August 31, 2022: Fall Semester Previews: Honors Lit Seminar on the Gilded Age

[This week we start a new semester, one I desperately hope will feel a bit more settled and positive than the last few. To that end, for my annual Fall previews I’ll highlight something I’m especially looking forward to in each class, leading up to a weekend update on my current book project!]

Exactly a year ago I previewed my Fall 2021 section of this course, and I would certainly say that all those reasons why I keep teaching it remain just as true (and perhaps even truer) a year later. I’m also very excited to get back to a more fully in-person class dynamic this semester, as this course always has the best discussions (and while I’ve gotten a lot better at creating conversation when some students are streaming and some in-person, as was the case with all my classes last year, it ain’t ever gonna be my bag, baby). But in a Fall that will no doubt be dominated by headlines related to elections, voting rights, and white supremacy (among other issues of course, but with all those high on the list), I’m even more excited for the next chance to share my favorite American novel, The Marrow of Tradition, with a group of our awesome Honors students. I’ve long called Chesnutt’s novel the one book all Americans should read (if I had to pick just one, which luckily I don’t), and since that likewise only becomes more and more truer with each passing year, ending this favorite class with my favorite book remains one of my favorite pedagogical choices.

Next preview post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Classes or other things you’re looking forward to this Fall?

August 30, 2022: Fall Semester Previews: First-Year Writing I

[This week we start a new semester, one I desperately hope will feel a bit more settled and positive than the last few. To that end, for my annual Fall previews I’ll highlight something I’m especially looking forward to in each class, leading up to a weekend update on my current book project!]

There are a few courses I’ve had the chance to teach most frequently in my 17+ years at FSU, and none is higher on that list than FYW I; I taught two sections in my first semester, Fall 2005, and have taught at least one almost every year since. While every such class is hugely shaped by its group of students, I’ve taught roughly the same syllabus and assignment structure throughout, so there’s been a consistent throughline to be sure. I’m doing so again this Fall (what can I say, it works!), but this will be the first time I’ve taught FYW since I had the chance to teach our First Year Experience Seminar last Fall. I’m not teaching that class this time around, but I now know a lot about it, which is very helpful as all of the students in my FYW section will be taking their own FYE sections (these are the only two required courses in the Fall of the first year). I haven’t entirely figured out how and where I want my Writing class to intersect with FYE—I plan to ask the students about it and have that conversation together across our semester, in fact—but I know that it needs to, to help both classes achieve their goals of guiding students into, through, and beyond their first years in college.

Next preview post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Classes or other things you’re looking forward to this Fall?

August 29, 2022: Fall Semester Previews: 19C African American Lit

[This week we start a new semester, one I desperately hope will feel a bit more settled and positive than the last few. To that end, for my annual Fall previews I’ll highlight something I’m especially looking forward to in each class, leading up to a weekend update on my current book project!]

I’ve been able to teach this class once before, in Spring 2018, and by far the best part of that semester was the chance to read for the first time (in many cases) and teach (in almost all cases) so many phenomenal texts, including the three I highlighted in this semester recap post. I’ll be teaching them again this semester, now with the knowledge of how much they speak to our students, so of course I’m very excited for that chance. But I’m even more excited for us to engage overtly and centrally, from the first day to the last, with a conversation that has become far more present over these past 4+ years: the debate over “Critical Race Theory” and (more genuinely) why and how we should teach, learn, discuss, and engage histories of race and racism in America. While a lot of that conversation at the national level is fearmongering, there are at the same time thoughtful and important ways to ask and answer those questions, and I couldn’t be more excited to do so with a class of FSU students.

Next preview post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Classes or other things you’re looking forward to this Fall?

August 27-28, 2022: August 2022 Recap

[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

August 1: American Phones: The Great Gatsby: A series inspired by the 100^th anniversary of Alexander Graham Bell’s death kicks off with three telling phone calls in the exemplary Modernist novel.

August 2: American Phones: The Scream Films: The series continues with one things that’s really changed about phones since the iconic horror film debuted, and one that hasn’t.

