deane Mary Martin, Audrey Eyler, Helen Lojek, and Tramble T. Turner

Helen Lojek

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Center ProgramAdvisory Board

Kerry Ahearn, English

Maureen Healy, History

Jonathan Katz, History

Maria Olaya, Foreign Langs and Lits

Michael Scanlan, Philosophy

Robert Wess, English

Jun Xing, Ethnic Studies

Ex-officio

David Robinson, Center Director

Wendy Madar, Associate Direct

Marilynn Richtarik

Unidentified conference participant, Jennifer Cornell, and Neil Davison,

Vreneli Farber, Scott Palmerand and CaseyWoodworth

Kevin Drummond and JohnnCountryman

Tramble T. Turner

Singer Emily Thielen andflute player Tina Bull,preparing to perform“Women of Ireland,” withoriginal lyrics by MichaelRussell

Kathleen Heininge, Virginia Mack andShannon Hopkins

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Julie Green’s artist statementbegins: “I wanted to be astewardess until age four, and

then I wanted to be an artist. Born inJapan, I moved with my family to theU.S. I have lived in fifteen states, allsuburban areas until college. Contactwith nature was limited. Our onlyfamily pet was a guppy in 1970. ” The Center’s current show,“Paintings 1996-2005, Julie Green,”will be on exhibit through December.Green is also a Research Fellow at theCenter this year (her project isdescribed on Page 1) . Since noparaphrasing could tell the tale so well,here is the rest of her artist’s statement:“ My undergraduate degree is in design.At twenty-three, bidding farewell tohigh heels and an office with a redleather couch on the thirty-third floorof Rockefeller Center in New YorkCity, I quit my job as a designer forTime/Life. With two undergraduatepainting classes behind me, and all themuseums in New York available, Ibegan to paint. “In the past twenty years, the workhas been influenced by where I live:Kansas, Japan, New York City,Oklahoma, and now Oregon. Much issmall-scale egg tempera or oil painting.The figure, be it human or animal, is acontinual source of fascination. Whilethe paintings have personal meaning,viewers often have their owninterpretations. I am driven by themysterious and the ephemeral. Thereis a word in the Japanese language,kehai, which is the feeling somethinghas just happened or is about to occur:a footstep, a whiff, a stirring. I attemptto make a lasting image out of kehai—the fleeting moment. “When visiting a museum I look forpentimento, which is when certaincolors become transparent over time.

Pentimento allows the viewer to seeunder-painting: for example, thegesture of the hand before it wasrepainted. X-rays of paintings foundin art history texts inform these works.Examples of these technical influencescan be seen in the paintings Before Teaand Mike. By working in thin layers,the process of change and correction isapparent in the finished paintings. Igenerally work without models orphotographic references because of afascination with memory; specifically,that which we choose to remember andthat which we choose to forget. Thealterations of memory give some of thepaintings a dream-like quality, thoughdreams are rarely used as subject matter. “Books and periodicals providesubject matter for the some of the

Julie Green: I paint to point

paintings. I attempt to set up my lifein a way that promotes creativepractice. For example, as an adult Ihave never had a TV. Studio time isdivided between personal narrativepaintings and a five-year project calledThe Last Supper. Using mineral paintfired onto porcelain, The Last Supperillustrates 250 final meal requests ofU.S. death row inmates. As a Centerfor the Humanities Fellow, I amworking on an essay about the ritual offinal meals. While the plates are quitedifferent than the paintings, both areobservations of contemporary society.I am driven to the studio to make somesense of our world: painting asquestioning and meditation. AndyWarhol said the artist of the future willsimply point. I paint to point.”

Eat Crow, Julie Green, 2004, oil on linen mounted on panel.

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CalendarOctober

Fall Term Art ExhibitPaintings 1996-2005

Julie Green

3 From the Monthly Review toAmazon.Com Customer Reviewers:Ctizen Reviews, Technology, and theCirculation of Cultural Power.Lecture by Lisa Ede, Center ResearchFellow, Professor of English, OSU. 4p.m. Autzen House.

10 ‘Political Hermaphrodites’: Genderand Environmental Reform inProgressive America. Lecture byAdam Rome, Center Research Fellow,Associate Professor History, ThePennsylvania State University. 4 p.m.Autzen House.

24 ‘Beyond the Yawp’: Nature,Natural History and the Origins ofModernist Poetry. Lecture byRobin Schulze, Center ResearchFellow, Professor of English, ThePennsylvania State Uniiversity. 4p.m. Autzen House.

