September 2: Not Tortured Enough: On the most disheartening aspect of the torture debate—the fact that it exists in America at all, and with such little (all things considered) angst.
September 3 [Tribute Post 22]: New Colleagues: On the many, diverse and consistently amazing new folks I’ve been fortunate enough to help welcome to Fitchburg State, in and outside of the English Department, over my time here.
September 5: Labor Day Special: Highlighting five earlier posts that engage with different texts, figures, moments, and themes related to work in America.
September 6: The Great War and Modern Bloggers: On a couple of the most significant and revealing current debates about the Civil War, and the great work being done by blogger historians and writers in those conversations.
September 7: All the Rage: On angry young ‘uns, protest music, and Rage Against the Machine.
September 8: My Bad, Piano Man: Feeling as if I insulted Billy Joel a bit in the last post, I make amends by highlighting five of his best and most AmericanStudies songs.
September 9: Triple Play: Rounding out this trio of posts on AmericanStudies and music with a post on one of Bruce’s most underappreciated and great AmericanStudies songs, “Galveston Bay”
September 10-11: Rising to the Occasion: On Abraham Lincoln, Bruce’s The Rising, and the art of responding to huge national moments.
September 12: The Neverending Story: On the horrible things that we do in war, and why the “War on Terror” narrative might just make those horrible things a permanent part of our national identity.
September 13: Great American Hypocrites: On our traditional of national hypocrisy, Roy Cohn’s exemplary version of those narratives, and Tony Kushner’s exemplary recreation of Cohn and them in Angels in America.
September 14: The Transnational Turn: On the trend toward transnational AmericanStudies; or, why I feel okay writing about Midnight Oil on this blog.
September 15: Speaking of Hypocrisy: A brief follow-up on the Pennsylvania GOP/Tea Party’s efforts to change the state’s electoral college votes for the 2012 election.
September 16: Get Out the Vote: On the dual and interlocked histories of voters’ rights activism and violent voter suppression in America.
September 17-18 [Guest Post of Sorts]: Life Support: Responses, by me a bit and by an impassioned and impressive DailyKos diarist at length, on the cheers for the death of a hypothetical uninsured American at a GOP presidential debate.
September 19: Still Fresh: On teaching and reading those American literary texts that, whatever their time period and historical contexts, still feel as if they speak right to our 21st century selves.
September 20: Creative Histories: On Lydia Huntley Sigourney’s poetic and historical works, and the 19th century’s often exemplary blurrings of such generic categories and boundaries.
September 21: Dead Certainty: On the death penalty, certainty vs. ambiguity, and the things that, once they’re done, can never be undone.
September 22 [Tribute Post 23]: Elizabeth Warren: On the worst and best of what Harvard can mean in our contemporary and national conversations, and the senatorial candidate who very much embodies and articulates the best.
September 23-25 [Scholarly Review 5]: Recommended Reading: Six great, recent published AmericanStudies works by colleagues and teachers and friends, all of which are well worth your time.
September 26: The Post of the Seven Links: Inspired by a great trip to Salem (MA), seven institutions and individuals doing impressive AmericanStudies work in and through that city.
September 27: Accent-uate the Positive: On Hispanic teachers in Arizona, and why the most defining American language is partly accented English but even more fully cross-linguistic, accented conversations in all directions and cultures.
September 28: Wandering, Marvelous, American (!) Misadventures: On the young adult, fantasy, and utterly fantastic works of (American writer, I just learned) Lloyd Alexander.
September 29: Stealing Home [Repeat]: As the baseball season ends up with a whimper for both my Atlanta Braves and the local favorites the Boston Red Sox, I retreat to one of the most inspiring AmericanStudise and baseball stories I know.
That’s it! More this weekend, a special post in honor of my sister’s wedding!
Ben
PS. As I’ve asked with prior recaps, any topics, texts, figures, themes, events, or other focal points you’d like to see in this space? And, even more importantly, any guest posts you’d love to contribute?
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