September 23-25, 2011 [Scholarly Review 5]: Recommended Reading

I’m very busy for the next few days, but the timing works out here—the faculty reading and writing group at Fitchburg State of which I’m part had a great first meeting of the semester this past week, and it’s gotten me thinking about all the great scholarly work being done by colleagues, broadly and ideally defined, around the country. Much of that work can seem to vanish into the ether sometimes, which is frustrating not only because of how much of ourselves we put into it, but also and more importantly because of how much we do the work (in every case I’ve ever encountered) in the hopes of entering into conversations and getting feedback. So in that spirit, here are some engaging and interesting recent scholarly and AmericanStudies works, by colleagues and teachers and friends, that you should think about checking out (literally if you’ve got a good library nearby!):

1)      Mark Rennella’s The Boston Cosmopolitans: International Travel and American Arts and Letters (2008)

2)      Neal Dolan’s Emerson’s Liberalism (2009)

3)      Miles Orvell’s American Photography (2003)

4)      Carolyn Karcher’s edition of Albion Tourgée’s Bricks Without Straw (1880; 2009)

5)      Michael Hoberman’s How Strange It Seems: The Cultural Life of Jews in Small-town New England (2008)

6)      Christine Dee’s edited collection Ohio’s War: The Civil War in Documents (2006)

I could go on, but that’s a great half-dozen to start you out! More next week,

Ben

PS. Any recommendations to send back my way?