Varieties of American Exceptionalism

1. Today’s birthdays: BRIGHAM YOUNG and MARILYN MONROE
2. Yesterday’s birthdays: WALT WHITMAN and CLINT EASTWOOD

Anerican Studies mid-term questions: Explain how each of those remarkable and in many ways admirable human beings could be no one other than an American. Compare and contrast Brigham and Marilyn. Do the same with Walt and Clint. Then compare the dyad Brigham/Marilyn with the dyad Walt/Clint. Who left us a more richly erotic artistic inheritance—Marilyn or Walt? Who does a better job celebrating the heroism displayed in American wars—Walt or Clint? Explain why America is able to encompass both Walt’s homosexuality and Brigham’s incredibly fecund polygamy. Which religion is more distinctively American—the one Brigham founded or the one Walt searched so seriously for in his poetry?