August 3: American Phones: Phone Songs: Five pop songs that call upon this technology, as the series rings on.

August 4: American Phones: “Madam and the Phone Bill”: A funny poetic voice and character, and the layers of meaning she reveals.

August 5: American Phones: Smart Phones: The series concludes with one loss, one gain, and one effect too close to call with the defining technology of our age.

August 6: American Phones: Alexander Graham Bell: A special post on three layers and legacies to Bell’s impressive and inspiring life beyond the telephone.

August 6-7: Hettie Williams’ Guest Post on Beyoncé’s Renaissance: The first of two Guest Posts this month, this one Hettie’s second great Guest Post for AmericanStudier!

August 8: Birthday Bests: 2010-2011: The annual birthday favorites posts kick off!

August 9: Birthday Bests: 2011-2012:

August 10: Birthday Bests: 2012-2013:

August 11: Birthday Bests: 2013-2014:

August 12: Birthday Bests: 2014-2015:

August 13: Birthday Bests: 2015-2016:

August 13-14: Sarah Stook’s Guest Post: America the Ancient: Taking a break from the bday posts for the month’s second Guest Post, from my new Twitter connection Sarah!

August 14: Birthday Bests: 2016-2017:

August 15: Birthday Bests: 2017-2018:

August 16: Birthday Bests: 2018-2019:

August 17: Birthday Bests: 2019-2020:

August 18: Birthday Bests: 2020-2021:

August 19-21: Birthday Bests: 2021-2022: Wrapping up the bday series with the newest addition, 45 fav posts from my 12^th year of AmericanStudying!

August 22: Virginia Profs: Alan Feldstein: This year’s post-Cville series focused on inspiring UVA profs, kicking off with this historic figure and his equally inspiring wife.

August 23: Virginia Profs: Jalane Schmidt: The series continues with a contemporary prof who helps us think about UVA and Cville’s contested & crucial spaces and places.

August 24: Virginia Profs: John Edwin Mason: An amazingly Renaissance prof and person, as the series teaches on.

August 25: Virginia Profs: Grace Elizabeth Hale: The final two posts in the series focused on profs whose scholarly works & publications have inspired my own, starting with an interdisciplinary icon…

August 26: Virginia Profs: Caroline Rody: … and concluding with an English Studies scholar par excellance.

Fall Semester Previews start Monday,

Ben

PS. Topics you’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

August 26, 2022: Virginia Profs: Caroline Rody

[For this year’s annual Cville series, I wanted to highlight a handful of inspiring and impressive profs at my hometown school, the University of Virginia (beyond the UVA prof who will always come first in my heart). I’d love to hear about profs—teachers, advisors, mentors, colleagues, friends—you’d highlight in comments!]

[NOTE: This post is from 2011, but I still mean every word of it, even more so a decade later in fact, and wanted to make sure to include Rody in this week’s series!]

Obviously I have some very personal reasons for thinking that academic and scholarly voices have something meaningful to contribute to our broader national conversations and narratives; but while I do hope that my own voice and work (present and future) can do so, I have also come to this perspective through reading and engaging with lots of other scholars who seem to me to have at least as much to offer to the non-academic world as they do within it. It’s certainly fair to say that some academic work is intended mostly for academic audiences and conversations, and I wouldn’t do what I do for a living if I didn’t find such work (which I would admit includes my first book pretty fully) valuable as well; but just as we AmericanStudiers can learn about our culture from a variety of sources, academic and otherwise, so too can our culture at large only gain from including scholarly voices in its conversations more frequently and meaningfully.

Most if not all of the scholars and works I’ve highlighted in my “Scholarly Review” posts have fallen into that category, and that’s definitely true of Professor Caroline Rody, who teaches in the University of Virginia English Department (also home for 45 years to Railton pére). Rody first came to my attention with the publication of her first book, The Daughter’s Return: African-American and Caribbean Women’s Fictions of History (2001), a beautifully written and very engaging analysis of a number of contemporary historical novels and their themes of family and heritage, identity and community, past and future. Granted, that genre and those themes are among my most consistent scholarly and personal obsessions, but I would argue that they are also hugely significant for all 21^st century Americans, and Rody’s book made those stakes plain and compelling without losing sight of the complex details of her chosen authors and texts. As this blog hopefully attests, I think that there’s great value in highlighting and analyzing works that we should all read as well as in framing and analyzing themes and questions of national and human importance; a scholarly work that does either of those things well is a success to me, and Rody’s first book did both.

