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Even though he is a professor of literature by trade, Ohio Northern University’s Douglas Dowland, Ph.D., is no novice to the drama of American politics. His first book, “Weak Nationalisms,” explored how authors attempted to sidestep national divides by writing stories of America that speak to many. His most recent book, “We, Us, and Them,” published by the University of Virginia Press earlier this year, took the opposite approach, to study how some stories of America spark anger and division.
“What’s fascinating to me about the American story is how it is an intense one to so many,” Dowland said. “When someone describes America in a way we like – or don’t like – we feel it in our bones.”
“We, Us, and Them” studies such writing and its effects from the Vietnam War to the rise of Donald Trump. One of the authors Dowland studies is Ohio Senator – and now Vice-Presidential candidate – J.D. Vance, in particular, how Vance peppered his classic memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” with a “we” of rust-belt Americans at odds with a “them” of the coasts.
“What I find fascinating is how Vance positions himself as an outsider, though he is also very much an insider,” Dowland comments. “That’s what a rags-to-riches story like ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ does.”
What is unique about the vice-presidential candidate’s rags-to-riches story is its persistent theme of resentment. “Pick any character in the memoir: they have a resentment. Pick any part of America that Vance describes: it brims with resentment,” Dowland writes. “To me, that’s the promise and the problem of the book: at some points we nod our heads in agreement with Vance, and at other times, we shake our heads in disapproval.”
It was in this emotionally powerful way, Dowland argues, that Vance was able to become an object of fascination—first by professors and the press upon the publication of “Hillbilly Elegy,” and later by the general public when Vance’s book was turned into a film, and ultimately, his election as a senator.
Dowland's book also explores works by other American authors, including John Steinbeck, Hunter S. Thompson, and James Baldwin.
