December 1: What’s at Stake: Newt Gingrich, Niall Ferguson, and the most crucial 21st century American debate: how we define “American.”
December 2: Homogenous: Pat Buchanan, Niall Ferguson, and the related and equally significant question of how we understand historical and contemporary diversity in America. (Continued on December 5.)
December 3-4: Heidi Kim’s Guest Post: My friend and fellow AmericanStudier guest posts about her UNC class’s project on Chang and Eng Bunker.
December 5: Defining Diversity: A follow up to the December 1 and 2 posts, wherein I elaborate on some of my own central perspectives on American diversity and identity.
December 6: So What 1: The first of four posts on how our narratives of particular time periods in American history might change in response to my redefinitions of America (and in conversation with great AmericanStudies scholarship)—this one on cross-cultural relationships in the arrival and exploration era.
December 7: So What 2: The second in the series, this one on redefining the Puritans.
December 8: So What 3: The third in the series, this one on redefining the Revolution through African American, slave experiences and perspectives of it.
December 9: So What 4: The fourth in the series, a guest post of sorts on redefining the Civil War.
December 10-11: So What Now?: A follow up to the week’s series, on the question of what such redefinitions might mean for our present and future national conversations and identities.
December 12: Cross-Culture 1: It’s Not Only Rock and Roll: Starting a week of posts on redefining key pop culture moments through a cross-cultural lens, this one on the origins and early history of rock and roll.
December 13: Cross-Culture 2: A Striking Voice: On African American influences on Huck Finn.
December 14: Cross-Culture 3: A Transnational Force: On the Japanese, and other transnational, influences on and presences in Star Wars.
December 15: Cross-Culture 4: Seeing the Light: On the cross-cultural invention of the light bulb (among other crucial late 19th century innovations).
December 16: Cross-Culture 5: Not to Mention…: On five other crucially cross-cultural American moments.
December 17-18: Anglo, American: Christopher Hitchens, Andrew Sullivan, and the cross-cultural contributions and transformations of Anglo-American immigrants.
December 19: Making My List 1: Memory Days: Starting a week of AmericanStudies holiday wishes, with a wish for an AmericanStudies version of saints’ days.
December 20: Making My List 2: 30 Rocked: A wish for a series of films in which great American filmmakers reimagine key historical events, figures, and stories.
December 21: Making My List 3: Empathy, Please: A wish for empathy in our national conversations and narratives.
December 22: Making My List 4: Filter Them From Your Self: A wish for all Americans to have access to and the contexts and skills to analyze the evidence.
December 23-25: Making My List 5: One More Wish: A final AmericanStudies holiday wish for you, yours, and all of us.
December 26: Year in Review 1: Assassi-Nation: My 2011 year in AmericanStudies review starts with the Gabrielle Giffords shooting.
December 27: Year in Review 2: Nuclear Reactions: The year in AmericanStudies review continues with the Japanese nuclear meltdown.
December 28: Year in Review 3: The Ends of War: The review continues with the Bin Laden killing.
December 29: Year in Review 4: School for Scandal: The review continues with the Penn State child rape scandal.
December 30: Year in Review 5: Long-term Occupation: The review concludes with the Occupy Wall Street and subsequent Occupy movements.
More monthly recaps (for earlier in the year) coming shortly, and a 2012 teaser tomorrow,
Ben
12/31 Memory Day nominee: Aidan Railton! Seriously, I have no doubt he’ll do very memorable things in his very American life. But in the interim, we also couldn’t go wrong with Jaime Escalante, the Bolivian immigrant and high school math teacher whose inspiring work in the East Los Angeles public schools was portrayed so powerfully in the film Stand and Deliver (1988).
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