Her second book, The Interethnic Imagination: Roots and Passages in Contemporary Asian American Fiction (2009), extends many of those same focal points and conversations to a third body of contemporary literature, and does so even more engagingly and readably. Yet in it Rody also does very successfully what I strove to do in my own second book—highlights the consistent and meaningful presence, not only in her chosen works but throughout our culture and identity, of interethnic encounters and exchanges, both in the intersections of individuals and communities with one another and in the interplays that constitute any and every individual identity and perspective within our culture. Rody’s book is once again grounded very fully in her particular authors and texts, but never loses sight of the value of her ideas and insights for our culture—and thus for all interested and engaged American readers—more generally. In the Intro to that second book I highlighted a group of scholarly projects that served as models for me, not only in their ideas but also in their execution; I hadn’t had a chance to read Rody’s book when I finalized my own, so consider this a very worthy addition to that list.

One of the false dichotomies that can plague narratives about the academy is that there’s the stuff we focus on within its walls and the stuff that happens outside of it (ie, in “the real world”); similarly, us literary scholars are sometimes seen as reading and analyzing works that wouldn’t otherwise be read or engaged with. But as Rody’s books entirely illustrate, the truth is quite the opposite—the work done by the best scholars and the books most worth our scholarly attention both represent voices we can and should include in our individual, communal, and national conversations. I can’t wait to read her in-progress third book! August Recap this weekend,

Ben

PS. Professors you’d add to the weekend post?

August 25, 2022: Virginia Profs: Grace Elizabeth Hale

[For this year’s annual Cville series, I wanted to highlight a handful of inspiring and impressive profs at my hometown school, the University of Virginia (beyond the UVA prof who will always come first in my heart). I’d love to hear about profs—teachers, advisors, mentors, colleagues, friends—you’d highlight in comments!]

I ended yesterday’s post by noting that all of this week’s subjects have inspired me in various ways—with the last two UVA professors I’ll highlight, that inspiration has come especially through groundbreaking and impressive scholarly works that have significantly shifted my perspective on issues at the heart of my own AmericanStudying. When it comes to Dr. Grace Elizabeth Hale, her 1999 book Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940 was one of the first I read as I moved from undergrad to grad school, and a true model for me of the kinds of analyses and writing alike I wanted to do in my career. As her work and career have evolved in the two decades since, what Hale has especially modeled in a truly interdisciplinary, American Studies approach, one that has taken her ideas and subjects from the post-war middle class to the indie music scene in Athens, Ohio, among others. Can’t wait to see where Hale’s work takes her, and all of us, next!

Last UVA prof tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Professors you’d add to the weekend post?

August 24, 2022: Virginia Profs: John Edwin Mason

[For this year’s annual Cville series, I wanted to highlight a handful of inspiring and impressive profs at my hometown school, the University of Virginia (beyond the UVA prof who will always come first in my heart). I’d love to hear about profs—teachers, advisors, mentors, colleagues, friends—you’d highlight in comments!]

I believe I first got connected with Dr. John Edwin Mason on Twitter through the hugely underappreciated American artist Gordon Parks (maybe when I shared the posts in that June 2015 weeklong series on Parks). Mason is working on a definitive book about Parks, currently titled Gordon Parks and American Democracy, and to say that I can’t wait for it would be to significantly understate the case. But Mason is also an amazing Renaissance man—an expert scholar of South Africa, one of the leading voices on American photography and co-director of the Holsinger Portrait Project, and a talented French hornist who has played with multiple orchestras in and around Cville. Oh, and he’s also one of the most supportive and kind folks I’ve had the chance to interact with on Twitter (and that’s a delightfully competitive list). All the folks I’ll highlight this week inspire me in many ways, but Mason inspires me in about twenty-seven all at once!

