August 5, 2025: Birthday Bests: 2012-2013

[On August 15^th, this AmericanStudier celebrates his 48^th birthday. So as I do each year, here’s a series sharing some of my favorite posts from each year on the blog, leading up to a new post with 48 favorites from the last year. And as ever, you couldn’t give me a better present than to say hi and tell me a bit about what brings you to the blog, what you’ve found or enjoyed here, your own AmericanStudies thoughts, or anything else!]

For my 36^th birthday I highlighted 36 of my favorite posts from the blog’s third year:

1)      Bad Memories, Part Four: As part of a series on how we could better remember our darkest histories, I considered memoir, photography, and fiction of the Japanese Internment.

2)      Crowd-Sourcing Bad Memories: Perhaps my favorite of the crowd-sourced posts to date, as many fellow AmericanStudiers weighed in on the week’s theme.

3)      Books That Shaped AmericanStudier, Childhood: I began a series on books that have hugely impacted me with one of my first favorites, the Hardy Boys series.

4)      Isabella Stewart Gardner: A Gardner Museum-inspired series began with a post on Gardner herself, one of my favorite Americans.

5)      John Singer Sargent: Posts on Gardner and Sargent go together as perfectly as, well, Gardner and Sargent did!

6)      Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Any post that allows me to write more about the greatest American sculptor, and one of the most inspiring Americans period, is well worth sharing again.

7-11) The five posts in this series on American hope remain perhaps my most definitive statements of the complexities, contexts, and crucial importance of this elusive emotion.

12) Up in the Air, Part Five: Summer camps, childhood memories, and nostalgia—one of my more universal and, I believe, broadly relevant posts.

13) Ezra Jack Keats: This post, in a series on children’s books, expressed the importance of this pioneering author—and was linked to by the Keats Foundation!

14-18) Another series in which I need to highlight all five posts—this has been the longest and hardest year of my life, and writing these posts on how Americans have responded to adversity helped me get through it.

19) American Spooking, Part 3: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Grant Wood, and American Horror Story help me think about whether America can have homegrown horror, and where we might find it.

20) Extra Thanks: A Thanksgiving series concludes with a few reflections on one of my most unexpected and inspiring moments of the year.

21) American Winter, Part Four: The very different but equally American perspectives at the heart of two winter classics.

22) AmericanStudying the Pacific, Part Four: On the limitations and lessons of a childhood spent building models.

23) Lincoln, Culture, and History: Some of my thoughts on Steven Spielberg’s popular and important historical film (with this additional post after I saw it!).

24) Making My List (Again), Part Five: A series of wishes for the AmericanStudies Elves ends with the educational experience I wish all children could have.

25) AmericanStudying Our Biggest Issues: Climate Change: As I’ve shifted more fully to an emphasis on public scholarship, I’ve worked hard to find ways to connect my subjects to contemporary concerns—and this post exemplifies that goal.

26) American Homes, Part Four: The American narratives inside (perhaps deep inside) one of our silliest films.

27) Remembering Wheatley and Washington: A Black History Month series on conversations begins with the time the poet met the (future) president.

28) I Love Three Pages in Ceremony: I’ve always wanted to write about my single favorite moment in American fiction. Here I did!

29) Popular Fiction: Christian Novels: It’s always fun to write (and so learn) about subjects I myself know too little about, and this post definitely qualifies.

30) Supreme Contexts: Santa Clara County and Revision: Few Supreme Court decisions are as relevant to our contemporary moment, and thus worth remembering, as this one.

31) Spring in America: Children’s Stories: Two pioneering children’s classics that captures two opposing sides to a new season.

32) Baseball in America: The Black Sox: This whole baseball series was fun to research and write, so I’ll just highlight one of its posts (yes, the one that includes John Sayles!).

33) Comic Book Heroes: Wonder Woman: Ditto for this comic book series, but this post was the one for which I learned the most and had my eyes opened most completely.

34) Roopika Risam’s Guest Post: I could include any and all guest posts in this list—but Roopika’s was certainly a wonderful addition to the blog.