31 Darwin in Arcadia: A New Look atthe Pastoral. Lecture by LouiseWestling, Professor of English,University of Oregon. 4 p.m. AutzenHouse.

November

7 ‘Women of Some Importance: IrishArtists who Influenced Theatre inthe 20th Century.” Lecture byCharlotte Headrick, Center ResearchFellow, Professor of SpeechCommunication/Theatre Arts, OSU.4 p.m. Autzen House.

14 The Last Supper: Final Meals ofU.S. Death Row Inmates. Lecture byJulie Green, Center Research Fellow,Associate Professor of Art, OSU. 4p.m. Autzen House.

There is a word in theJapanese language, kehai,

which is the feelingsomething has just happened

or is about to occur: afootstep, a whiff, a stirring. I

attempt to make a lastingimage out of kehai—the

fleeting moment.Julie Green

Our State Motto, Julie Green, 2005oil on linen mounted on panel.

The New Mrs., Julie Green, 1998,tempera on panel.

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Schulze also is the author ofBecoming Marianne Moore: TheEarly Poems, 1907-1924(Berkeley: UC Press, 2002), andThe Web of Friendship: MarianneMoore and Wallace Stevens (AnnArbor: University of MichiganPress, 1995). Her book-in-progress,which focuses on poets HarrietMonroe, Robert Frost, WallaceStevens, Ezra Pound, MarianneMoore and Vachel Lindsay, aims topresent “a new reading of the rise ofAmerican modernist verse, andliterary modernism more generally.”

Nature for the modernist poetswas nothing like “the reflective,responsive, animate nature of

America’s Romantic childhood,” saidSchulze. Americans who retreated tothe woods at the turn of the centuryconsidered themselves serious,scientifically-minded modernreformers. “Their watchwords were scientificmanagement, efficiency, accuracy,expertise, precisionism, andprofessionalism. Unable to conceiveof an American cultural identitydistinct from American nature,Americans worked throughout theProgressive Era to reimagine theirrelationship to nature, their desire forit and national dependence upon it, inways that asserted their modernity andcultural maturity.”

suppressing any kind of sound, itinterfered with the exhibitionviewers’ ability to coordinate theirspatial experience.” A second aspect of Peltomäki’sfocus will be Asher’s use of actualobjects, including removing the wallbetween a gallery office and theexhibition area, “thus displaying thegallerist and the managerial functionof the gallery in an otherwise emptyspace.” The third aspect will be the use ofthe artist himself as a culturally andhistorically specific subject position.“For example, in an untitled 1983-85 installation, Asher named thelobby of the Los Angeles Museumof Contemporary Art after himself,negotiating a contract with themuseum that positioned him as themuseum’s landlord for a period ofeighteen months.” The fourth focus in Peltomäki’sstudy is the manner in which “Asherpositions and repositionsdiscursively defined subjects in

order to manifest their institutionalconstraints.” An example is his piecein the 1999 group exhibition TheMuseum as Muse: Artists Reflect, atthe Museum of Modern Art. “Asher asked MoMA to compileand publish a catalogue of the worksof art that it had ‘deaccessioned’—that is, removed from the collection—from the museum’s Department ofPainting and Sculpture. Theinstitution’s response to this projectdemonstrated symptomaticdiscomfort.” Although Asher’s publishedcatalogue of the removed works wasproduced internally by MoMA, itfeatured a disclaimer by the chiefcurator disavowing the accuracy of thelistings on the grounds that it was notan official museum publication.“Asher’s catalogue hinged upon adiscursively specific set ofintersubjective relations,” saidPeltomäki. “The artist spoke from themuseum’s authoritative position, whilethe ‘real’ curator performed a frantic

disidentification, again in the name ofthe museum.” Other contemporary art historianstend to focus on the material aspects ofart, such as the status of the art objectitself, and fail to account for manychanges regarding the subject, saidPeltomäki. “Increasingly, visual art ismanifest as events, gestures, or actsinstead of stable objects or images.Performance, installation, collaborativeprojects, public art and temporaryprojects are among the types ofcontemporary art that rely oninterrelated subjectivities, or thesubject relations of the artists, viewers,critics, and institutions. Asher’s worksare central to these developmentsbecause they focus specifically on theviewer’s experience, either throughchallenging the viewers’ expectationsor soliciting participation.”

Asher continued . . .

The cultural drive in the earlytwentieth century to remake nature asa subject fit for a scientific age leftthe emerging poets in a difficultposition. While they felt the nationalpull to reconnect with the naturalworld, they also were affected byawareness of the importance ofnature to the nation’s literaryheritage, “the orphic, mysticalattachment to American nature” thathad first stamped American literatureas unique and important. “These young writers sensed,however, that if their own art was tobe taken seriously as a twentieth-

Yawp continued . . .