Next UVA prof tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Professors you’d add to the weekend post?

August 23, 2022: Virginia Profs: Jalane Schmidt

[For this year’s annual Cville series, I wanted to highlight a handful of inspiring and impressive profs at my hometown school, the University of Virginia (beyond the UVA prof who will always come first in my heart). I’d love to hear about profs—teachers, advisors, mentors, colleagues, friends—you’d highlight in comments!]

I ended yesterday’s post noting that while the University of Virginia and Charlottesville alike have been far more consistently conservative and white supremacist than youthful Ben believed (or at least hoped), there have also long been activist individuals and communities in both settings who have modeled inspiring alternatives. I don’t think there’s any current UVA professor who does so more clearly and impressively than Dr. Jalane Schmidt. There’s a lot I could point to in support of that argument, but given everything that’s come to define Charlottesville over the last five years, I would particularly single out her awesome walking tours, co-led with her colleague Dr. Andrea Douglas. If Cville and UVA are anything (and they are many many things), they are literal and symbolic landscapes on which so much of American history, identity, and community are inscribed. Which makes having experts to help us read and analyze those landscapes a pretty crucial goal, and I don’t know any more expert such perspective than Schmidt’s.

Next UVA prof tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Professors you’d add to the weekend post?

August 22, 2022: Virginia Profs: Alan Feldstein

[For this year’s annual Cville series, I wanted to highlight a handful of inspiring and impressive profs at my hometown school, the University of Virginia (beyond the UVA prof who will always come first in my heart). I’d love to hear about profs—teachers, advisors, mentors, colleagues, friends—you’d highlight in comments!]

On a historic prof who reflects the worst and best of the institution and city.

When I wrote my “Segregated Cville” piece for Activist History back in late 2017, I was really pretty early still in the process of learning about my hometown’s histories and ongoing issues around race and racism, segregation, violence, and more. Over the nearly five years since I’ve continued to read and listen and learn, to the other professors I’ll highlight in this week’s series as well as to the tons of thoughtful and engaged Cville folks I follow on Twitter (a list that includes Caris Adel, Jamelle Bouie, Zyahna Bryant, Molly Conger, Andy Orban, Lyle Solla-Yates, and Allison Wright among others). Through all those voices and all the sources and resources to which they’ve helped me connect, I’ve really come to understand not just Cville’s painful and powerful histories and their enduring legacies into the present, but also the ways in which the city really reflects so much of American history and identity, in both the worst and best senses.

There’s always more to learn on all those levels, though, and a couple months back Caris Adel shared this Daily Progress story about Dr. Alan Feldstein, a University of Virginia math professor whose 1960s experiences clearly reflect the university’s and city’s struggles with racism and segregation, with a white supremacist power structure (in both those settings) that sought to uphold those systems, and with activists like Feldstein who helped challenge them (and often paid a frustratingly high price for their efforts). You should all read that story, and then come on back for a couple more thoughts as we start this week’s series on UVa professors.

Welcome back! What I mainly wanted to follow up was one quote in that story, from Feldstein’s wife Felice about what overcame her initial reservations on moving to a Southern community like Cville. Her husband shared a letter to The Daily Progress signed by hundreds of residents who supported integration and civil rights, and Felice notes, “That appeased me. I was happy. There are always pockets of liberalism in places and especially in college towns.” That was always how I felt growing up about Charlottesville compared to the rest of Virginia, that it was a clear pocket of liberalism amidst what was then a very solidly red state. Unfortunately the more I’ve learned about both the city and the university, the more I’ve realized that the institutions and power structures were and in many ways remain just as white supremacist as the rest of the South and nation, as we can see clearly in the response to Feldstein’s activism. But at the same time, I’d say that letter and Feldstein alike reflect a counterpoint—that the city and the university have long featured passionate activists and communities seeking to create a different dynamic. I’m excited to share four 21^st century examples of that legacy in the rest of this week’s series!

Next UVA prof tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Professors you’d add to the weekend post?

