Saturday, November 2, 2019

November 2-3, 2019: October 2019 Recap


[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]
September 30: Recent Reads: The Overstory: A series on great books I’ve recently read starts with Richard Powers’ ambitious, messy, vital climate change novel.
October 1: Recent Reads: The Nickel Boys: The series continues with Colson Whitehead’s stunning, bracing new novel.
October 2: Recent Reads: There There: How Tommy Orange’s debut novel importantly challenges my critical optimism, as the series reads on.
October 3: Recent Reads: Heaven, My Home: The newest mystery thriller from one of our great contemporary writers, Attica Locke.
October 4: Recent Reads: The Sweetest Fruits: The series concludes with the new historical novel from Monique Truong, which I’ll be teaching in my Spring Capstone course!
October 5-6: Crowd-sourced Recent Reads: Another great crowd-sourced post full of suggestions for further reading—add yours in comments!
October 7: Domestic Terrorism: The KKK: Inspired by the 50th anniversary of the Days of Rage protests, a domestic terrorism series starts with under-remembered histories of our oldest such organization.
October 8: Domestic Terrorism: The Weathermen: On that anniversary, the series continues with the difficulty and importance of writing about domestic terrorists with whose positions we agree.
October 9: Domestic Terrorism: McVeigh and Militias: How to see the Oklahoma City bomber as a “lone wolf” and why we shouldn’t, as the series rolls on.
October 10: Domestic Terrorism: Edward Abbey and Environmental Terrorism: Three distinct and contrasting ways to contribute to environmental activism.
October 11: Domestic Terrorism: Cultural Representations: The series concludes with three cultural texts that reflect three different perspectives on domestic terrorists.
October 12-13: 21st Century Domestic Terrorism: A special weekend post featuring an excerpt from my new book on how to contextualize contemporary domestic terrorists and mass shooters.
October 14-20: Present and Future Book Talks for We the People: Speaking of that new book, a brief update on my current and future talks—and a request for ideas for more!
October 21: The 1850 Women’s Rights Convention: Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis: A series on a forgotten Worcester convention starts with the Renaissance woman who served as its president.
October 22: The 1850 Women’s Rights Convention: Sarah H. Earle: The series continues with the local convention organizer who embodies the era’s many different forms of social activism.
October 23: The 1850 Women’s Rights Convention: Sojourner Truth: The benefits and limitations of remembering a striking individual’s communal contexts, as the series rolls on.
October 24: The 1850 Women’s Rights Convention: The Men: Remembering, but not over-emphasizing, the male participants at a women’s rights convention.
October 25: The 1850 Women’s Rights Convention: Harriet Martineau and Harriet Taylor Mill: The series concludes with two English women who reveal the convention’s Transatlantic influences.
October 26-27: Ariella Archer’s Guest Post: My Scary Thoughts: The Evolution of Three Horror Subgenres: A Halloween series kicks off with my latest Guest Post, the great Ariella Archer on past and present evolutions of horror films!
October 28: ScaryStudying: Scary Stories: My annual HalloweenStudying begins with my analytical prejudice against scary stories, and how House of Leaves helped challenge that perspective.
October 29: ScaryStudying: Five Masterpieces: The series continues with a handful of the spookiest works in American literature—and a bunch more nominations in comments!
October 30: ScaryStudying: American Horror Stories?: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s complaint about the difficulties of writing Gothic stories in America, and how to find horror in the everyday here.
October 31: ScaryStudying: The Shinings: How the endings of Stephen King’s and Stanley Kubrick’s Shinings embody hopeful and cynical forms of horror, as the series scares on.
November 1: ScaryStudying: Sleepy Hollow: The series concludes with the foundational scary story that’s also an ironic American origin story.
Special blog anniversary 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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