35) American Swims: Cheever’s Swimmer: Part of the fun of this blog is sharing American texts that I think we should all read, and Cheever’s short story is a great example.

36) Book Release Reflections, Part Four: I have to end the list with one of the things I’m most     excited about in the year to come (and I now have at least 20 talks definitely coming up!).

Next birthday best post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. You know what to do!

August 4, 2025: Birthday Bests: 2011-2012

[On August 15^th, this AmericanStudier celebrates his 48^th birthday. So as I do each year, here’s a series sharing some of my favorite posts from each year on the blog, leading up to a new post with 48 favorites from the last year. And as ever, you couldn’t give me a better present than to say hi and tell me a bit about what brings you to the blog, what you’ve found or enjoyed here, your own AmericanStudies thoughts, or anything else!]

Here are 35 of my favorite posts from my blog’s second year!

1)      August 16: Me Too: In which I follow up the birthday favorites by highlighting five posts that make clear just how much I too continue to learn about America.

2)      August 23: Virginia, Cradle of American Studies: The first post in what I believe was my first series (now of course the blog’s central format), on a few of Virginia’s American Studies connections.

3)      September 1: First Questions: A back to school post, highlighting both the role that teaching plays in my American Studying and my (continued!) desire for your input on my topics here.

4)      September 2: Not Tortured Enough: On torture, American ideals and realities, and how contemporary politics and overarching American questions intersect.

5)      September 12: The Neverending Story: Perhaps the most vital American Studies response I can imagine to September 11^th and its decade-long aftermath.

6)      October 6: Native Voices: Linking the NEASA conference at Plimoth Plantation, the hardest part of my dissertation and first book, and a key American question.

7)      October 11: Remembering an Iconoclastic Genius: One of my most important jobs here, I think, is to help us better remember important (and often inspiring) people and histories and stories that we’ve forgotten; Derreck Bell is one such person.

8)      October 19: The Importance of Reading Ernest: Making the case for an under-read American great, and remembering to keep my literary interests present in this space at the same time.

9)      November 7: Moments That Remain 1: The fall’s NEASA conference was one of the best weekends of my life, and it was very exciting to be able to bring a bit of it to the blog.

10)   November 14: Kids Say the Darnedest Things 1: Of the few different ways I’ve tried to grapple with the Penn State scandal in this space, I think this series, using student voices and ideas to remember the best of what college should be, is my favorite.

11)   November 28: Bond, Racist Bond?: It’s not easy to analyze something we love—but I tried that here, with one of my favorite films in my favorite series.

12)   December 5: Defining Diversity: Transitioning from a topical post (one responding to other American commentators) to the continued development of my own ideas about American culture and identity.

13)   December 12: Cross-Culture 1: It’s Not Only Rock and Roll: And then extending those ideas to one of the many different media, genres, and disciplines that American Studies helps us analyze.

14)   December 19: Making My List 1: Memory Days: The Memory Days have become a separate and ongoing project and page here, but this is where they began.

15)   December 29: Year in Review 4: School for Scandal: Another stab at Penn State—not searching for answers so much as highlighting some of the key American Studies questions.

16)   January 4: Gaga for American Studies: What American Studies can help us see in and say about Lady Gaga. Enough said.

17)   January 16: The Real King: I haven’t repeated posts across years too often, but my MLK Day post has become a regular on that important occasion, and this was the start of that tradition!

18)   January 21: American Studies for Lifelong Learning: A series that helped me plan the spring semester, connect my teaching to this blog, and, in this case, move me toward both a new experience and what would turn out to be my third book.

19)   January 23: Mexican American Studies: I’m maybe most proud of this series out of all that I’ve done in this space this year, and this is where it started.

20)   February 2: The Three Acts of John Rocker: Trying to do complex justice to a figure and story that are both close to my heart (or at least the Atlanta Braves are) and easily over-simplified.

