[On August 15th,
this AmericanStudier enters the last year of his 30s. So this week I’ll be
sharing posts of birthday favorites for each of the blog’s prior years, leading
up to a new birthday best list for 2015-2016. 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!]
37 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 list
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. You know what
to do!
No comments:
Post a Comment