[On August 15th, this AmericanStudier celebrates his 47th 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 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!]
For my 36th birthday I highlighted 36 of my favorite posts from
the blog’s third year:
1)
Bad
Memories, Part Four: As part of a series on how we could better
remember our darkest histories, I considered memoir, photography, and fiction
of the Japanese Internment.
2)
Crowd-Sourcing
Bad Memories: Perhaps my favorite of the crowd-sourced posts to date, as many
fellow AmericanStudiers weighed in on the week’s theme.
3)
Books That
Shaped AmericanStudier, Childhood: I began a series on books that have
hugely impacted me with one of my first favorites, the Hardy Boys series.
4)
Isabella
Stewart Gardner: A Gardner Museum-inspired series began with a post on Gardner
herself, one of my favorite Americans.
5)
John
Singer Sargent: Posts on Gardner and Sargent go together as perfectly as, well,
Gardner and Sargent did!
6)
Augustus
Saint-Gaudens: Any post that allows me to write more about the greatest
American sculptor, and one of the most inspiring Americans period, is well
worth sharing again.
7-11) The five posts in this
series on American
hope remain perhaps my most definitive
statements of the complexities,
contexts, and crucial importance of this elusive emotion.
12) Up in the
Air, Part Five: Summer camps, childhood memories, and nostalgia—one of my more
universal and, I believe, broadly relevant posts.
13) Ezra Jack
Keats: This post, in a series on children’s books, expressed the
importance of this pioneering author—and was linked to by the Keats Foundation!
14-18) Another
series in which I need to
highlight all five posts—this has
been the longest and hardest year of my life, and writing these
posts on how Americans
have responded to adversity helped me get through it.
19) American
Spooking, Part 3: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Grant Wood, and American Horror Story help me think
about whether America can have homegrown horror, and where we might find it.
20) Extra
Thanks: A Thanksgiving series concludes with a few reflections on one of
my most unexpected and inspiring moments of the year.
21) American
Winter, Part Four: The very different but equally American
perspectives at the heart of two winter classics.
22) AmericanStudying
the Pacific, Part Four: On the limitations and lessons of a
childhood spent building models.
23) Lincoln,
Culture, and History: Some of my thoughts on Steven Spielberg’s
popular and important historical film (with this
additional post after I saw it!).
24) Making My
List (Again), Part Five: A series of wishes for the AmericanStudies
Elves ends with the educational experience I wish all children could have.
25) AmericanStudying
Our Biggest Issues: Climate Change: As I’ve shifted more fully to an
emphasis on public scholarship, I’ve worked hard to find ways to connect my
subjects to contemporary concerns—and this post exemplifies that goal.
26) American
Homes, Part Four: The American narratives inside (perhaps deep
inside) one of our silliest films.
27) Remembering
Wheatley and Washington: A Black History Month series on
conversations begins with the time the poet met the (future) president.
28) I Love
Three Pages in Ceremony: I’ve always wanted to write about my single
favorite moment in American fiction. Here I did!
29) Popular
Fiction: Christian Novels: It’s always fun to write (and so learn)
about subjects I myself know too little about, and this post definitely
qualifies.
30) Supreme
Contexts: Santa Clara County and Revision: Few Supreme Court decisions are as
relevant to our contemporary moment, and thus worth remembering, as this one.
31) Spring in
America: Children’s Stories: Two pioneering children’s classics that
captures two opposing sides to a new season.
32) Baseball
in America: The Black Sox: This whole baseball series was fun to
research and write, so I’ll just highlight one of its posts (yes, the one that
includes John Sayles!).
33) Comic Book
Heroes: Wonder Woman: Ditto for this comic book series, but this
post was the one for which I learned the most and had my eyes opened most
completely.
34) Roopika
Risam’s Guest Post: I could include any and all guest posts in
this list—but Roopika’s was certainly a wonderful addition to the blog.
35) American
Swims: Cheever’s Swimmer: Part of the fun of this blog is sharing
American texts that I think we should all read, and Cheever’s short story is a
great example.
36) Book
Release Reflections, Part Four: I have to end the list with one of
the things I’m most excited about in
the year to come (and I now have at least 20 talks definitely coming up!).
Next
birthday best post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. You
know what to do!
No comments:
Post a Comment