Monday, November 6, 2023

November 6, 2023: 13 Years (!) of AmericanStudying: 2010 Origins

[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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