[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!]
Thirty-seven
favorites from the 2013-2014 year on the blog!
1)
August 23:
Still Studying: Known Unknowns: A series on things I’m still
learning concludes with a post on three recent takeaways from that 21st
century resource, Twitter.
2)
August 30:
Fall Forward: Three Years: In honor of the blog’s upcoming third
anniversary, three of my favorite memories from those first three years.
3)
September
13: Newport Stories: To Preserve or Not to Preserve: A series
on stories and histories surrounding The Breakers wonders whether and how we
should preserve such historic homes.
4)
September
17: Gloucester Stories: The Sense of the Past: As part of a series on the
Massachusetts fishing town, why it’s so important to better remember that
community.
5)
September
25: Justice Is Not Color Blind: Duke: The most complex post in my series
on race and justice in America, on expectations, realities, and the role of
public scholars.
6)
October
14: John Sayles’ America: Secaucus and the 60s: A series
AmericanStudying my favorite filmmaker starts with the movie that echoes but
also challenges our narratives of a turbulent decade.
7)
October
21: Book Talk Thoughts: MOCA: With my year of book talks underway, a post
on the inspiringly pitch-perfect New York museum that helped inaugurate those
talks.
8)
October
28: Symbolic Scares: The Wendigo: A Halloween series starts with the
supernatural legend that offers cultural and cross-cultural commentaries.
9)
November
7: Berkshire Stories: The Housatonic: Three complex and compelling sides
to a New England river, part of a series on histories from this beautiful
Western Mass. Region.
10)
November
12: Veteran’s Week: Band of Brothers: As part of a Veteran’s Day series,
nostalgia and nuance in one of our best recent depictions of war.
11)
November
19: Times Like These: 1935: The debates over Social Security and how they
do and don’t echo our own divided moment.
12)
November
29: Giving Thanks: Future AmericanStudiers: A Thanksgiving series concludes with
an inspiring moment where past and future were in conversation.
13)
December
20: Representing Slavery: 12 Years a Slave: A series on cultural images of
slavery concludes with two takes on the wonderful recent film, my own…
14)
December
21-22: Representing Slavery: Joe Moser’s Guest Post: And that
of my friend and colleague (and Irish film expert) Joe Moser!
15)
December
24: AmericanStudies Wishes: Reform Now!: My annual series of wishes for the
AmericanStudies Elves included this post on the very American reasons why we
need immigration reform.
16)
January
4-5: Ani DiFranco and Slavery: A special addition to a year-in-review
series, on a couple historical contexts for a very current controversy.
17)
January
23: Civil Rights Histories: George Wallace: Why we shouldn’t judge a lifetime by
its worst moments, but why we do have to focus on them nonetheless.
18)
January
27: Football Focalizes: Concussions and Hypocrisy: A Super
Bowl series opens with the gap between what we know and what we do, in football
as in history.
19)
February
7: House Histories: Our Own Broad Daylight: A series on the House of the Seven
Gables concludes with a post on the literary and communal presences of the
past.
20)
February
11: I Love Du Bois to His Daughter: My Valentine’s Day series included
this tribute to an amazing letter from my American idol to his teenage
daughter.
21)
February
17: YA Lit: Little House on the Prairie: What we can and can’t learn about
history from young adult lit kicks off a chapter-book-inspired series.
22)
March 8-9:
Crowd-sourced Non-Favorites: One of my most epic crowd-sourced posts ever
rounded out a series on American things that don’t quite do it for us.
23)
March 21:
Cville Stories: 21st Century Tensions:
Nostalgia, fear, and the current divisions that threaten communities like
Charlottesville and America.
24)
March 27:
Caribbean Connections: Bob Marley: On whether it’s entirely possible
for an artist to cross cultural borders, and why the crossing matters in any
case.
25)
April 2:
Baseball Stories: Field of Dreams and The Brothers K: My
Opening Day series included this post on divisive decades and histories, and
whether baseball can bring us together.
26)
April 16:
Animated History: The Princess and the Frog: On race, representation, and seeing
ourselves and our histories on screen.
27)
April 28:
Reading New England Women: Catharine Maria Sedgwick: A series
on 19th century New England women kicks off with a funny, telling
story that was way ahead of its time.
28)
May 7:
NeMLA Follow Ups: Roundtable on Contingent Faculty: Three
meaningful ways we can move forward with a crucial issue.
29)
May 12:
Spring 2014 Recaps: 21st Century Writing: A
semester recap series starts with three wonderful student papers from my
Writing II course.
30)
May 22:
AmericanStudying Harvard Movies: Love Story: On the enduring appeal of fantasies,
romantic and communal, and what it means to share them with future generations.
31)
June
14-15: War Stories: Board Games: A D-Day series concludes with a special
post on three board games from which I learned a good deal about histories of
war.
32)
June 17:
AmericanStudying Summer Jams: Summertime Blues: The
summer song that gave multi-layered voice to the experience of youth.
33)
June 24:
AmericanStudier Camp: Hello Muddah: As part of a summer camp series, the
novelty song with an extended, very American afterlife.
34)
July 14:
American Beaches: Revere Beach: A beach series kicks off with three
telling stages of one of our most historic beaches.
35)
July 22:
American Autobiographers: Olaudah Equiano: The controversial personal narrative
that should be required reading whatever its genre.
36)
August 1:
Uncles and Aunts: Uncle Elephant: A series inspired by my sister’s
birthday concludes with the children’s book that’s as sad and as joyous as life
itself.
37)
August 5:
Virginia Voices: Thomas Nelson Page: For my latest return to VA, I
highlighted interesting Virginia authors, including the question of whether and
why we should read this once-popular writer at all.
Next
birthday best post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. You
know what to do!
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