[On August 15th, this AmericanStudier celebrates his 44th birthday. So as I do each year, here’s a series sharing some of my favorite posts from each year on the blog, leading up to a new post with 44 favorites from the last year. And as ever, you couldn’t give me a better present than to say hi and tell me a bit about what brings you to the blog, what you’ve found or enjoyed here, your own AmericanStudies thoughts, or anything else!]
Thirty-seven
favorites from the 2013-2014 year on the blog!
1)
August
23: Still Studying: Known Unknowns: A series on things I’m still learning
concludes with a post on three recent takeaways from that 21st
century resource, Twitter.
2)
August
30: Fall Forward: Three Years: In honor of the blog’s upcoming third
anniversary, three of my favorite memories from those first three years.
3)
September
13: Newport Stories: To Preserve or Not to Preserve: A series on stories
and histories surrounding The Breakers wonders whether and how we should
preserve such historic homes.
4)
September
17: Gloucester Stories: The Sense of the Past: As part of a series on the
Massachusetts fishing town, why it’s so important to better remember that
community.
5)
September
25: Justice Is Not Color Blind: Duke: The most complex post in my series on
race and justice in America, on expectations, realities, and the role of public
scholars.
6)
October
14: John Sayles’ America: Secaucus and the 60s: A series AmericanStudying
my favorite filmmaker starts with the movie that echoes but also challenges our
narratives of a turbulent decade.
7)
October
21: Book Talk Thoughts: MOCA: With my year of book talks underway, a post
on the inspiringly pitch-perfect New York museum that helped inaugurate those
talks.
8)
October
28: Symbolic Scares: The Wendigo: A Halloween series starts with the
supernatural legend that offers cultural and cross-cultural commentaries.
9)
November
7: Berkshire Stories: The Housatonic: Three complex and compelling sides to
a New England river, part of a series on histories from this beautiful Western
Mass. Region.
10)
November
12: Veteran’s Week: Band of Brothers: As part of a Veteran’s Day series,
nostalgia and nuance in one of our best recent depictions of war.
11)
November
19: Times Like These: 1935: The debates over Social Security and how they
do and don’t echo our own divided moment.
12)
November
29: Giving Thanks: Future AmericanStudiers: A Thanksgiving series concludes
with an inspiring moment where past and future were in conversation.
13)
December
20: Representing Slavery: 12 Years a Slave: A series on cultural images of
slavery concludes with two takes on the wonderful recent film, my own…
14)
December
21-22: Representing Slavery: Joe Moser’s Guest Post: And that of my friend
and colleague (and Irish film expert) Joe Moser!
15)
December
24: AmericanStudies Wishes: Reform Now!: My annual series of wishes for the
AmericanStudies Elves included this post on the very American reasons why we
need immigration reform.
16)
January
4-5: Ani DiFranco and Slavery: A special addition to a year-in-review
series, on a couple historical contexts for a very current controversy.
17)
January
23: Civil Rights Histories: George Wallace: Why we shouldn’t judge a
lifetime by its worst moments, but why we do have to focus on them nonetheless.
18)
January
27: Football Focalizes: Concussions and Hypocrisy: A Super Bowl series
opens with the gap between what we know and what we do, in football as in
history.
19)
February
7: House Histories: Our Own Broad Daylight: A series on the House of the
Seven Gables concludes with a post on the literary and communal presences of
the past.
20)
February
11: I Love Du Bois to His Daughter: My Valentine’s Day series included this
tribute to an amazing letter from my American idol to his teenage daughter.
21)
February
17: YA Lit: Little House on the Prairie: What we can and can’t learn about
history from young adult lit kicks off a chapter-book-inspired series.
22)
March
8-9: Crowd-sourced Non-Favorites: One of my most epic crowd-sourced posts
ever rounded out a series on American things that don’t quite do it for us.
23)
March
21: Cville Stories: 21st Century Tensions: Nostalgia, fear, and
the current divisions that threaten communities like Charlottesville and
America.
24)
March
27: Caribbean Connections: Bob Marley: On whether it’s entirely possible
for an artist to cross cultural borders, and why the crossing matters in any
case.
25)
April
2: Baseball Stories: Field of Dreams and The Brothers K: My Opening Day
series included this post on divisive decades and histories, and whether
baseball can bring us together.
26)
April
16: Animated History: The Princess and the Frog: On race, representation,
and seeing ourselves and our histories on screen.
27)
April
28: Reading New England Women: Catharine Maria Sedgwick: A series on 19th
century New England women kicks off with a funny, telling story that was way
ahead of its time.
28)
May
7: NeMLA Follow Ups: Roundtable on Contingent Faculty: Three meaningful
ways we can move forward with a crucial issue.
29)
May
12: Spring 2014 Recaps: 21st Century Writing: A semester recap
series starts with three wonderful student papers from my Writing II course.
30)
May
22: AmericanStudying Harvard Movies: Love Story: On the enduring appeal of
fantasies, romantic and communal, and what it means to share them with future
generations.
31)
June
14-15: War Stories: Board Games: A D-Day series concludes with a special
post on three board games from which I learned a good deal about histories of
war.
32)
June
17: AmericanStudying Summer Jams: Summertime Blues: The summer song that
gave multi-layered voice to the experience of youth.
33)
June
24: AmericanStudier Camp: Hello Muddah: As part of a summer camp series,
the novelty song with an extended, very American afterlife.
34)
July
14: American Beaches: Revere Beach: A beach series kicks off with three
telling stages of one of our most historic beaches.
35)
July
22: American Autobiographers: Olaudah Equiano: The controversial personal
narrative that should be required reading whatever its genre.
36)
August
1: Uncles and Aunts: Uncle Elephant: A series inspired by my sister’s
birthday concludes with the children’s book that’s as sad and as joyous as life
itself.
37)
August
5: Virginia Voices: Thomas Nelson Page: For my latest return to VA, I
highlighted interesting Virginia authors, including the question of whether and
why we should read this once-popular writer at all.
Next birthday
best post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. You know
what to do!
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