21)   February 16: Remembering Yasuhiro Ishimoto: Another far-too forgotten figure, and a post inspired by an idea from a friend (which was the origin for the now-frequent crowd-sourced posts).

22)   February 24: Detroit Connections: I think it’s fair to say that I hadn’t thought about this topic at all prior to coming up with the series and writing the post. That’s part of what a blog allows us to do, and while the results have to speak for themselves, I love the opportunity.

23)   March 6: Celebrating Zitkala-Sa: The whole Women’s History series was a lot of fun, but any time I get the chance to recommend this unique and amazing author, I take it.

24)   March 21: Balboa Park: Family vacations will never be the same, now that they’re part of my American Studying and blogging too. That’s fine by me.

25)   March 27: Race and Danny Chen: Like the prior day’s subject, Trayvon Martin, Chen is a tragically killed American whose story we should all know and with which we have to engage.

26)   April 4: Melville’s Confidence Man: A good reminder that both literature and laughter have their place on the blog too.

27)   April 19: How Would a Patriot Act? Part Three: This post on the amazing and inspiring Yung Wing helped me continue developing book three.

28)   April 26: Great American Stories, Part Four: One of the very best American short stories, by one of my very favorite authors.

29)   May 10: Maurice Sendak: Sometimes I feel locked into a week’s series, but Sendak’s death reminded me that sometimes I need to shift gears and write about a topical and important subject.

30)   May 29: Remembering Pat Tillman: I hope I did justice to the complexities and ambiguities in this American life and death; this remains by far my most-read post on the Open Salon version of this blog, so it seems like it struck a chord with folks.

31)   June 2-3: Remembering or Commemorating War: Michael Kammen, Kurt Vonnegut and Clint Eastwood, and big American questions—if that’s not American Studying, what is?

32)   June 12: Playing with America, Part 2: But this is American Studying too—analyzing some of the cultural and historical causes behind the hula hoop fad.

33)   June 16-17: Crowd-sourced Post on Material Culture: My first crowd-sourced post, now one of my favorite aspects of the blog. Add your thoughts for this week’s!

34)   July 6: Newton’s Histories, Part 5: To come full circle to the August 16^th post, Jonathan Walker reminds me of how much I still have to learn about American history and culture.

35)   July 27: Jennings on the Long Haul: And the inspiring life and career of Frances Jennings reminds me of why continuing to learn, study, analyze, teach, and write about America is so important and so rewarding.

Next birthday best post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. You know what to do!

August 3, 2025: Birthday Bests: 2010-2011

[On August 15^th, this AmericanStudier celebrates his 48^th birthday. So as I do each year, here’s a series sharing some of my favorite posts from each year on the blog, leading up to a new post with 48 favorites from the last year. And as ever, you couldn’t give me a better present than to say hi and tell me a bit about what brings you to the blog, what you’ve found or enjoyed here, your own AmericanStudies thoughts, or anything else!]

In honor of this AmericanStudier’s 34^th birthday in 2011, here (from oldest to most recent) were 34 of my favorite posts from the blog’s first year:

1)      The Wilmington Massacre and The Marrow of Tradition: My first full post, but also my first stab at two of this blog’s central purposes: narrating largely forgotten histories; and recommending texts we should all read.

2)      Pine Ridge, the American Indian Movement, and Apted’s Films: Ditto to those purposes, but also a post in which I interwove history, politics, identity, and different media in, I hope, a pretty exemplary American Studies way.

3)      The Shaw Memorial: I’ll freely admit that my first handful of posts were also just dedicated to texts and figures and moments and histories that I love—but the Memorial, like Chesnutt’s novel and Thunderheart in those first two links, is also a deeply inspiring work of American art.

4)      The Chinese Exclusion Act and the Most Amazing Baseball Game Ever: Probably my favorite post to date, maybe because it tells my favorite American story.

5)      Ely Parker: The post in which I came up with my idea for Ben’s American Hall of Inspiration; I know many of my posts can be pretty depressing, but hopefully the Hall can be a way for me to keep coming back to Americans whose stories and legacies are anything but.