August 19-21, 2022: Birthday Bests: 2021-2022

[On August 15^th, this AmericanStudier celebrated his 45^th birthday. So as I do each year, I’ve shared a series highlighting some of my favorite posts from each year on the blog, leading up to this new post with 45 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!]

Here they are, 45 favorite posts from my 12^th year of AmericanStudying:

1)      August 27: American Teens: John Hughes Films: A series inspired by my pair of high schoolers concluded with this fun way to reconsider classic 80s films.

2)      September 11-12: Tayna Roth’s Guest Post on “The Real Miss America”: I’ve had a ton of great Guest Posts this year, and you’d better believe I’m gonna highlight them all, starting with this one drawn from Tanya’s excellent new book!

3)      September 18-19: Domestic Terrorism: 9/11 and 1/6: I’ve spent a lot of time this year thinking and talking about January 6^th, 2021, including in this comparative weekend post.

4)      September 24: American Modernists: F. Scott Fitzgerald: Want to read Fitzgerald beyond Gatsby? This phenomenal short story is a good place to start.

5)      October 8: AmericanFires: The Great Chicago Fire: I promise I won’t use much of this space to promote my Saturday Evening Post columns, but this one lined up really well with a blog series.

6)      October 15: SitcomStudying: We Love Lucy: Getting to revisit and rethink familiar subjects is one of the real perks of this blog, and I enjoyed the chance to AmericanStudy I Love Lucy.

7)      October 19: Work in Progress: Lesson Plan for CT Humanities: A fun story of the long afterlife of one of my first online pieces—and now I can share the lesson plan itself!

8)      November 3: Action Figures: Charles Bronson and Death Wish: In a series inspired by Bronson’s 100^th birthday, it was fun to explore and challenge my preconceptions about his seminal film.

9)      November 13-14: 11^th Anniversary Tributes: Gotta share my tribute to what the Railton family have meant to this blog (and beyond)!

10)   November 20-21: The Montgomery Bus Boycott: 21^st Century Legacies & Echoes: There are lots of good reasons to learn history, but high on the list has to be what it can help us understand in our own moment.

11)   November 27-28: Emily Lauer’s Guest Post on Afrofuturism in Museums: Emily is my first three-time Guest Poster, and since she keeps doing such great work, I couldn’t be happier about that!

12)   December 4-5: Crowd-sourced Online Reading List: I ended a series for Project Gutenberg’s 50^th birthday by sharing these recommendations from fellow OnlineAmericanStudiers.

13)   December 13: Fall Semester Recaps: First Year Experience Seminar: FYE was a tough class to teach and an even tougher one to get right—but when I did, it sure felt extra meaningful and helpful.

14)   December 20: Wishes for the AMST Elves: Higher Ed Funding: This whole series was fun to write as ever, but this is the most universally relevant for my week’s wishes to be sure.

15)   December 27: Year in Review: The Braves: Celebrating yet also critiquing the surprising success of a favorite team—that’s the AmericanStudier way!

16)   December 31: Year in Review: New Novels: I don’t get to read for pleasure too much these days, but these are books well worth finding time for.

17)   January 5: 2022 Anniversaries: 1872 and Henry Wilson: I always learn a lot when I research specific years for the blog, and this discovery about Grant’s second vice president was no exception.

18)   January 14: Women in Politics: Shirley Chisholm’s Campaigns: Running for president was just the tip of the iceberg of Chisholm’s impressive political and activist career.

19)   January 25: American Gangsters: Capturing Capone: Any time I get to write about Tintin, I promise to share it in these series!

20)   January 31: Bill MurrayStudying: Tootsie: Ditto any time I get to write about one of my favorite 80s films and how it (mostly) still holds up.

21)   February 12-13: Kurtis Kendall’s Guest Post on Athlete Activism: And really really ditto when I’m sharing a Guest Post from an FSU English Studies alum!

22)   February 19-20: More Podcasts We Love: Please check out all the podcasts highlighted in this weeklong series—and now here’s my own episode of Drafting the Past!

