Once again, an article has been published belittling my research.
I will dissect it line by line hoping to make clarifications not afforded by the writer.
War Name by Adam Fagin.
Under the category of "Creative Nonfiction". (see the top of the page in the link) Is this an oxymoron? "Creative fact" - creative meaning one can take liberties with the facts? So thus it is not fact, but fiction?
From wikipedia: "Ultimately, the primary goal of the creative nonfiction writer is to communicate information, just like a reporter, but to shape it in a way that reads like fiction."
Thus, Fagin's article is merely fiction based on fact.
Before I start, a bit of "history" between myself and Fagin. He first emailed me on Sep 30, 2015:
My name is Adam Fagin. I'm a PhD student in Creative Writing at the University of Denver, and I'm working with Jeanne Abrams, who gave me your email address, to research the Cotopaxi settlement. I am hoping to write about the colony, but I've found that there's a dearth of primary sources related to the settlers and what transpired. It's these primary sources that I'm most interested in for my project, and I was wondering if, perhaps, you'd been able to find any additional documents. I'd also appreciate any leads or suggestions for tracking these sorts of documents down that you might have.
I received this email after Miles Saltiel had posted his bounty the first time around. So my presumption was that this was a student wanting copies of my research in order to submit them to Miles to obtain money.....for work that I had done.
Here's what I emailed back:
I am not sure that the Cotopaxi Colony is a topic for a creative writing class. It is a very serious historical study that will take quite some time to finalize its research. Trust me, I have been doing research on it for at least 6 years. A student could spend years researching this story and still not be done. If you want to invest that much time and energy, I would consider helping. Otherwise, it is just a story and I am not interested in that.
To which he replied:
I didn't mean to suggest that I'm not committed to Cotopaxi or to studying its history. Part of what's motivated me to study the colony is my own Jewish heritage and the commonalities between my own ancestors and the colonists, the idea of home and homeland and my own experience as part of the Jewish diaspora; so it's personal as well as professional.
Let me also put the work I do into context for you: This research into Cotopaxi is for my PhD dissertation, the completion of which is years away. I work in a branch of literature called documentary poetics, which takes into account images, language, and documents from the past in an effort to place these things in the context of art--but an art that is committed and fully responsible to historical thought and historical fact; it is where scholarship meets language on its own level. I'm very committed to my work, and my projects take years to reach completion. My last project, for example, was about the 19th century painter and naturalist Abbott Thayer. As a naturalist, Thayer discovered the principle of counter-shading, which was used in the development of camouflage in WWI. I carefully read Thayer's entire archive, including journals, correspondence, every word he ever wrote really and produced a work equal to his thought and labors. This project took me five years to complete, and the resulting writing was published in a number of journals and magazines, some nationally reputed.
I hope the above makes clear that I'm committed to the study of Cotopaxi, to the people who lived there, and to the descendants; and I hope you can help me in this study.
On October 15, I responded:
Adam, if you are still interested, I will be speaking about Cotopaxi on 1/9/16 at 12:30 pm at the Pueblo public library on Abriendo. You might benefit from the presentation for your long term research.
I did not hear from him again, and he did not attend the presentation in Pueblo. He published his article on April 28, 2016.
It's interesting to see his take on the Fort Laramie article. I think he did a good job. But he stopped short. Then he completely switches gear and starts in on Nelson Moore's emails to Miles Saltiel. While I will not comment on these - one would like to think that emails are private between 2 individuals. Because Fagin has published them, I presume I have Fagin's permission to publish our emails as I have done above.
He writes about me:
When I scan Jennifer Lowe’s genealogical charts of the Cotopaxi settlers, I’m therefore unnerved. Not due to what I find but because of my lack of response. Lowe’s sifted ship manifest and public record, constructing family trees brimming with names like Milstein, Schames, and Cohn. For me, these names are historical silences.
Why has Lowe, a born-again Christian or Messianic Jew, depending who I talk to, chosen Cotopaxi for her genealogical rescue mission?
- I am not Jewish, but starting to wonder if I can use these allegations to make aliyah to Israel?
- I believe and trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But for the life of me I do not understand why my religious beliefs have a thing to do with research. Does Fagin share his religious beliefs with us in this article? Why bring up mine?
- "rescue mission" - this is neither a "rescue" or a "mission". As I have often stated before, I was asked by descendants of the Colony to do this research. And I'm interested in local history. Why is this a question?
- Should I be honored or just curious that Fagin is apparently talking about my religion to multiple other people? Is this how a graduate student conducts research these days?
With every name, I feel history displaced by a present populated with thriving descendants. The themes are persistence and survival in this cheap resurrection fantasy.
I am not clear here - is Fagin referring to his cheap resurrection fantasy?
When I visit the old Cotopaxi cemetery in October, I find the graves of three settlers, all children, who’ve failed to come back from the dead.
What is the intent of writing that they failed to come back from the dead? Who would expect that?
At some point, the Jewish subplot was enclosed in an austere black fence. As I approach this fence, I wonder whose memory it is meant to protect–and from what?
It's obvious that Fagin did not research this aspect at all. If he had done so, he might know that no one had tended to these graves in 124 years. He might understand that this fence was erected by donations received from Jewish entities. It's well documented on
Nelson's website.
