Academic Salinger Conference Presentation
WILL HOCHMAN (hochman@uscolo.edu)
Fri, 12 Mar 1999 11:04:14 -0700 (MST)
I won't go into the silly details of "Joyce Maynard and J.D. Salinger; An
American Comparison" which is a paper I presented at the Society for the
Interdisciplinary Study of Socail Imagery's conference on "The Image of
America," except to tell you this...
This was at a fairly heady academic conference (some
participants seemed to have tatoos of their iq's and degrees done in
invisible green ink) and I enjoyed the fact that my paper and overheads
were well presented despite my usual bumbling in public.
After my paper I was fortunate to receive some good audience q's...one
fellow asked me about the cultural/creative Salinger stuff and used WP
Kinsella's _Shoeless Joe Jackson_ (the book _Field of Dreams was based on)
as an example. In a serious, academic tone I noted (gravely) that Kinsella
had overlooked a critical factor in his book that was unforgiveable. He
imagines Salinger to be fan of that mostly minor league team (permited for
some silly reason to play in the major leagues) called the Boston Red Sox.
Kinsella should know that any kid growing up in NY was forbidden by
natural law to root for the Red Sox and the real issue is whether Salinger
was a Yankee, Dodger or Giant fan...
I kept up the serious tone as long as I could but thrill now in the fact
that I've never had more fun answering a question at an academic
conference...I love baseball and the Yankees so much I'm ready to argue
that god is yankee fan too, will