23)   February 22: Non-Favorite Myths: The Supreme Court: One of those times I really wish I had been less prescient in my analyses and predictions about our current climate.

24)   March 5-6: Megan Kate Nelson’s New Book on Yellowstone: Always great when I can end a series by highlighting a wonderful new book from a friend!

25)   March 11: The Pacific Theater: “I Shall Return”: Douglas MacArthur, quite the asshole but still a powerfully inspiring leader as well. Such is the AmericanStudying dance!

26)   March 21: Rock and Roll Groundbreakers: The Moondog Coronation Ball: If you thought I was going to miss a chance to write “Moondog Coronation Ball” a couple more times—well, you thought wrong.

27)   March 28: Stand-Up Studying: Anthony Jeselnik: Few things better than getting to analyze a cultural work you love, and finding new layers in the process.

28)   April 9-10: Arbor Day Activists: One of the people most responsible for Arbor Day’s existence was Birdsey Northrop. I feel like we all need to know that.

29)   April 18: Boston Marathon Studying: The First Marathon: There’s a lot of pretty fascinating stuff about the 1897 Boston Marathon—here’s just some of it.

30)   April 23-24: Tiffany Chenault’s Guest Post: Boston Marathon RECAP: My friend and SSN Boston co-leader Tiffany ran her first Boston this year, and had a lot of great thoughts about the experience!

31)   April 26: Ulysses Grant Studying: His Book: Dedicating a whole series to the underappreciated Grant was fun, and I learned a lot, as illustrated by this post on his wonderful memoirs.

32)   May 7-8: Scholarship on Internment: I’ll never pass up a chance to re-up highlights of favorite scholarly voices and works!

33)   May 14-15: Spring Semester Reflections: Adult Ed and Two Sandlots: Getting to teach adult learning classes centered around a book in progress was a new, and very rewarding, experience.

34)   May 21-22: Aviation Histories: Amelia Earhart: There’s so much more to Earhart than just her most famous flights.

35)   May 28-29: Sydney Kruszka’s Guest Post: Why We Should All Read Maus: I’ve been able to share three Guest Posts now from students taught by my friend Robin Field—and I’d love to share ones from y’all’s students too!

36)   June 9: Judy Garland Studying: Judgment at Nuremberg: I had completely forgotten that Judy Garland was in Judgment—much less how stunningly good her performance was.

37)   June 11-12: LGBTQ Icons: Garland was also an icon and inspiration to the LGBTQ community—as we the other four women I highlighted in this post.

38)   June 13: Revisiting Beach Reads: Tony Hillerman: With the excellent new Hillerman adaptation Dark Winds recently out, it was fun to dip back into a childhood favorite.

39)   June 25-26: Las Vegas Studying: Vegas in Song: This whole Vegas series was a blast, but I especially enjoyed the chance to write about The Killers and so many other Vegas songs.

40)   July 9-10: 4^th of July Contexts: Patriotism in 2022 America: Do I need to say more about why this is an all-too relevant topic?

41)   July 12: Investigative Journalists: Nellie Bly: Another one where I learned so much about my subject for the day.

42)   July 19: UtahStudying: National Parks: Lots in this one I enjoyed learning, but I’m sharing mostly for the unforgettable quote about Bryce Canyon and cows.

43)   July 26: Christmas (Songs) in July: “Winter Wonderland” and “Jingle Bells”: You know you want to read about how I AmericanStudied those holiday classics—in July!

44)   August 1: AmericanPhones: The Great Gatsby: Had a Gatsby post in my first few in this list, gotta have one in my last few as well. Rules are rules.

45)   August 6-7: Hettie Williams’ Guest Post on Beyoncé’s Renaissance: Always excited when I can end a list like this with my newest Guest Post!

Annual Cville series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. You know what to do!

August 18, 2022: Birthday Bests: 2020-2021

[On August 15^th, this AmericanStudier celebrated his 45^th 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 45 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!]

Here they are, 44 favorite posts from the 11^th year of AmericanStudying:

1)      August 24: Katrina at 15: Nature or Nuture?: I always enjoy posts that get me way out of my comfort zone, and writing about meteorology to kick off this anniversary series definitely did the trick.

