[For a week that
includes both my Dad’s birthday and mine, a special series of blog birthday
posts, old and new. Cel … ebrate AmericanStudier birthdays, come on!]
In honor of
tomorrow’s 38th birthday, 38 favorite posts from the last year on
the blog!
1)
August
18: Films for the Dog Days: Dog Day Afternoon: A part of a sweltering
summer series, I analyzed the gritty crime drama that’s sneakily subversive.
2)
September
5: Fall Forward: A New Teaching Challenge: My Fall 2014 semester included a
brand new course on a brand new (to me) topic, and that was a very good thing.
3)
September
11: More Cville Stories: Fry’s Spring: Four exemplary stages to the
Virginia hotspot where I spent many a summer’s day.
4)
September
15: Country Music and Society: Gender and Identity: On Johnny Cash, Dolly
Parton, and gender-bending in one of our most traditional cultural genres.
5)
September
23: Women and War: Rosie the Riveter: Two ways to complicate and enrich our
collective memories of an enduring American icon.
6)
October
8: AmericanStudying Appalachia: Murfree’s Mountains: An AppalachianStudying
series gave me a chance to write about one of our most complex and talented
authors.
7)
October
25-26: De Lange Follow Ups: My Fellow Tweeters: My whole experience as a
Social Media Fellow at the De Lange Conference was amazing, and I’d love for
you to check out the weeklong series of follow ups. But I can’t not focus on my
amazing fellow Fellows!
8)
October
29: AmericanSpooking: The Birds and Psycho: For my annual Halloween series,
I considered defamiliarization, horror, and prejudice.
9)
November
7: Exemplary Elections: 1994: My election week series ended with this
highly influential recent election—and with this Lawyers,
Guns, and Money post discussing and greatly amplifying my own thoughts.
10)
November
14: Veterans Days: Miyoko Hikiji: The veteran and book that help broaden
and enrich our concept of American veterans—and now she’s
running for the Iowa State Senate!
11)
November
28: 21st Century Thanks: E-Colleagues: A Thanksgiving series
concludes with five colleagues I haven’t had the chance to meet in person, yet!
12)
December
3: AmericanWinters: The Blizzard of 78: Two AmericanStudies contexts for an
epic winter storm (which little did I know in December we’d end up surpassing
in terms of total Boston snowfall in one winter!).
13)
December
13-14: Andrea Grenadier’s Guest Post on Charles Ives: Another great year
for Guest Posts, including this gem from Andrea on a difficult and important
composer.
14)
December
24: AmericanWishing: Chesnutt’s “Wife”: Charles Dickens, one of my favorite
American short stories, and holiday introspection were on my wish list this
year.
15)
December
31: End of Year Stories: The Immigration Debate: Two online pieces of mine
that have contributed to an ongoing political and American debate.
16)
January
6: Waltham Histories: The Waverly Trail: Three profoundly American moments
in the history of a beautiful natural wonder.
17)
January
20: MLK Stories: Selma: What’s important and inspiring, and what’s a bit
more problematic, about the wonderful recent film.
18)
January
26: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: Bad News Bears and Boys: A Super Bowl
series starts with our obsession with lovable losers.
19)
February
2: American Conspiracy Theories: Roswell: Historical and cultural contexts
for one of our craziest American conspiracy theories.
20)
February
20: American Studying Non-Favorites: Low Five: Five historical figures with
whom I have a bone—or a whole skeleton—to pick!
21)
February
26: Western Mass. Histories: The Bridge of Flowers: Three evocative stages
of a unique Massachusetts landmark.
22)
March
2: Forgotten Wars: The Second Barbary War: The anniversary of a forgotten
Early Republic conflict inspired this post and series on wars we should better
remember.
23)
March
14-15: All That Crowd-sourced Jazz: Crowd-sourcing at its finest, with
fellow AmericanStudiers adding wonderful nominations to my week’s series on
jazz.
24)
March
24: American Epidemics: The Measles: An all-too-timely post, on three
stages in the history of a frustratingly persistent disease.
25)
April
2: April Fools: Minstrel Shows: What we do with comic art that’s just not
funny any more.
26)
April
6: Baseball Lives: Hank Greenberg: Why we should remember one of our
greatest Jewish American athletes—and an inspiring icon.
27)
April
18-19: Crowd-sourced Reading List: Another great crowd-sourced post, this
one on nominations for an AmericanStudies reading list.
28)
April
27: Communist Culture: “The Palace-Burner”: What one of my favorite
American poems can teach us about difference, empathy, and identity.
29)
May
11: Semester Conclusions: I Can’t Breathe: Remembering one of my most radical
classroom moments, and why it wasn’t.
30)
May
19: BlockbusterStudying II: Ghostbusters: Science, the supernatural, and
Weird Tales in one of our funnier and more original summer blockbusters.
31)
May
26: Decoration Day Histories: Frederick Douglass: As part of a series on
Memorial Day’s origins, I highlighted Douglass’s amazing 1871 Decoration Day
speech.
32)
June
2: Mount Auburn Connections: Blanche Linden: Three inspiring sides to a
hugely influential AmericanStudier, scholar, and teacher.
33)
June
12: North Carolina Stories: Moral Mondays: Two historical parallels for the
crucial contemporary protests and activism.
34)
June
19: AmericanStudies Beach Reads: A Tragic, Compelling Life: Why we should
get serious at the beach, and the perfect book to help us do so.
35)
June
26: Gordon Parks and America: Portrait Photos and the Past: A series
inspired by a wonderful (and ongoing) MFA exhibit concludes with some thoughts
on what portraits can’t teach us about the past, and what they can.
36)
July
1: The 4th in Focus: Fireworks: The history, symbolism, and
limitations of an American holiday tradition.
37)
July
11-12: Samuel Southworth’s Guest Post: In Honor of the 150th
Anniversary of the US Secret Service: In my most recent Guest Post, Sam
considers the organization’s history, role, and importance, with a fascinating
foonote in comments to boot.
38)
July
20: Billboard #1s: “I’ll Never Smile Again”: A series on Billboard hits
starts with what’s hugely different about 1940’s #1 hit, and what’s not so
different at all.
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. Topics you’d
like to see covered in the next year? Guest posts you’d like to write? Lemme know!
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