[This week AmericanStudier celebrates its 13th anniversary! For this year’s anniversary series, I wanted to highlight a handful of key moments and pieces in my development as an online public scholar, leading up to a special weekend tribute to some key influences on that evolving career!]
For
technological reasons that I quite frankly do not remember at all (13 years is
a long time!), my introductory first blog post on W.E.B. Du Bois has sadly been
lost. But the first regular and full post, this one
from exactly 13 years ago on the Wilmington Massacre and The Marrow of Tradition, is still there.
A great deal has changed since that November 2010 origin point, both in my
knowledge and analyses of that day’s specific subjects and in my voice and
style as a public scholarly blogger (among many, many other things). But a lot
has stayed remarkably similar, from a seemingly small but crucial thing like
the three-paragraph structure (not present in special posts like this week’s
but still my default for almost all posts) to my huge overarching goals of
adding to our collective memories in both nuanced and engaging ways. I honestly
can’t remember a time when this blog wasn’t a central part of my writing and
work and career, and given all that it has meant and opened up on all those
levels—as the rest of the week’s posts will I hope illustrate—I also very much
don’t want to. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this has been my most
defining life’s work, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Next
anniversary reflections tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Online writing or work of yours I can highlight and share?
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