2)      August 31: Fall Semester Previews: A Policy of Care: I sure wasn’t happy with much about how the last academic year went—but I stand by everything I wrote in this post, and am so glad I made this my priority for each and every student.

3)      Special Post: The Rock Springs Massacre and Working-Class White Supremacist Violence: Think this is the only time I’ve ever shared a piece outside the blog’s daily operations; it didn’t end up running for my Saturday Evening Post column, so you got it here!

4)      September 9: History through Games: Careers: Every piece in this series was a ton of fun to write, but none more so than this trip through American history and culture via the board game Careers.

5)      September 19-20: Nazis in America: Project Paperclip and Hunters: I learned a whole lot while researching and writing this series, all inspired by watching the problematic but compelling Amazon original show Hunters.

6)      September 26-27: Crowd-sourced AutumnStudying: I won’t include every crowd-sourced post from the last year in this list—but I could, because I love love love every one of them.

7)      October 5: Recent Reads: How Much of These Hills is Gold: Gotta highlight two posts from this series of book recommendations: this one, on the best novel I read last year…

8)      October 9: Recent Reads: Susie King Taylor’s Memoir: And this one, on a favorite historical source I found (and about which I ended up recording a whole podcast episode as well!).

9)      October 15: Confederate Memory: The Shaaras: Revisiting childhood favorites through an analytical lens is never easy, but it sure is important, especially when it comes to topics like Civil War memory.

10)   October 24-25: The World in 2020: If you look back through these bday lists, you’ll see that I hardly ever directly engaged current events in the blog’s early years. That’s been one main thread of my public scholarly evolution, as this post illustrates.

11)   October 31-November 1: Robin Field’s Guest Post on Toni Morrison & the Rape Novel: Also might not highlight every Guest Post in this list, which is a sign of the very nice fact that I had more than ever before in this past year. (If you want to write one, you know what to do!)

12)   November 9-13: AmericanStudies’ 10^th Anniversary and Online Public Scholarship: Once again gotta highlight a couple interconnected posts, these anniversary reflections…

13)   November 14-15: Anniversary Acknowledgments: And these anniversary, heartfelt thanks!

14)   November 21-22: Laura E. Franey’s Guest Post on The Keepers: I do have to highlight this Guest Post as well, since they rarely line up so perfectly and thoughtfully with the whole week’s series as Laura’s great post did!

15)   November 27: Book Thanksgivings: Y’all: Having a book coming out is a chance to thank so many folks, and I hope you’ll read every post in this series. But if you read just one, make it the one dedicated to you!

16)   December 5-6: AIDS and COVID: I could have written many more posts about COVID than I did, and I think that was the right call. But this series concluder made sense, and helped me think through some historical contexts and contrasts.

17)   December 19-20: Crowd-sourced Fall 2020 Reflections: I value all my semester reflections, and I hope you’ll check them out. But this was a year for community and solidarity, so here’s a small expression of those more vital than ever goals.

18)   December 26-27: AmericanWishing: My Sons: Do I really need to say any more than that title?

19)   December 28: Year in Review: Race, Memory, and Justice: 2021 has shaped up to be even more defined by those themes as 2020 was.

20)   January 4: Hope-full Texts: “A Long December”: Not sure I ever would have predicted that I’d get to write about my favorite Counting Crows song in this space. Very glad I was wrong!

21)   January 17: Emily Hamilton-Honey’s Hope-full Guest Post: I think this is a first for the blog—an online friend and fellow AmericanStudier read a series and crowd-sourced post and had so many thoughts that it turned into a Guest Post!

22)   January 21: MLK Histories: Where Do We Go from Here?: We all have a lot more to learn about and from MLK; for me, this final book of his was a striking case in point.

23)   February 6-7: Sports in 2021: Revolutionary Change: I think it’s fair to say sports have and haven’t lived up to this potential over the last six months—but there’s still time!

24)   February 13-14: Short Stories I Love: Ilene Railton’s Stories: If you thought I wouldn’t share this Valentine’s series post, well, you were sorely mistaken.

