[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!]
In honor
of my 38th birthday, 38 favorite posts from 2014-2015 on the blog!
1)
August 18:
Films for the Dog Days: Dog Day Afternoon: A part of a sweltering summer
series, I analyzed the gritty crime drama that’s sneakily subversive.
2)
September
5: Fall Forward: A New Teaching Challenge: My Fall 2014 semester included a
brand new course on a brand new (to me) topic, and that was a very good thing.
3)
September
11: More Cville Stories: Fry’s Spring: Four exemplary stages to the Virginia
hotspot where I spent many a summer’s day.
4)
September
15: Country Music and Society: Gender and Identity: On
Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, and gender-bending in one of our most traditional
cultural genres.
5)
September
23: Women and War: Rosie the Riveter: Two ways to complicate and enrich
our collective memories of an enduring American icon.
6)
October 8:
AmericanStudying Appalachia: Murfree’s Mountains: An
AppalachianStudying series gave me a chance to write about one of our most
complex and talented authors.
7)
October
25-26: De Lange Follow Ups: My Fellow Tweeters: My whole
experience as a Social Media Fellow at the De Lange Conference was amazing, and
I’d love for you to check out the weeklong series of follow ups. But I can’t
not focus on my amazing fellow Fellows!
8)
October
29: AmericanSpooking: The Birds and Psycho: For my annual Halloween series, I
considered defamiliarization, horror, and prejudice.
9)
November
7: Exemplary Elections: 1994: My election week series ended with this
highly influential recent election—and with this Lawyers,
Guns, and Money post discussing and greatly amplifying my own
thoughts.
10)
November
14: Veterans Days: Miyoko Hikiji: The veteran and book that help
broaden and enrich our concept of American veterans—and now she’s
running for the Iowa State Senate!
11)
November
28: 21st Century Thanks: E-Colleagues: A
Thanksgiving series concludes with five colleagues I haven’t had the chance to
meet in person, yet!
12)
December
3: AmericanWinters: The Blizzard of 78: Two AmericanStudies contexts for an
epic winter storm (which little did I know in December we’d end up surpassing
in terms of total Boston snowfall in one winter!).
13)
December
13-14: Andrea Grenadier’s Guest Post on Charles Ives: Another
great year for Guest Posts, including this gem from Andrea on a difficult and
important composer.
14)
December
24: AmericanWishing: Chesnutt’s “Wife”: Charles Dickens, one of my favorite
American short stories, and holiday introspection were on my wish list this
year.
15)
December
31: End of Year Stories: The Immigration Debate: Two
online pieces of mine that have contributed to an ongoing political and
American debate.
16)
January 6:
Waltham Histories: The Waverly Trail: Three profoundly American moments in
the history of a beautiful natural wonder.
17)
January
20: MLK Stories: Selma: What’s important and inspiring, and what’s a
bit more problematic, about the wonderful recent film.
18)
January
26: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: Bad News Bears and Boys: A Super
Bowl series starts with our obsession with lovable losers.
19)
February
2: American Conspiracy Theories: Roswell: Historical and cultural contexts for
one of our craziest American conspiracy theories.
20)
February
20: American Studying Non-Favorites: Low Five: Five historical figures with whom I
have a bone—or a whole skeleton—to pick!
21)
February
26: Western Mass. Histories: The Bridge of Flowers: Three
evocative stages of a unique Massachusetts landmark.
22)
March 2:
Forgotten Wars: The Second Barbary War: The anniversary of a forgotten Early
Republic conflict inspired this post and series on wars we should better
remember.
23)
March
14-15: All That Crowd-sourced Jazz: Crowd-sourcing at its finest, with
fellow AmericanStudiers adding wonderful nominations to my week’s series on
jazz.
24)
March 24:
American Epidemics: The Measles: An all-too-timely post, on three stages
in the history of a frustratingly persistent disease.
25)
April 2:
April Fools: Minstrel Shows: What we do with comic art that’s just not
funny any more.
26)
April 6:
Baseball Lives: Hank Greenberg: Why we should remember one of our
greatest Jewish American athletes—and an inspiring icon.
27)
April
18-19: Crowd-sourced Reading List: Another great crowd-sourced post,
this one on nominations for an AmericanStudies reading list.
28)
April 27:
Communist Culture: “The Palace-Burner”: What one of my favorite American
poems can teach us about difference, empathy, and identity.
29)
May 11:
Semester Conclusions: I Can’t Breathe: Remembering one of my most radical
classroom moments, and why it wasn’t.
30)
May 19:
BlockbusterStudying II: Ghostbusters: Science, the supernatural, and Weird
Tales in one of our funnier and more original summer blockbusters.
31)
May 26:
Decoration Day Histories: Frederick Douglass: As part of a series on Memorial
Day’s origins, I highlighted Douglass’s amazing 1871 Decoration Day speech.
32)
June 2:
Mount Auburn Connections: Blanche Linden: Three inspiring sides to a hugely
influential AmericanStudier, scholar, and teacher.
33)
June 12:
North Carolina Stories: Moral Mondays: Two historical parallels for the
crucial contemporary protests and activism.
34)
June 19:
AmericanStudies Beach Reads: A Tragic, Compelling Life: Why we
should get serious at the beach, and the perfect book to help us do so.
35)
June 26:
Gordon Parks and America: Portrait Photos and the Past: A series
inspired by a wonderful (and ongoing) MFA exhibit concludes with some thoughts
on what portraits can’t teach us about the past, and what they can.
36)
July 1:
The 4th in Focus: Fireworks: The history, symbolism, and
limitations of an American holiday tradition.
37)
July
11-12: Samuel Southworth’s Guest Post: In Honor of the 150th
Anniversary of the US Secret Service: In my most recent Guest Post, Sam
considers the organization’s history, role, and importance, with a fascinating
foonote in comments to boot.
38)
July 20:
Billboard #1s: “I’ll Never Smile Again”: A series on Billboard hits starts
with what’s hugely different about 1940’s #1 hit, and what’s not so different
at all.
Next
birthday best post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. You
know what to do!
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