White Out: Hollywood and Africa, 1945-1970

I've just finished polishing an article I've been working on for the past few months, a history of how Hollywood films depicted Africa between 1945 and 1970.  What I found surprised me, as other scholars and common sense suggest that dark-skinned Africans were not portrayed sympathetically until the 1960s, when American politics and culture moved to the left.  But an examination of both Tarzan and other Hollywood films suggest that Hollywood started taking Africa and Africans much more seriously in the late 1950s.  The films in the 1960s didn't make much progress in this regard, and some of them didn't even try (such as John Wayne's "Hatari").  In fact the number of Hollywood films about Africa declined dramatically in the 1960s and especially 1970s, just as Africans (and African-Americans) gained political power.  An assessment of Readers Digest (the most widely read magazine in the world) and of more intellectual authors shows the same trend of declining interest in Africa in the 1960s.  This suggests that white Americans lost interest in Africa as black African nations claimed their independence and black people in the U.S. and Africa became more assertive.

At the Heart of Things: Peace Corps Volunteers in Sub-Saharan Africa

African Identities has just published my "At the Heart of Things: Peace Corps Volunteers in Sub-Saharan Africa."  I started working on this piece nearly two years ago, after my first trip to Ghana got me interested in how people from the U.S. react to Africa.  So I read a lot of accounts from Peace Corps Volunteers, many of them extraordinarily rich and moving.

PCVs at first came to Africa expecting to share the benefits of American civilization.  But a growing disillusionment with mainstream American culture prompted more and more to come looking to find answers rather than to offer solutions.  Of course Africa often confounded these more romantic expectations, too.  One of my better sentences in the piece: "Africa confronted volunteers with communities they could not join, privileges they could not shed, and tragedies they could not fix."

This is a link to the journal's home page.  You can also just ask me for a copy of the article (I ordered a bunch) or access it through a research library.

The American Family: From Obligation to Freedom

My latest book was officially released while I was in Ghana--though I have yet to spot it at the top of any best-seller lists.

But scholars I respect a lot are saying some very nice things about it:

"As a potential textbook for courses on the history of the American family, it is superior to anything available. . . . More than a textbook, it is a well-researched, tightly argued, and clearly and lively written interpretive history. . . . he ends his masterful book with a sensitive call for balance of obligations and freedom."
Gary S. Cross, Distinguished Professor of Modern History, Penn State Univeristy

"This is an ambitious and sweeping interpretation of family history across continents and centuries. Del Mar's research reveals not so much the decline of families in an era that extols personal freedom, but their transformation into smaller units increasingly oriented toward serving individual identities, needs, and desires. . . . an impressive and convincing book."
Elliott Gorn, Professor of History and American Studies, Brown University

Reflections

     I've been back in Portland for five days now, long enough to miss Ghana's literal and figurative warmth--the warmth of the climate and the people.
     My principal goal in traveling to Ghana was to find schools and teachers interested in linking their students to students in the U.S.  After visiting seven Ghanaian schools--some of them multiple times--I believe more than before that such relationships will be mutually beneficial.
     Schools in the U.S. do a relatively strong job of cultivating effective individuals.  We produce a lot of brilliant students.  Ghanaian schools put much more emphasis on deference and responsibility and hard work.  Of course one benefit of learning about each others' lives is appreciating a different culture through developing a personal relationship.  But I am also hopeful that the two different styles of education can inform each other.  In the world of today and tomorrow, we all need to learn how to maintain traditions even as we innovate.