Saco and Venzetti

I attended a conference titled American Phobia: Collecting in the History of Fear. The purpose of the speech was to promote an exhibit opening in the library. The speaker, Sean Quimby talked about the concept of fear in America. He traced the evolution of fear throughout the course of American history. The interesting part of the speech was when he discussed how as a librarian, he collects works that chronicle fear. Through his act of obtaining a collection of works on the subject he formulated a thesis on a definition of fear.

The various works in the library's collection yielded different explanations of the concept of fear. Quimby theorized that specific trends in fear are prevalent throughout American history. The fantasy of invasion, and the gradual emergence of a therapeutic culture are the persistent trends in fear. It is ironic that both of these trends can be seen as a result of our imperialistic growth and our advanced technology. The imperialistic desires of Americans, to constantly expand and invade other countries has perversely influenced our way of thinking. Now, Americans constantly fear that others will invade our borders. The other issue is kinf of ironic. Parents are getting increasingly more worried about their kids, therefore to ease all of the pressures of of the children, the parents have resorted, in a sense, drugging their children. Thus, we have a generation of children that as they grow up become increasingly paranoid about many things in the world. The rest of the presentation was not that useful. Quimby just summarized all of the works he had collected. Nevertheless, it is an interesting hobby to collect works about fear. This will have to be an ongoing project because as the world continues to evolve, so too will our concept of fear.