A Confederate flag is planted in the pale, gold grass. In this photo, it’s hard to tell whether the flag attends grave or fence. Maybe it’s just a trick of perspective, but this ambiguous placement enables two interpretive possibilities: support for the Confederacy and its white-supremacist ideology. Or wry commentary on Saltiel’s Confederate past as it relates to the death of these children. Which possibility is more ironic? Either way, this spatially dislocated symbol of racism is, for me, punctum, waving-in-the-wind ellipse in the ongoing narrative of the Cotopaxi settlers.Jews wanting to honor the fact that a Jewish cemetery is located at Cotopaxi.
Much ado about nothing? This is a public cemetery. Anyone could have placed it there. It could be next to a confederate grave outside the fenced in Jewish area? I do not visit the cemetery very often, so I couldn't begin to explain. Yet Fagin takes great strides to make this look as though someone planted it there intentionally.
SEE UPDATE HERE - FAGIN KNEW THIS WAS A CONFEDERATE GRAVE - HE COVERED UP THE CONFEDERATE MEDALLION ATTACHED TO THIS FLAG, AND HE ANGLED THE CAMERA FOR HIS PHOTOS
and in the same paragraph he adds:
“[T]heir stories will be told,” Lowe promises purposefully, “should Jehovah allow me the honor of living to do so.” But I want to account for the story, which, in its telling, can’t be told. How can I memorialize as historical process my unlocatable, unnameable present, the long march from identity to self and back.
Is he insinuating that I put the flag there??? I did not. And yes, I plan to tell whatever stories that I uncover - from a factual standpoint. While I have an MBA and thus, to some extent, have experience with the academic world, I am lost as to the gibberish of this phd candidate. Clear, concise writing based upon facts would be my preference. One can only attempt to decipher the statement "I want to account for the story, which, in its telling, can't be told."
In an another blog post, Lowe discovers the death records for a family killed one morning in Brest Litovsk, October 15, 1942: “A brother and his wife, their children and all of their grandchildren. Another brother, all 6 of his children, and their children…. and the list just went on.” This is the Brest Ghetto liquidation, which took 50,000 lives. “Now, while this may be hard for you to read,” Lowe says, “and you may be one who has been led to believe that this didn’t really happen…. when you do genealogy and see that an entire family of 3 generations ALL died on the very same day…..you know that it is real.” I wonder how many Holocaust deniers Lowe imagines in her audience. Following Lowe’s reality check, she turns the subject to butterflies she’s made from wire and colorful swaths of fabric. These butterflies, she writes with somber self-congratulation, will memorialize the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust.
Fagin did not research my art blog. Had he done so, he would quickly find that at that time, I was
promoting an event at the Houston Children's Museum called "
the Butterfly Project". At the same time, I was working with Amaco to teach artists how to use their product - Friendly Plastic. I wrote the
piece about the Holocaust to educate fellow artists. Feel free to google my art blog with the word "butterfly" to see all the art submitted to Houston.
What’s the ratio of butterflies to murdered children? 1 to 1,000? Or 100,000? How many butterflies are sufficient to memorialize historical atrocity? These words are masks for memory’s future sweet as children’s dreams.
Fagin would need to contact the Houston Museum to get his answers to that. Does he not comprehend art? The project was sponsored by Jews - I was just a participant hoping to promote it. He has completely taken this out of the context it was written in. In most cases, blogs are a continuing story from one post to another. You need to read the entire story. And a good researcher would have done that.
Lowe’s butterflies dream away from mass death with retrospective grace. Maybe she believes she’s engaged past horrors, but she’s turned away with sickening warmth in her heart.
Again - it was an art project, nothing more.
I am descended, I think, hovering above the negative space her words open inside me. This is myhistorical condition. Like when I tell my grandfather that some people say Jews aren’t white. “Those people are anti-Semites,” he responds. In his voice, I hear conviction masking anger masking fear. Most of all, I notice his defensiveness.
Memorialize that! I want to tell Jennifer Lowe.
Which he could have done! I find it interesting that he does not share that he has had email contact with me in the past and that he knows how to reach me. Why didn't he contact me? Why didn't he ask his questions about the butterfly project? Interesting!
Based on the title "War Name" - I have to wonder, does Fagin perceive himself at war with me? Why does he even mention my name or refer to my posts? Why does he question my research, my religion? Is this because I refused to hand over my research to him? He is a phd candidate at Denver University, the same place where Adam Rovner is collecting documents for Miles Saltiel's bounties. Are the 3 of them at war with me because I will not turn over my findings to them?
Perhaps in the world of academia, research is freely shared. Rovner has made it clear that I am not a "professional" researcher. I have come to realize that the term "professional" simply means paid. Think in terms of a "professional" athlete or a "professional" seamstress. Paid for what they do.
I am more than happy to help anyone who wants to research Cotopaxi. They will need to come to Canon City and I will show them where to look for documents, how to do the research, and even provide hints and tips. For free. That's a pretty generous offer. Sad to say, I don't think phd candidates want to go to that much work. They just want someone to do it for them. So here's my offer: anyone who wants to give me reasonable compensation for 10 years worth of research can have copies of everything I've found to date. But then, they would have to say my research was "professional". I don't see that happening - so I suppose the "war" will continue and others will try to discredit what I am doing.
If you'd like to send your thoughts to Fagin just click
here. And you can email me
here.
update: adam fagin is one of 2 paid researchers on Miles Saltiel's website. That explains even more. I was able to quickly put together a family tree for fagin. ALL of his ancestors immigrated after 1888 (that's his earliest immigrant.) The colony disbanded in 1884. He does not descend from the Cotopaxi Colony. Why is he interested in Cotopaxi? Is Miles paying him to do his dissertation on this topic?
Click HERE for part 2 of this story.
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