[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]
March
31: Foolish Texts: A Fool’s Errand: For this year’s April Fool’s series, I
AmericanStudied “fool”-ish cultural works, starting with Albion Tourgée’s
ironic and powerful Reconstruction novel.
April
1: Foolish Texts: “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: The series continues with
lessons and limits from an English classic rock anthem.
April
2: Foolish Texts: Nobody’s Fool: Two AmericanStudies takeaways from one of
our quirkier and more affecting films, as the series fools on.
April
3: Foolish Texts: This Fool: Three Latino cultural works that can contextualize
the recent sitcom about Los Angeles cholos.
April
4: Foolish Texts: Fool: The series concludes with a trio of pop culture
adaptations of Shakespeare, inspired by Christopher Moore’s 2009 novel.
April
7: A Great Gatsby Centennial: Gatsby’s Pool: For the centennial of Fitzgerald’s
novel, a tribute series kicks off with a tragic dip that’s as difficult to pin
down as the man taking it.
April
8: A Great Gatsby Centennial: Three Phone Calls: The series continues with
three calls that illustrates the novel’s portrayal of Modern technologies.
April
9: A Great Gatsby Centennial: Foshay Tower: The building and entrepreneur
that bring an American icon to life, as the series reads on.
April
10: A Great Gatsby Centennial: Gatsby’s American Dreams: Two contrasting
but also interconnected ways to analyze the novel’s ambiguous title character.
April
11: A Great Gatsby Centennial: Novelist-Narrators: The series concludes
with a link to my 2011 American Literary Realism article on this
innovative narrative technique.
April
12-13: A Great Gatsby Centennial: Fellow GatsbyStudiers: And here’s a
special weekend post highlighting a ton of great work from fellow studiers of
the novel!
April
14: Kyle Contexts: Younger Siblings: A series inspired by my awesome
younger son’s 18th birthday kicks off with prior posts on badass
younger siblings in American history and culture.
April
15: Kyle Contexts: The ACLU: The series continues with three significant
stages in the evolution of the nation’s preeminent civil rights organization.
April
16: Kyle Contexts: Musical Crossovers: A handful of examples of historic
musical crossovers, as the series celebrates on.
April
17: Kyle Contexts: Track & Field Fighters: Five moments when track
stars (like my younger son) dealt with and overcame challenges (like my younger
son has).
April
18: Kyle Contexts: Chinchillas: The series concludes with three ways to
contextualize my son’s favorite cute animal.
April
19-20: Kyle Railton’s Guest Post on the OJ Simpson Trial: And I couldn’t
dedicate a series to Kyle without re-sharing his excellent Guest Post!
April
21: EarthquakeStudying: San Francisco in 1906: For Charles Richter’s 125th
birthday, an earthquake series kicks off with two distinct, equally inspiring responses
to one of our most destructive disasters.
April
22: EarthquakeStudying: Three Other California Quakes: The series continues
with one striking detail about each of three major 20th century
quakes.
April
23: EarthquakeStudying: The Indian Ocean in 2004: Three cultural works that
can help us remember one of the most devastating natural disasters in history,
as the series shakes on.
April
24: EarthquakeStudying: Haiti in 2010: Two interconnected ways to
AmericanStudy a Caribbean disaster.
April
25: EarthquakeStudying: Movies: The series concludes with takeaways from
three blockbuster films about catastrophic quakes.
April
26-27: EarthquakeStudying: Charles Richter: For his 125th birthday,
the very strange things I learned about Charles Richter, and what we do with such
private details about public figures.
April
28: Ending the Vietnam War: The Mayaguez Incident: For the 50th
anniversary of the symbolic end of the Vietnam War, a series on cultural
representations of that conclusion kicks off with a maritime crisis turned
military incident.
April
29: Ending the Vietnam War: First Blood: The series continues with what an
iconic film speech gets wrong about the end of the war, and what it gets very
right.
April
30: Ending the Vietnam War: Miss Saigon: Two bravura sequences that reveal
what a musical can and can’t do with history, as the series rolls on.
May
1: Ending the Vietnam War: “Galveston Bay”: Two ways an underrated Springsteen
song importantly adds to his body of work about the war.
May
2: Ending the Vietnam War: Da 5 Bloods: The series concludes with one
fraught and one vital meaning of “unfinished business” in Spike Lee’s recent
film.
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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