6)      My Colleague Ian Williams’ Work with Incarcerated Americans: The first post where I made clear that we don’t need to look into our national history to find truly inspiring Americans and efforts.

7)      Rush Limbaugh’s Thanksgiving Nonsense: My first request, and the first post to engage directly with the kinds of false American histories being advanced by the contemporary right.

8)      The Pledge of Allegiance: Another central purpose for this blog is to complicate, and at times directly challenge and seek to change, some of our most accepted national and historical narratives. This is one of the most important such challenges.

9)      Public Enemy, N.W.A., and Rap: If you’re going to be an AmericanStudier, you have to be willing to analyze even those media and genres on which you’re far from an expert, and hopefully find interesting and valuable things to say in the process.

10)   Chinatown and the History of LA: At the same time, the best AmericanStudiers likewise have to be able to analyze their very favorite things (like this 1974 film, for me), and find ways to link them to broader American narratives and histories.

11)   The Statue of Liberty: Our national narratives about Lady Liberty are at least as ingrained as those about the Pledge of Allegiance—and just about as inaccurate.

12)   Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” and Parenting: Maybe the first post in which I really admitted my personal and intimate stakes in the topics I’m discussing here, and another of those texts everybody should read to boot.

13)   Dorothea Dix and Mental Health Reform: When it comes to a number of the people on whom I’ve focused here, I didn’t know nearly enough myself at the start of my research—making the posts as valuable for me as I could hope them to be for any other reader. This is one of those.

14)   Ben Franklin and Anti-Immigrant Sentiments: As with many dominant narratives, those Americans who argue most loudy in favor of limiting immigration usually do so in large part through false, or at best greatly oversimplified and partial, versions of our past. 

15)   Divorce in American History: Some of our narratives about the past and present seem so obvious as to be beyond dispute: such as the idea that divorce has become more common and more accepted in our contemporary society. Maybe, but as with every topic I’ve discussed here, the reality is a good bit more complicated.

16)   My Mom’s Guest Post on Margaret Wise Brown: The first of the many great guest posts I’ve been fortunate enough to feature here; I won’t link to the others, as you can and should find them by clicking the “Guest Posts” category on the right. And please—whether I’ve asked you specifically or not—feel free to contribute your own guest post down the road!

17)   JFK, Tucson, and the Rhetoric and Reality of Political Violence: The first post in which I deviated from my planned schedule to respond directly to a current event—something I’ve incorporated very fully into this blog in the months since.

18)   Tribute Post to Professor Alan Heimert: I’d say the same about the tribute posts that I did for the guest posts—both that they exemplify how fortunate I’ve been (in this case in the many amazing people and influences I’ve known) and that you should read them all (at the “Tribute Posts” category on the right).

19)   Martin Luther King: How do we remember the real, hugely complicated, and to my mind even more inspiring man, rather than the mythic ideal we’ve created of him? A pretty key AmericanStudies question, one worth asking of every truly inspiring American.

20)   Angel Island and Sui Sin Far’s “In the Land of the Free”: Immigration has been, I believe, my first frequent theme here, perhaps because, as this post illustrates, it can connect us so fully to so many of the darkest, richest, most powerful and significant national places and events, texts and histories.

21)   Dresden and Slaughterhouse Five: One of the events we Americans have worked most hard to forget, and one of the novels that most beautifully and compelling argues for the need to remember and retell every story.

22)   Valentine’s Day Lessons: Maybe my least analytical post, and also one of my favorites. It ain’t all academic, y’know.

23)   Tori Amos, Lara Logan, and Stories of Rape: One of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard helps me respond to one of the year’s most horrific stories.

24)   Peter Gomes and Faith: A tribute to one of the most inspiring Americans I’ve ever met, and some thoughts on the particularly complicated and important American theme he embodies for me.

