On one summer plan with which I need your help.
I’ve got a lot of big plans for the summer: swimming pool visits with the
boys; beach visits with the boys; museum and historic site visits with the
boys; and, well, I’m sure you get the idea. I also have my annual summertime
hopes for all that pleasure reading I don’t get to do during the academic year,
and will share some of the books on that beach reading list (and hopefully get
some of your own beach reading recommendations) as part of that
annual series in a few weeks. But as always, I’ll also be continuing to pursue
various parts of my public scholarly work, including this blog of course but also
my next writing project, which will hopefully entail both a book and a website.
And for that project, I could use some input from you all.
The project will be entitled The Hall
of American Inspiration, and I’ve already created a first, trial version of
the website that will accompany the
book version here. The main premise is two-part: that one important reason
to better remember our histories is that we can find in them stories of
inspiring lives and identities; and that many of the most inspiring such
stories came about in the context of, and even in response to, particularly
dark or difficult historical events and issues. I’ve written in this space about
many of the figures I hope to include in the book and site, from Ida
B. Wells and Ely
Parker to Yung
Wing, Jane
Addams, and the figure with whose page I hope to start the site, W.E.B.
Du Bois. I plan to use my written text and multimedia resources to
highlight both the historical contexts and the lives of these impressive,
inspiring individuals.
But if this is going to be a legitimate Hall, it needs nominees and
inductees provided by more voices than just my own. I’ve become a very big fan
of crowd-sourcing through all
the times I’ve done it in this space, and think that’ll be a crucial way
for me to build up a broader list of figures for the Hall. And I don’t just
mean public or historical ones, although any and all of those will be welcome—I’m
very interested in more personal, familial, local inspiring figures and lives
as well. So as I move into this summer’s more in-depth work on the Hall, I’d
love to hear your nominees—feel free to share in comments or to email them to me, and add your
voice and ideas to this work in progress, please!
Next series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. How was your spring semester? Plans for the summer you want to share?
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