Scott Russell Sanders

Scott Russell Sanders, "The Men We Carry in Our Minds"

Scott Russell Sanders (1945- ) was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He earned a B.A. from Brown University in 1967 and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1971. He's taught at Indiana University since 1971. While he writes in several different literary genres, Sanders is perhaps best known for his creative nonfiction—especially his nature writing. Sanders's books include Fetching the Dead: Stories (1984), the science fiction novel The Invisible Company (1989), and Writing from the Center (1995). His work often appears in journals and periodicals, including the Chronicle of Higher Education, The Utne Reader, Parabola, The Georgia Review, and the Christian Science Monitor. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, a PEN award for fiction, and many other awards and honors. "The Men We Carry in Our Minds," in which Sanders examines the male role models he has encountered in his life, was first published in the Milkweed Chronicle in 1984 and collected in The Paradise of Bombs (1987).

CONTENT

1. Who were the first men the author remembers seeing?
2. Describe the two images associated with Sanders's "early vision of manhood."
3. What can you tell about the nature of the relationship between Sanders and his father?
4. How does the author characterize the lives of the soldiers he saw when he was a child?
5. How does the author describe the bodies of the workingmen he knew when he was a boy? How does he compare them to the women he knew then?
6. What kinds of different people did Sanders meet when he was in college? How did he react to the men there? How did he react to the women?

STRATEGY AND STYLE

1. Discuss the use of black and white imagery in the first paragraph. How does Sanders use this imagery to introduce what is to come?
2. In terms of rhetorical mode, discuss how this piece can be classified as either a division/classification essay or a comparison/contrast essay. In either case, make sure you make clear all key words and that you provide support for your choice.
3. Find a simile in paragraph five. What's the nature of the comparison? How can you connect this mental image to the types of men the author recounts?
4. Carry, a verb we usually associate with physical endeavor, is juxtaposed with the word minds in the title. Discuss that juxtaposition in light of how the author regards the men he describes in the essay. Where are these words echoed in the body of the essay?

1. Pick the one man who has had the greatest influence on your life. Describe him and his impact upon you. How can you relate these ideas to this essay?
2. Do you communicate differently with members of the opposite sex in compared to how you communicate with members of the same sex? Explain. How might your feelings in this regard have influenced your reading?

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING

1. Write an essay about the role of women in this reading. What chronological dividing point can you use in order to characterize them? Where are they discussed? What are they doing? How much of the essay does the author devote to describing them?
2. This piece stretches, roughly, from 1950 to 1970 in time, from when the author was about four through his college years. Using your reading as a springboard, write an essay covering similar years in your life and what has affected you about sex roles during that time.

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

Do some research to find out what the students were up to in the mid 1960s at Brown University, where this author was an undergraduate. What were students wearing? What were they listening to on the radio? What kinds of courses were they taking? What were some of their extracurricular activities? How can you relate what you found to your understanding of "The Men We Carry in Our Minds"?

WEB CONNECTION

Interested in what Sanders himself reads? Take a look at this list of his twenty favorite books. How many of them have you read? How many are you going to read now?

LINKS

Biographical

This is Sanders's homepage at the Indiana University Graduate Creative Writing Program's site. There, you'll find a photo and a biographical sketch.

Take a look at this brief biography. What is its source? How does it differ from the one you visited above? If you had to pick just one as a research source, which one would you pick? Why?

What can you tell about Sanders from studying this portrait of him? How do you go about studying a portrait, anyway?

Bibliographical

This essay, called "Sorrow and Solidarity," presents the author's thoughts about America's early response to the attacks of September 11^th.

Time for some multimedia: Click here to see a video featuring Sanders talking about his book, The Force of Spirit.

Read this quote from the author's book Staying Put. What is it doing on a page about spirituality and health?

Cultural

Did you know that Sanders writes books for children? You can learn about one of them, Warm as Wool, by visiting this page.

Has reading about Sanders's life and work interested you in doing some nature writing of your own? This page of nature writing links will help you on your way. If this were your page, what other authors would you include?

Here is some information about a couple of awards that Sanders has won from the National Endowment for the Arts.