When I was in the 7th grade, I went through a strange Stephen King phase. Around that time, my great-grandfather (who was a bit of a hoarder) passed away, and when we cleaned out his home, my family found hundreds of like-new hardcover books hidden in his closest and garage – most of which he probably scoured from book store dumpsters over the years. Part of that find was the (then) almost complete works of Stephen King. Most of King’s books ended up in my bedroom, stuffed in and around one of my past obsessions – Star Wars novels.

During that middle-school binge, I devoured almost every one of King’s novels, not to mention a batch of his novellas and short story collections. After I was finished, I trekked over to the local library and read all the books I had missed. (The only part of King’s canon I avoided was the Dark Tower series, an oversight I can’t really explain. Fortunately, Ron Howard will soon remedy the situation). It was the year of King for me. I even watched some of his terrible, terrible films.

I'm looking at you, Langoliers...

Then, almost as quickly as it came, the obsession faded, and in the years that followed, I found myself less and less inclined to brag about my King fandom. The books gradually made their way from my shelf to the my closet’s floor, and then a box in the attic. But, like the terrifying monkey-toy in one of King’s stories, his work stayed with me, informing everything I have written since.

Ever wonder where Family Guy gets its ideas?

Why did I stop reading King? Lately, I’ve been struggling with that question. In a large sense, I gave up most of my pleasure reading during high school, filling my time with sports, and, to be honest, far too many video games. But in a more direct sense, I think my insecure high school self picked up the idea that, however popular King’s books were, they would never be considered “literary.” Reading King would not make me look smart, to put it bluntly.

Looking back, I’m not sure how this mythical division between “literary” and “popular” fiction became a part of my young life. After all, my exposure to literature was, like any teenager’s, pretty limited. Summer reading lists were perhaps the only barometer I had for distinguishing between books that “counted” and books that, however entertaining, did not. Whatever the sources, that myth dug into my mind and stayed there like a tick for years. And I don’t think I’m alone in this experience. Just last week, when I told a friend I was reading a new King novel, he told me (without provocation) that King was a great storyteller, but not really a great author. Now where does that distinction come from? How does one go from Stephen King to Jonathan Franzen?

So close...

...and yet so far

I’d like to think I’m wiser now, but if I am, I owe it to the help of an excellent English professor who assigned King’s On Writing for an undergrad fiction workshop. Beyond the joy that is crawling into a familiar author’s mind (as in, I remember that moment in The Stand! So that’s why he blew up half the characters…), I fell in love with King’s characterization of the “real” novelist. As King made clear, for him, writing should be approached no differently than any other job; you sat down at 8am and got to work, no matter how you felt, and you kept going until the day’s work was done. (For a similar perspective, check out Steven Pressfield’s fantastic The War of Art). I got the sense that King writes for the simple reason that, as far as he knows, that’s what he’s on the Earth to do. His art/craft is an expression of his true self, critical praise be damned. This aspect of King was especially clear in the book’s epilogue, which tells the story of King’s nearly fatal car accident in 1999. The image of King sitting at the end of a hallway – still in a wheelchair, leg shattered and riddled with holes– forcing words on to the page, stays with me still. Writing brought King out of a very dark place. As a scholar with an interest in how peoples’ work and labor gives their lives meaning, King’s story is something I hope to hold on to.

If any of what I’ve said has made you contemplate pulling one of King’s books off the shelf, you should go ahead and do it. Duma Key, which I actually listened to during a road trip, is heavily informed by King’s accident and recovery. Two of the main characters nearly die in terrible accidents, and for both, art provides a pathway to healing. Under the Dome, which I just finished, is amazingly addictive and entertaining. It combines almost all of King’s favorite tropes: a small town in Maine (Tommyknockers, Salem’s Lot, Needful Things), aliens and military (Dreamcatcher), a “war” between everyday, reasonable people versus the cruel and the stupid (The Stand), even a terrifying wildfire (Tommyknockers, again). Big Jim may be King’s best villain since Greg Stillson, the dog-kicking politician in The Dead Zone. (Though, just like in The Stand, readers learn that it’s not the big bad guy you need to worry about, but his insane assistant. With King, madness trumps evil every time). The book’s third act never fulfills the promises made earlier on, but at over a thousand pages, I can see why King wanted to speed things to a conclusion. If Under the Dome signals one distinctive change in King’s writing, it’s that ecological disaster looms much larger than nuclear war as a threat to the world’s future. King’s fears, like the rest of ours, seem to have shifted in the 21st century. If you have some down time this summer, I encourage you to give King a try.

Over the past few months, I’ve been working alongside my fellow graduate students, Erin Molloy and James Nelson, to create a website for our Digital History course. Below, you’ll find a summary of our project.*

History On Stage grew out of another project the three of us were developing at the same time. As part of the Public History program at American University, the three of us (along with our friend and fellow grad, Kelly Gannon) have been developing pieces of museum theater for the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, and independent entity which resides in the larger structure of the National Museum of American History. The scripts we’ve been creating revolve around the lives of two women inventors: Margaret Knight, who created the first flat-bottomed paper bag machine in 1871 (think brown bag lunch) and Marion Donovan, who invented a modern reusable diaper in 1949 (a predecessor to Pampers). This semester, we delved into these inventor’s stories, learning how gender and technology collided.

As you’d expect, we had a great time.

But then, around a third of the way into the semester, we put research on the back burner and began the process of writing museum theater. Though we had great help from our partners at American University’s Performing Arts Program, we still found that writing a script – transforming good history into good theater- was exceptionally difficult. Even worse, when we turned to secondary literature for advice, all we found was this: hire a playwright. Now, we’re firm believers in museum theater, and we don’t think this type of interpretation should be limited to the few big institutions that can afford playwrights. So, we created History On Stage.

Our website offers museum theater writers advice on how to take stories from the past and recast them, making them enlightening and interactive performances for the public. More specifically, our website provides a step-by-setup guide on how to create a piece of museum theater from scratch. It also directs visitors to helpful books on the subject, other websites to visit, and videos of other performances. On a design note, we modeled our website off Works Progress Administration posters from the New Deal. After all, just like those programs, we want to give power to the people. Brilliant, right? (Kudos to Jeremy Boggs, our digital history guru, for giving us the idea).

*07/03/2010 Update: You may have wondered why I don’t offer any hyperlinks to the new website. Unfortunately, just a few days ago, History On Stage was hacked and flagged as an “attack page.” Rest assured, my partners and I are working to get the site up and running again (and approved by the overlords at Firefox). Though the hacking stinks, it will be good coding experience for all. Wish us luck!

Last week, our digital history class at AU spent some time going through the basics of HTML, learning how a (relatively) simple system of tags made the Internet, and by extension the world, go round. What impressed me about that night was the excitement I felt in the computer lab – the collective gasp of nearly two dozen humanists who, perhaps for the first time, began to understand the technical underpinnings of their digital world.

One of my classmates noted that working on HTML gave her a feeling of instant gratification. Many others, I think, felt empowered by the experience. Personally, I think that learning HTML has encouraged me to think about the digital humanities in a more concrete way. Though I’m tempted to expand upon this idea further, I really want to hear if any other students are having similar experiences working with HTML. I’ve also been wondering if future Digital History classes should introduce technical coursework – specifically an introduction to HTML – at an earlier point in the semester. Wouldn’t a better understanding of how the Web works improve our more theoretical discussions about the digital humanities?