[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]
September
1: Fall Semester Previews: Honors Lit: My annual Fall semester previews series
focused this year on moments I’m looking forward to amidst, well, everything,
kicking off with an opening text in my Gilded Age Honors Lit seminar.
September
2: Fall Semester Previews: First-Year Writing: The series continues with a
fun close reading assignment in my FYW classes.
September
3: Fall Semester Previews: American Lit II in Person: A semester-ending
conversation that always connects me to so many unfamiliar artists, as the
series teaches on.
September
4: Fall Semester Previews: American Lit II Online: How my online students
defy stereotypes and really engage with each other in that virtual space.
September
5: Fall Semester Previews: The Boys in College!: The series concludes with
the fall semesters I’m definitely most looking forward to!
September
6-7: A Preview of My Podcast’s 2nd Season: A weekend follow-up,
looking forward to my long-form scholarly project over this academic year.
September
8: Comic Strip Studying: The First American Comic: For the 150th
anniversary of the first comic strip in an American periodical, a series on the
medium kicks off with two publications that help contextualize that groundbreaking
cultural work.
September
9: Comic Strip Studying: The Yellow Kid: The series continues with two ways
in which a short-lived, easily misunderstood comic strip character has lived on
for more than a century.
September
10: Comic Strip Studying: Dennis the Menace: Three telling aspects of a longstanding
funny pages troublemaker, as the series draws on.
September
11: Comic Strip Studying: Doonesbury: Three interesting evolutions of one of
our longest-running and most influential comic strips.
September
12: Comic Strip Studying: The Boondocks: The series concludes with two
contrasting but complementary ways the turn of the 21st century
strip broke new ground.
September
13-14: Comic Strip Studying: Fellow ComicsStudiers: A special weekend
follow-up, highlighting a handful of the many awesome folks we should all be
reading to learn more.
September
15: Censorship Histories: The Zenger Case: For the 40th
anniversary of the Congressional hearings on music warning labels, a series on
censorship histories kicks off with two distinct but interconnected lessons
from a groundbreaking 1730s trial.
September
16: Censorship Histories: The Comstock Act: The series continues with one
important application of a controversial law, and a far more significant
underlying problem.
September
17: Censorship Histories: The Sedition Act: Three frustrating examples of federal
censorship under the authoritarian aegis of a 1918 law, as the series struggles
on.
September
18: Censorship Histories: Banning vs. Challenging Books: Why the concept of
“banned” books isn’t quite as obviously wrong as we might think.
September
19: Censorship Histories: The 1985 Hearings: The series concludes with an
anniversary post on three pairings that reflect the multiple angles through
which the PMRC sought to censor pop music.
September
20-21: Challenging Censorship in 2025: I couldn’t write about censorship
histories without engaging a bit with what’s happening in our own moment, and
more exactly with lessons on how we can challenge these unfolding histories.
September
22: Recent Scholarly Reads: Action Without Hope: A series featuring recent
reads I’d recommend to all starts with Nathan Hensley’s bracing and vital book
on Victorian literature after climate collapse.
September
23: Recent Scholarly Reads: We Now Belong to Ourselves: The series continues
with Arianne Edmonds’ wonderful book that challenges any easy definition of
what is and isn’t “scholarly.”
September
24: Recent Scholarly Reads: The Rediscovery of America: The first of two
books that my sons gave me for Father’s Day, this one Ned Blackhawk’crucial indigenous
reframing of American history and identity.
September
25: Recent Scholarly Reads: Frederick Douglass: And the second of the Father’s
Day books, David Blight’s beautiful bio of the legendary American.
September
26: Recent Scholarly Reads: Selling Out Santa: The series concludes with
the forthcoming book I’m looking forward to most, my wife Vaughn Joy’s Selling
Out Santa!
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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