Sunday, August 18, 2024

August 18, 2024: Birthday Bests: 2023-2024

[On August 15th, this AmericanStudier celebrated his 47th birthday. So as I do each year, I’ve featured a series sharing some of my favorite posts from each year on the blog, leading up to this new post with 47 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, 47 favorite posts from my 14th year of AmericanStudying:

1)      August 28: Contextualizing the March on Washington: 1941 Origins: I love finding and sharing forgotten sides to familiar histories, and this whole anniversary series qualified.

2)      September 8: Fall Semester Previews: Departmental Program Review: Being part of Program Reviews is one of the hardest but most rewarding elements of my job, and I highlighted this year’s in one of my Fall preview posts.

3)      September 15: AmericanStudying The Rising: “My City of Ruins” and “Superman (It’s Not Easy)”: I love revisiting one of my favorite Springsteen albums, building to this particularly complex post.

4)      September 23-24: AmericanStudying the Panic of 1873: 2023 Connections: History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.

5)      October 4: LGBT Histories: 1950s Discriminations: Finding light in our darkest histories is an incredibly difficult but important goal, and I hope I modeled it here.

6)      October 11: Vice President Studying: Henry Wilson’s Book: We’ve thought a lot about VPs recently; I’m a big Walz fan, but I don’t think any will ever equal what Henry Wilson did in the same year he was nominated.

7)      October 19: Basketball Stories: The Harlem Globetrotters: I don’t generally link to my Saturday Evening Post Considering History columns here, but I’m always glad when it makes sense to share that other online writing!

8)      October 23: New Scholarly Books: A Seat at the Table: Every book in this series is well worth your time, but I was especially glad to share this one co-edited by my frequent Guest Poster Hettie Williams.

9)      November 3: Contested Elections: 2000: There are lots of origin points for our own moment, but none looms larger than the 2000 election.

10)   November 11-12: Kyle Lockwood’s Guest Post: Exploration and the Human Spirit: I’ll always include Guest Posts in these recaps, but doubly so when they’re from FSU students!

11)   November 14: AmericanStudying the Blues: Robert Johnson: Quite simply one of my favorite posts of the year.

12)   November 18-19: Sandra Hamilton’s Guest Post on the Blues in American Culture: My cup runneth over with Guest Posts from FSU students this month!

13)   November 20: Thankful for Scholarly Communities: Fitchburg State: Speaking of the community at which I’ll be starting my 20th year in September.

14)   November 25-26: My Biggest Thanks-giving: But no community is more meaningful than the intimate one my sons and I have built for the last 18.5 years.

15)   December 1: Gun Control Histories: Jim Jefferies: Getting to write about favorite texts is a perk of this gig, and Jim Jefferies’ stand-up special is a great example.

16)   December 9-10: Crowd-sourced Board Game Studying: I don’t get to share as many Crowd-sourced Posts as I used to, but I always love the chance!

17)   December 14: Boston Tea Party Studying: The Peggy Stewart: Did you know there was a second Tea Party in October 1774? Me neither!

18)   December 16-17: A Tribute to BostonStudiers: Really enjoyed paying tribute to a handful of the many folks from whom I’ve learned about my home city.

19)   December 23-24: Hamza Suleiman’s Guest Post on Mohja Kahf: My friend Robin Field has shared a great deal of student work for Guest Posts, with this as the latest example.

20)   December 29: Christmas Stories: A Christmas Carol: Another favorite text, and thus another extremely fun blog post.

21)   January 2: 2024 Anniversaries: The First Continental Congress in 1774: I learn so much from my New Year’s anniversary series, including this one on forgotten 1774 delegates.

22)   January 12: AmericanStudying Columbia Pictures: Matt Helm and Casino Royale: Columbia Studios missing out on James Bond led to some very interesting creative choices.

23)   January 13-14: Vaughn Joy’s Hollywood Histories: Loved the chance to pay tribute to one of our very best up-and-coming Film and AmericanStudiers.

24)   January 20-21: Ava DePasquale’s Guest Post on Grey Dog: And to share a third FSU student Guest Post!

25)   January 26: AmericanStudying Groundbreaking Women: Shirley Chisholm: I had no idea Kamala would be our nominee when I included this post on Chisholm’s campaigns, but I love the connection.

26)   January 29: Quirky American Traditions: Pumpkin Chunkin: Sometimes it’s just fun to research and write these posts.

27)   February 10-11: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: My Pitch!: My current project has evolved into a podcast (for more on which watch this space), but we can all agree it would also work great as a sports film, no?

28)   February 17-18: AmericanStudying Love Songs: Five New Classics: Love was in the air for me all year, and on the blog this week in particular.

29)   February 24-25: Biden and Anti-Immigrant Narratives: Everybody can stand to learn more about our history, including politicians I support.

30)   March 7: National Park Studying: Mesa Verde: Some childhood moments really define our interests and lives. This was one of mine.

31)   March 13: NeMLA Reflections: My Panel on Nostalgia & the 50s: I’ve had so many great experiences at NeMLA conferences, but this was at the top of the list.

32)   March 20: American Magic: Orson Welles: One of the most surprising posts I’ve ever had the chance to share.

33)   March 25: What is Game Show Studying?: 30s and 40s Origins: Another one for which I learned so much, and from which I hope you will too.

34)   April 6-7: Emily Lauer on Comics Analysis & Editing as Public-Facing Scholarship: Another great post from my most frequent Guest Poster.

35)   April 11: I Am AmericanStudying Sidney Poitier: Two 1967 Classics: Has there ever been a better pair of films from one actor in the same year?

36)   April 20-21: Mythic Patriotisms in 2024: Nothing is more central to this year’s presidential campaign than debates over patriotism, a subject on which I know a little bit.

37)   April 26: Climate Culture: Climate Songs: Really loved the chance to highlight Midnight Oil’s last album among other great climate music.

38)   May 11-12: Beach Blogging: Guest Posts from Elsa Devienne and Jamie Hirami: Don’t think I had ever featured two Guest Posts in the same post before!

39)   May 17: Spring 2024 Stand-Outs: Special Guests!: My three favorite people visited my classes this Spring!

40)   May 21: Criminal Duos: Leopold & Loeb: Historic anniversaries have driven much of this blog for its last decade, and this was a particularly interesting one to investigate.

41)   June 4: The Indian Citizenship Act: Joseph K. Dixon and Rodman Wanamaker: On the Act’s 100th anniversary, remembering the pair of complex white dudes who were instrumental in its journey.

42)   June 15-16: Ocean State Histories: Further Reading: I don’t do bibliographic posts as often as I should, and this one was a very fun one.

43)   June 22-23: Kyle Railton’s Guest Post on the Simpson Trial: I’ve had the chance to share Guest Posts from both of my sons now, and man do I love that.

44)   June 24: WesternStudying: Hopalong Cassidy: Come for the first licensed image on a children’s lunch box, stay for a vital cultural history.

45)   July 6-7: Critical Patriotism in 2024: A vital complement to the earliest post on mythic patriotism in 2024.

46)   July 19: ElvisStudying: First and Last: I haven’t always done Elvis Presley justice in this space, so this whole series felt like a nice addition to the conversation.

47)   July 31: Martin Sheen Studying: Estévez Legacies: And I’ll end with one of the most fun series I got to write all year!

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. You know what to do!

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