[A Recap of the
month that was in AmericanStudying.]
January
29: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: Bad News Bears and Boys: A Super Bowl
sports movie series starts with our obsession with lovable losers, and the
problem with it.
January
30: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: Hoosiers and Rudy: The series continues
with the appeal of underdog champions, and the untold sides to their stories.
January
31: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: The Longest Yard(s): What the changes
between an original and a remake can tell us about America, as the series rolls
on.
February
1: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook:
The interesting results when an unconventional filmmaker works in a
conventional genre.
February
2: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: Remember the Titans: The series
concludes with the over-the-top scene that shouldn’t work, and why it somehow
does.
February
3-4: Crowd-sourced SportsMovieStudying: For Super Bowl weekend,
crowd-sourced sports movie responses and nominations—be a good sport and add
yours in comments, please!
February
5: Famous Boy Scouts: Michael Jordan and Hank Aaron: A series for the
Scouts’ birthday starts with comparisons and contrasts between two iconic
athletes.
February
6: Famous Boy Scouts: Neil Armstrong and George Takei: The series continues
with two different, equally groundbreaking forms of extraterrestrial
exploration.
February
7: Famous Boy Scouts: John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart: Two Hollywood legacies
and a film that purposefully complicates both, as the series rolls on.
February
8: Famous Boy Scouts: William Boyce: On the Scouts’ 108th
birthday, their quasi-mythic origin story and some very real, complex
subsequent histories.
February
9: Famous Boy Scouts: Alfred Kinsey and Bill Gates: The series concludes
with two Scouts who changed the world, and whether the organization has changed
with it.
February
10-11: The Scouts in Context: A colleague contextualizes the Scouts with an
international organization in this special weekend post.
February
12: Songs I Love: Dar Williams’ “After All”: A Valentine’s series on
favorite songs starts with the difficult and crucial skill this song models.
February
13: Songs I Love: Steve Earle’s “Taneytown”: The series continues with a
favorite song that gets inside some of our darkest histories.
February
14: Songs I Love: Bruce Springsteen’s “American Skin (41 Shots)”: For the
holiday itself, two more reasons I have come to love my long-time favorite
song.
February
15: Songs I Love: Tori Amos’ “Me and a Gun”: A raw and stunning song about
sexual assault and violence, as the series rolls on.
February
16: Songs I Love: Macklemore’s “White Privilege 2”: The series concludes
with rap, activism, and the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
February
17-18: Learning to Love Mariah Carey: A special weekend post on the lessons
I take away from my evolving perspective on a music legend.
February
19: Anti-Favorites: Columbus’s Letter: An anti-favorites series focused on
exclusionary moments starts with the subtle exclusions in a letter full of
them.
February
20: Anti-Favorites: Jefferson’s Paragraph: The series continues with
important historical contexts for a foundational text, and why it frustrates
nonetheless.
February
21: Anti-Favorites: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: The Treaty that
displaced and excluded an entire American community, as the series rolls on.
February
22: Anti-Favorites: The Geary Act: The extension of the Chinese Exclusion
Act that went far and far more troublingly further.
February
23: Anti-Favorites: Anti-Filipino Racism: The series concludes with three
dark and destructive moments of 1930s discrimination.
February
24-25: Crowd-sourced Anti-Favorites: My annual crowd-sourced airing of
grievances—get it off your chest and add yours in comments, please!
February
26: Inclusive Figures: Las Casas and de Vaca: A complementary inclusion
series starts with two of the first truly inspiring American voices.
February
27: Inclusive Figures: Revolutionary Slaves: The series continues with four
figures who together embody the contribution African Americans made to
Revolutionary America.
February
28: Inclusive Figures: Ruiz de Burton: The Mexican American author who
resisted and rewrote 19th century exclusions, as the series rolls on.
March
1: Inclusive Figures: Yung Wing: The inclusive life and legacy of one of my
all-time favorite Americans.
March
2: Inclusive Figures: Carlos Bulosan: The series concludes with the author
and book that introduce under-narrated histories and redefine American
identity.
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. Topics you’d
like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!
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