|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Bloody
Promenade: Reflections on a Civil War Battle
|
Few
of us have experienced war firsthand, and none of us experienced
it during 1861—1865. As a result, our historical imaginations
have to depend wholly on the images and representations,
verbal and visual, left to us by others. Stephen Cushman
will read from and talk about his book, Bloody Promenade:
Reflections on a Civil War Battle, which focuses specifically
on how someone who is not a professional historian confronts
and reads various images of the Battle of the Wilderness,
fought in central Virginia in May 1864.
|
 Friday,
March 28, 2003
7:00-9:00pm
at Hopwood Auditorium, Lynchburg
College
1501 Lakeside Drive, Lynchburg
|
 |
 On
5 and 6 May 1864, the Union and Confederate armies met near
an unfinished railroad in central Virginia, with Lee outmanned
and outgunned, hoping to force Grant to fight in the woods.
The name of the battle—Wilderness—suggests the
horror of combat at close quarters and an inability to see
the whole field of engagement, even from a distance. Indeed,
the battle is remembered for its brutality and ultimate
futility for Lee: even with 26,000 casualties on both sides,
the Wilderness only briefly stemmed Grant's advance.
Stephen Cushman lives fifty miles south of this battlefield.
A poet and professor of American literature at the University
of Virginia, he wrote Bloody Promenade to confront the fractured
legacy of a battle that haunts him through its very proximity
to his everyday life.
Cushman's personal narrative is not another history of the
battle. "If this book is a history of anything," he writes,
"it's the history of verbal and visual images of a single,
particularly awful moment in the American Civil War."
Reflecting on that moment can begin in the present, with
the latest film or reenactment, but it leads Cushman back
to materials from the past. Writing in an informal, first-person
style, he traces his own fascination with the conflict to
a single book, a pictorial history he read as a boy. His
abiding interest and poetic sensibility yield a fresh perspective
on the war's continuing grip on Americans—how it pervades
our lives through films and songs; novels such as The
Red Badge of Courage, The Killer Angels, and
Cold Mountain; Whitman's poetry and Winslow Homer's
painting; or the pull of the abstract idea of the triumph
of freedom.
- from University
of Virginia Press
|
 |
 |
The only statewide public radio program in Virginia,
With Good Reason is an eclectic blend of timely
and engaging features and interviews designed to appeal
to general audiences. With Good Reason is produced
for the Virginia Higher Education Broadcasting Consortium
by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and is
broadcast in partnership with public radio stations
in Virginia, Tennessee and Washington, D.C.
Listen
to a Real Audio interview
with Stephen Cushman discussing his book, "Bloody
Promenade: Reflections on a Civil War Battle."
|
Download
the list of resources
for Mr. Cushman's Lecture in pdf format. You need Adobe
Acrobat reader to view this document.
Professor
Cushman's works include:
Cussing Lesson (poems). Louisiana State U P, 2002.
Bloody
Promenade: Reflections on a Civil War Battle. U P of Virginia,
1999.
Blue
Pajamas (poems). Louisiana State U P, 1998.
Fictions
of Form in American Poetry. Princeton U P, 1993.
William
Carlos Williams and the Meanings of Measure. Yale U P,
1985.
Professor
Cushman is the author of numerous additional articles. Click
here
for a full list of his published works.
Recent News and Quotes
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Robert C. Taylor Professor of American Literature