Saturday, April 28, 2018

April 28-29, 2018: April 2018 Recap


[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]
April 2: Theater in America: Provincetown and Trifles: A theateriffic series starts with the moment, community, and play that signaled a dramatic shift.
April 3: Theater in America: The Iceman Cometh: The series continues with a dark and compelling portrait of hollow dreams, and where it comes up short.
April 4: Theater in America: Depression Drama and Odets: Activist drama in- and outside of approved spaces, as the series plays on.
April 5: Theater in America: Hansberry’s Husband and Wife: Lorraine Hansberry’s realistic, flawed, and deeply moving married couple.
April 6: Theater in America: Angels in America and Rent: The series concludes with two dramatic works that helped change our national conversations on AIDS.
April 7-8: Crowd-sourced American Drama: My latest crowd-sourced post, featuring the responses and thoughts of fellow AmericanStudiers. Add yours in comments, please!
April 9: Great American Novel Studying: The Blithedale Romance: A series on great American novels starts with the novel that shifted yet continued Hawthorne’s streak of masterpieces.
April 10: Great American Novel Studying: The Great Gatsby: On Gatsby’s anniversary, the series continues with the novel’s limits and how to complement them.
April 11: Great American Novel Studying: The Marrow of Tradition: A character whose presence and absence both reflect a novel’s greatness, as the series rolls on.
April 12: Great American Novel Studying: Ceremony: Three pages that exemplify Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel’s inspiring greatness.
April 13: Great American Novel Studying: Endings: The series concludes with happy, sad, and perfect endings to great American novels.
April 14-15: Great American Novel Studying: Recent Contenders: A special weekend post highlighting five recent novels that stake their claim to the GAN title.
April 16: NeMLA Recaps: Back to the Board: A series recapping the recent Northeast MLA Convention starts with two reasons why I’m rejoining the NeMLA Board.
April 17: NeMLA Recaps: West of Sunset and Historical Fiction: The series continues with two takeaways from Stewart O’Nan’s inspiring opening night creative event.
April 18: NeMLA Recaps: Castillo, Nixon, and the Present Crises: The depressing yet bracingly hopeful themes of two special lectures, as the series rolls on.
April 19: NeMLA Recaps: Two Teaching Roundtables: What I learned from two impressive roundtables on the fraught and crucial question of Teaching under Trump.
April 20: NeMLA Recaps: Three Other Inspiring Panels: The series concludes with three of the many great American Lit panels I attended as the incoming Area Director.
April 21-22: NeMLA and You: A special weekend post, on three ways you can get involved with NeMLA for next year’s convention in Washington, DC and beyond!
April 23: Assassination Studying: In the Line of Fire: An assassination series start with the scene that humanizes the JFK assassination, and the flaws of the film that surrounds it.
April 24: Assassination Studying: James Garfield: The series continues with the mundane nature of our second presidential assassination, and why it matters.
April 25: Assassination Studying: William McKinley: “Where was he radicalized?” and the McKinley assassination, as the series rolls on.
April 26: Assassination Studying: John Wilkes Booth: On the date of his death, three stages in the life and story of our most dramatic assassin.
April 27: Assassination Studying: Squeaky Fromme: The series concludes with the silly and deadly serious sides to Gerald Ford’s wannabe assassin.
Next series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. Topics you’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

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