25)   The Treaty of Tripoli and the Founders on Church and State: Sometimes our historical narratives are a lot more complicated than we think. And sometimes they’re just a lot simpler. Sorry, David Barton and Glenn Beck, but there’s literally no doubt of what the Founders felt about the separation of church and state the idea of America as a “Christian nation.”

26)   Newt Gingrich, Definitions of America, and Why We’re Here: The first of many posts (such as all those included in the “Book Posts” category on the right) in which I bring the ideas at the heart of my second book into my responses to AmericanStudies narratives and myths.

27)   Du Bois, Affirmative Action, and Obama: Donald Trump quickly and thoroughly revealed himself to be a racist jackass, but the core reasons for much of the opposition to affirmative action are both more widespread and more worth responding to than Trump’s buffoonery.

28)   Illegal Immigrants, Our Current Deportation Policies, and Empathy: What does deportation really mean and entail, who is affected, and at what human cost?

29)   Tribute to My Grandfather Art Railton: The saddest Railton event of the year leads me to reflect on the many inspiring qualities of my grandfather’s life, identity, and especially perspective.

30)   My Clearest Immigration Post: Cutting through some of the complexities and stating things as plainly as possible, in response to Sarah Palin’s historical falsehoods. Repeated and renamed with even more force here.

31)   Paul Revere, Longfellow, and Wikipedia: Another Sarah Palin-inspired post, this time on her revisions to the Paul Revere story and the question of what is “common knowledge” and what purposes it serves in our communal conversations.

32)   “Us vs. them” narratives, Muslim Americans, and Illegal Immigrants: The first of a couple posts to consider these particularly frustrating and divisive national narratives. The second, which also followed up my Norwegian terrorism response (linked below), is here.

33)   Abraham Cahan: The many impressive genres and writings of this turn of the century Jewish American, and why AmericanStudiers should work to push down boundaries between disciplines as much as possible.

34)   Terrorism, Norway, and Rhetoric: One of the latest and most important iterations of my using a current event to drive some American analyses—and likewise an illustration of just how fully interconnected international and American events and histories are.

Next birthday best post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. You know what to do!

August 2, 2025: July 2025 Recap

[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

June 30: Models of Critical Patriotism: Hannah Griffitts: For this year’s 4^th of July series, I excerpted and expanded upon sections from Of Thee I Sing, starting with this post on the great poem “The Female Patriots."

July 1: Models of Critical Patriotism: David Walker: The series continues with a fiery work and voice that exemplify the “critical” in critical patriotism.

July 2: Models of Critical Patriotism: Standing Bear: Two 2025 takeaways from one of our most inspiring court rulings, as the series celebrates on.

July 3: Models of Critical Patriotism: Carlos Bulosan: One of our most poetic and powerful patriotic passages.

July 4: Models of Critical Patriotism: Thoreau: The series concludes with a July 4^th special on a particularly patriotic text from one of our best protest voices.

July 5-6: Keeping the Critical Patriotic Conversations Going: And a special weekend follow-up request for opportunities to keep talking about my book and all things American patriotism!

July 7: Rock-y Groundbreakers: Bill Haley: In honor of Haley’s 100^th birthday, a series on rock ‘n roll pioneers kicks off with how Haley’s mythos is limited but still important.

July 8: Rock-y Groundbreakers: Chuck Berry and Little Richard: The series continues with a pair of foundational voices who represent some of the worst and best of rock and race.

July 9: Rock-y Groundbreakers: Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens: Two ways to separate a forever-linked pair, and one non-tragic way to pair them, as the series rocks on.

July 10: Rock-y Groundbreakers: Fats Domino: A few iconic moments in the career of the legendary rock ‘n roller.

July 11: Rock-y Groundbreakers: Women Who Rock: The series concludes with four of the many women who helped launch the rock revolution, through pieces by female journalists and historians.

July 12-13: Crowd-sourced Rock Responses: My first crowd-sourced post in a while, featuring responses to the week’s posts and further rock recs.

July 14: AmericanStudying Sinners: Coogler’s Career: A series on my favorite film of the year kicks off with how the director’s prior (great) films foreshadowed this masterpiece.