25)   February 20-21: Crowd-sourced Non-Favorites: The annual crowd-sourced airing of grievances didn’t disappoint!

26)   February 27-28: Adam Golub’s Guest Post on Creativity and American Studies: Adam was one of my first online AMST colleagues (and Twitter follows), and it was a joy to finally get to share a bit of his work in this Guest Post.

27)   March 8: Spring Break Films: Spring Break: Like most universities, we didn’t get a Spring Break this year—but I took us all down to sunnier climes through this fun series, starting with this (rightfully) forgotten 80s film.

28)   March 13-14: Of Thee I Sing Update!: Of Thee I Sing was published on March 15, so I kicked off a series on its central concepts and my book talk plans with this special post (I hope you’ll check out the whole series, as well as this page with talks, podcasts, etc.!).

29)   March 29: Key & Peele Studying: Negrotown: Dedicating my annual April Fool’s series to my favorite sketch comedy duo was a very good and very fun idea.

30)   April 6: NeMLA Recaps: Grace Sanders Johnson’s Talk: I enjoyed everything about this year’s virtual NeMLA conference, and hope you’ll check out the whole recaps series—but Grace’s talk was one of the most inspiring I’ve ever heard.

31)   April 21: RadioStudying: Alan Freed: If you’re like me, you know the name Alan Freed largely if not solely through the payola scandal. Suffice to say, there’s a lot more to the man and his legacies than that!

32)   April 24-25: Kate Jewell’s Guest Post: A Love Letter to College Radio: I’ve team-taught numerous AmericanStudies with Kate, which means I was super excited to finally feature a Guest Post from her and just as excited to share it with you again here!

33)   May 8-9: Victoria Scavo’s Guest Post on Gender Roles in Italian American Culture & Literature: Fine, maybe I am gonna share most of the year’s Guest Posts. They’re just all unique and meaningful—like this one, from an undergraduate student of my friend and her fellow Guest Poster Robin Field!

34)   May 10: Spring 2021 Moments: Jericho Brown and the Power of Poetry: This Spring was the toughest semester of my teaching career, but even amidst all that there were moments of grace and inspiration. This one really stood out.

35)   May 18: Small Axe and America: Remembering Reggae: It was fun thinking about how to apply Steve McQueen’s wonderful film series about West Indian English communities to AmericanStudying. This was my favorite in the series.

36)   May 29-30: Sarah Satkowsi’s Guest Post on T.C. Boyle: You knew I couldn’t share one Guest Post from a student of Robin Field’s and not the other!

37)   June 5-6: A Memorial Day Tribute: War and patriotism are two topics it’s easy to caricature—but both, individually and especially together, can and should be commemorated, just not in the ways we far too often have and do.

38)   June 11: Basketball Stories: WNBA Stars: The ad campaign for the new WNBA season was about how we should all be ashamed we haven’t been watching. Not sure about it as a marketing strategy, but, well, it’s damn accurate.

39)   June 14: American Whistleblowers: Daniel Ellsberg: For the 50^th anniversary of the Pentagon Papers, this post got Twitter engagement from none other than Ellsberg himself!

40)   June 28: Talking Of Thee I Sing: GCE Lab School: It’s been a great Spring of book talks and conversations about my new book, and I’d love for you to check out this whole series and then suggest some more such opportunities, please!

41)   July 10-11: Pop Culture Workers: Another very fun post to plan and write, from John Sayles to Hustlers and a lot of work and works in between.

42)   July 20: Expanding Histories: United States v. Burr: I’ve long professed my love for Burr, so this was a tough but important look at the seedier sides of US history to which he so fully connects.

43)   July 26-August 1: AmericanStudiers to Highlight: Gonna cheat and make this whole series one highlight, as you should really check out all these great folks & voices (including Hettie Williams’ Guest Post on the weekend, natch)!

44)   August 2: AmericanStudies Websites: Steve Railton’s Trio: I could say the same about all the websites in this series; but I can’t help but single out this filial focus.

Newest birthday post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. You know what to do!