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Proposals continued . . .

Last Supper continued . . .

most often granted for one term.Fellows will receive a stipend, anoffice in Autzen House, andgeneral support services. Fortheir part, fellows are asked tocontribute to intellectual life atOSU by giving presentations ontheir research projects in the formof lectures and working papers.Visiting fellows, in addition, mayteach a course or organize afaculty seminar series. For application forms and moreinformation, check the Center’swebsite: http://osu.orst.edu/dept/humanities/. or write to: Fellow-ship Program, Center for theHumanities, Oregon State Univer-sity, 811 S.W. Jefferson Avenue,Corvallis, OR, 97333-4506, orcall 541-737-2450.

addition to the traditions of a lastmeal, including “the victims, theheinous crimes committed, theindividuals executed, the largenumber of minorities on death row,and the margin for error in judicialprocess.” In the United States, death-rowinmates are nearly all male. Fifty-two percent are black or Hispanic,and studies by the United StatesGeneral Accounting Office havefound indisputable evidence that therace of the crime victim influencesthe likelihood of the perpetratorbeing charged with capital murder orreceiving the death penalty.Specifically, those who murderwhites are more likely to besentenced to death than those whomurder blacks. “Although my Last Supper platesdo not show whether the person whochose the meal was male or female,rich or poor, black or white or someother color, my essays will addressthese conditions and will considerthem in relation to what the foodschosen by the condemned inmatesindicate about the individualhistories, experiences, andimaginations.”

In general, said Green, therequested meals are modest, andtypically include American diner-type food such as French fries,hamburgers, and chicken friedsteak. The meals include few fruitsor vegetables, and only rarelygourmet or international foods apartfrom Mexican dishes requestedmainly by Hispanic inmates. Greenfound no requests for suchspecialties as sushi or Godivachocolate, though some requestscontain striking details: “An Oregonrequest for fried eggs and baconclosed with ‘I would appreciate thefood hot.’” The numbers of executions aswell as the rituals and rulessurrounding last suppers vary fromstate to state. At 336, Texas leadsthe nation in executions, followedby Virginia with 94. The totalnumber of state executions to dateis 994. Few states allow familymembers in the kitchen or at themeal, though in Louisiana theinmate’s family can bring food tothe prison and eat with thecondemned. In most states there is atwenty-dollar spending limit, saidGreen, who has encountered reports

of taxpayers complaining about theexpense. “It is a curious ritual, the lastsupper. An inmate has been locked upfor a decade, with little opportunity forchoice in food or anything else. Then,immediately prior to execution, weask, ‘What can we cook for you?’ Doesa meal offer dignity to an otherwisedegrading situation? Is the meal trulyfor the inmate, or is it a way toalleviate some of our guilt anddiscomfort about capital punishment? .. . One wonders how much of the mealthe inmate is able to eat. One wondersabout the occasional request forcommunion, or Rolaids, or a DietCoke. One wonders about the irony ofsustenance—nourishment to supportlife—being carefully prepared andserved just before death.”

century cultural product, it mustsomehow participate in the scientifichabits of mind that defined thetimes,” said Schulze. How was itpossible to write poetry in ascientific age? How might the poetkeep faith with nature and itspromise of literary cultural identitywithout seeming silly orunscholarly? How might theAmerican poet retain his or herdefining relationship to American

nature while reimagining nature asa viable subject of modernity? In Beyond the Yawp, Schulzewill argue that these questionsproved central to the creation ofAmerican modernist verse duringthe early decades of the twentiethcentury.

Yawp continued . . .

The Center for the HumanitiesThe Center was established in 1984 as an outgrowthof the Humanities Development Program, whichhad been creating innovative interdisciplinarycourses since 1977. The Center’s focus hasbroadened to a concern for improving thequality of humanities research as well as teachingat OSU. This is accomplished through the awardingof resident research fellowships to both OSU andvisiting scholars, as well as by sponsoringconferences, seminars, lecture series, art exhibitsand other events. The Center occupies AutzenHouse, 811 S.W. Jefferson Avenue.

David Robinson Wendy Madar Sara Ash-Majeski Quynh Le Director Associate Director Office Coordinator Student Assistant

Non-Profit OrgU.S. Postage PAIDCorvallis, ORPermit No. 200

The Center for the HumanitiesAutzen House811 S.W. Jefferson Avenue,Corvallis, OR 97333-4506(541)737-2450