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19 Oct, 5 tweets, 1 min read
Thinking about my undergrad alma mater, Bates College, which is currently going through a scandal about the administration censoring something that appeared in the student newspaper.

I wrote an opinion column for that newspaper, back in 1988. 1/3
I've been smug in thinking that the administration didn't censor us in the old days--but I remembered this morning that that's not true.

I wrote a column pointing out (naming w/out naming) the date rapists on campus and the frat-like house of students where date rapes occurred.
I upset much of the campus and a number of alumnae and donors, got attacked at a party, etc. And one of the Deans called me into his office and in what I'm sure he thought was a cordial tone of voice "recommended" I meet with my "victims" (i.e., the date rapists).
That meeting was awkward as hell, because I had to be polite to them while also getting the point across that I knew what they did. They were aggrieved, as might be expected.

The Dean then "recommended" that I not write articles like that any more.
I did tone it down--I got the message he was sending--but only enough that I was allowed to keep getting my stuff published without further heat from the administration.

So Bates hasn't changed much, I guess, except for the price tag.

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More from @jessnevins

Jess Nevins Profile picture
19 Oct
Enough people expressed an interest in this, so here I am, about to tell you one of the ways to write Superman correctly. There are any number of ways to write him. This one is mine and is how I’d write him if I ever got the chance.

1/34
Not surprisingly, Alan Moore is my main influence in this, but not based on “Whatever Happened to the Man Of Tomorrow?” No, Moore summarized my approach to Superman in this sequence from WILDCATS #26:

2/34
Superman as Super-Dad. Superman, as a literally superior being who loves humanity and puts himself in a position to protect and nurture us, to shield us from damaging influences and people, and to help us grow—to be the sort of father that Jonathan Kent was to him.
3/34
Read 35 tweets
Jess Nevins Profile picture
15 Oct
Last time, we finished up the text of “English Jack.” Now, some notes & thoughts.
Although story paper serials were always patriotic, the quality of the patriotism and the range of feelings about the Empire and about foreigners varied depending on the years.
1/31
During those years when the British public and policy makers felt relatively sanguine about the Empire, the story papers produced what was for the time a relatively diverse set of heroes whose interaction with foreign cultures was comparatively tolerant.
2/31
But during those years when British culture and cultural assumptions were seen to be under attack, and when the British public and policy makers felt anxiety about the Empire or its future, the tone of penny dreadfuls and story paper serials changed.
3/31
Read 32 tweets
Jess Nevins Profile picture
14 Oct
More on "English Jack":

When last we left our heroes they had just outwitted Afghans from inside a hollow statue of a false god.
Jack etc. rejoin the British troops. Elphinstone decides that the situation in Kabul is hopeless & that it’s time to leave the city.
1/30
Elphinstone orders all his troops to lead the retreat over the mountains to the nearest safe city, Jalalabad (93 miles away). All the civilians in Kabul are to accompany them.
His officers try to persuade Elphinstone not to do this, but he is insistent.
2/30
Problems with his idea:
-4,500 troops to guard 12,000+ civilians (plus Afghan & Indian camp followers) is bad military math.
-4,500 troops staging a fighting retreat against 30,000+ Indigenous troops is bad military math.
-It’s early January. The weather is the enemy.
3/30
Read 30 tweets
Jess Nevins Profile picture
13 Oct
Picking up from yesterday...

We left "English Jack" during the fighting in Kabul. Bobby & Evan are heavily outnumbered by the Afghans and engage them in hand-to-hand battle. Evan saves Jack’s life by stabbing an Afghani who is trying to run Jack through from behind.
1/30
Evan and Bobby are terrified, their teeth chattering, but they are trying to do their duty. (Frightened heroes—not a common element of war story paper stories).
Then Bobby sees a girl he knows trapped in the upper floor of a building occupied by the Afghans.
2/30
Bobby runs inside to rescue the girl and finds the building full of butchered women and children. On the top floor Bobby finds the girl, clad only in tatters, mad and speechless from seeing her mother and sisters butchered, and only capable of a “ringing, hollow laugh.”
3/30
Read 31 tweets
Jess Nevins Profile picture
12 Oct
Picking up from yesterday--more "English Jack"!

When we last left our hero Jack, he was confronting thirteen robed men who were shouting “Death to the accursed British!”
In the fight that follows he chops off a hand. The Afghans prepare to charge him en masse, but--
1/32
“Jack does not flinch. Not he. He is every inch an Englishman.”
This jingoistic note was probably taken, in 1878, to be a patriotic, stirring moment. I think the author of “English Jack” is writing this at least half-ironically, knowing what’s to come in the serial.
2/32
English reinforcements arrive, and the thirteen Afghans flee. Jack picks up the severed hand, to find that it’s a woman’s hand and that it bears a huge opal ring which gleams “with a baleful and malignant fire.”
This is our first (but not last) hint of the supernatural.
3/32
Read 32 tweets
Jess Nevins Profile picture
11 Oct
Good morning! I thought I’d do something a little different. I’ve got something I’d like to explore here, but it’s too long for one thread, so I thought I’d do a series of daily threads rather than doing one egregiously long thread. I’ll stop at, I dunno, 30 tweets each?
1/30
I’ll be talking about an 1878-1879 English story paper serial: “English Jack Amongst the Afghans; or, The British Flag—Touch It Who Dare!”

Let me tell you, it is a *trip*. One of the best-written story paper serials of the century, and one of the most fascinating.

2/30
1878 & 1879 are prime years for the story papers, the English equivalent of the American dime novels. 1878-1879 is when the moral panic that eventually destroyed the penny dreadful form was over, the penny dreadfuls were declining, and the story papers were on the rise.
3/30
Read 30 tweets

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