July 15: AmericanStudying Sinners: Hoodoo: The series continues with two literary predecessors to my favorite character in the film.

July 16: AmericanStudying Sinners: The Mississippi Chinese: A 1970s book and 2010s article that help contextualize one of the film’s most unique families, as the series screens on.

July 17: AmericanStudying Sinners: The Blues: Two stunning scenes that together embody the best of a foundational musical genre.

July 18: AmericanStudying Sinners: Interracial Romance: The series concludes with another layer to the film’s mid-credits scene and why I love it so much.

July 19-20: AmericanStudying Sinners: Other Scholars on the Film: A special weekend follow-up featuring responses to the film from fellow SinnersStudiers.

July 21: The U.S. Postal System: Ben Franklin: A series for the USPS’s 250^th anniversary kicks off with innovations from three stages in the career of the first Postmaster General.

July 22: The U.S. Postal System: The Pony Express: The series continues with three figures who helped shape the short-lived but iconic Western mail route.

July 23: The U.S. Postal System: Stamps: Six telling stamps that help trace the history of this essential element, as the series continues to deliver.

July 24: The U.S. Postal System: Mailed Threats: One moment when the mail was falsely perceived as threatening, other moments when it genuinely was, and how we can put them in conversation.

July 25: The U.S. Postal System: Cultural Representations: The series concludes with takeaways from five prominent cultural representations of the USPS, including Frog & Toad!

July 26-27: A Tribute to the U.S. Postal Service: A brief but impassioned weekend follow-up, making the case for the USPS, its workers, and all federal workers in 2025.

July 28: Echoes of Bad Presidents: Andrew Jackson: Speaking of 2025, a series inspired by Andrew Johnson’s death kicks off with how Andrew Jackson echoes our current worst president.

July 29: Echoes of Bad Presidents: James Buchanan: The series continues with one more obvious and one subtler echo of the pre-Civil War baddie.

July 30: Echoes of Bad Presidents: William McKinley: How tariffs reflect multiple layers of bad presidents past and present, as the series echoes on.

July 31: Echoes of Bad Presidents: Andrew Johnson: How our worst prior president both does and doesn’t echo our very worst one.

August 1: Echoes of Bad Presidents: The 20^th Century: The series and month conclude with quick hits from five 20^th century badnesses here in our very bad 21^st century moment.

Birthday posts start tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Topics you’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

August 1, 2025: Echoes of Bad Presidents: The 20th Century

[On July 31, 1875, Andrew Johnson died. Johnson is one of our worst presidents, which means he also reminds me a lot of our current and very worst one. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy echoes of some of our worst presidents in Trump 2.0!]

Five quick hit echoes of 20^th century presidential badness here in our 21^st century moment.

1)      Woodrow Wilson: The other most overtly white supremacist president segregated the federal government; Trump et al are just firing most every non-white federal employee.

2)      Herbert Hoover: Hoover hastened and deepened the Depression, and treated fellow Americans shabbily at every turn in the process; Trump is plunging us into an even more unnecessary collapse, and throwing almost all of us under the bus as he does.

3)      Richard Nixon: Nixon treated the presidency as an excuse to pursue corruption and crimes, most especially against all those his paranoia labeled “enemies”; Trump’s corrupt criming dwarfs every past instance, including Tricky Dick’s, and is itself dwarfed by his persecution complex.

4)      Ronald Reagan: For so many reasons, but most especially because by the end of his second term Reagan was in major cognitive decline, and likely unable to execute even the most basic functions of the presidency; yet again Trump has a predecessor beat, as he’s been in decline since well before his second term began, and it’s only getting worse.

5)      The 2000 Election: Not a person, and perhaps not in the 20^th century (perspectives differ on that one). But the Supreme Court’s stunning abdication of the law in favor of partisan politics frustratingly foreshadowed a great deal of what has created, enabled, and extended the Age of Trump, so it’s gotta make this list.

July Recap this weekend,

Ben

PS. What do you think?