Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 149

January 13, 2021: Of Thee I Sing: Active Patriotism

[This release date for my new book, Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism, has been pushed back a bit, but I don't know there's ever been a more important moment to talk about patriotism. So this week I’ll use portions of the book’s Introduction to briefly highlight each of my four categories of American patriotism, leading up to a special post on my goals for the project over the next couple months—and how you all can help!]

Here are two spots in the intro where I define my third category, active patriotism (the first of two that I offer as an alternative to celebratory and mythic patriotisms):

1)      “Another element that both celebratory and mythic patriotisms share is that they often present patriotism as fundamentally passive, a participation in national community largely defined by acceptance and repetition of existing rituals and myths. On the other hand, one of American culture’s most hotly debated recent events, NFL player Colin Kaepernick’s controversial national anthem protests, have modeled a more active form of patriotism. Kaepernick’s detractors have presented his actions as unpatriotic, as nothing short of attacks on American soldiers, the flag, and the nation itself; as fellow quarterback Drew Brees put it in a May 2020 interview, “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States.” Yet as illustrated by his decision to kneel rather than sit during the anthem after consulting former NFL player and Green Beret Nate Boyer over what action would be more respectful, Kaepernick clearly perceives his protest as a patriotic tribute to American ideals. But that tribute also embodies a form of activism, as this more active form of patriotism uses and challenges a communal moment of celebration like the anthem to advance an argument about how the nation both has fallen short of and needs to move closer to its ideals. As Kaepernick puts it, “To me this is something that has to change and when there’s significant change and I feel like that flag represents what it’s supposed to represent in this country, is representing the way that it’s supposed to, I’ll stand.””

2)      “Both celebratory and mythic patriotisms often foreground passive participation in shared communal rituals. In contrast, American history features many examples of a more active patriotic expression of commitment to and love of country, and Bates’ third verse highlights a prominent such example: the service and sacrifice of Union soldiers during the Civil War. “O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife,” she writes, “who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life!” Military service comprises one clear and consistent form of active patriotism, but American history provides examples of many others, from social activism and protest to political engagement, journalism and cultural commentary to the creation of literary and artistic works. Like the best versions of celebratory patriotism, active patriotism represents an inclusive form in which all Americans can potentially take part, a communal vision of service through which all Americans can embody and extend our shared national identity and ideals.”

Last patriotic category tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Examples of active patriotism you’d share?

January 12, 2021: Of Thee I Sing: Mythic Patriotism

[This release date for my new book, Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism, has been pushed back a bit, but I don't know there's ever been a more important moment to talk about patriotism. So this week I’ll use portions of the book’s Introduction to briefly highlight each of my four categories of American patriotism, leading up to a special post on my goals for the project over the next couple months—and how you all can help!]

Here are two spots in the intro where I define my second category, mythic patriotism (which, as I wrote in this History News Network column, is far too often used to exclude American histories and communities from our vision of the concept and the nation):

1)      “The U.S. doesn’t simply exist for celebration in the present moment, though—it has developed over centuries of complex history, much of which might seem difficult to celebrate. So a second, interconnected form of patriotism is the construction of mythologized narratives of the past, ones that allow for a concurrent embrace of the historical United States but that do so by excluding certain aspects of, and too often communities from, our history. 2020 has featured a striking example of this exclusionary mythologizing patriotism (which I’ll call mythic patriotism for short) in The Federalist magazine’s 1620 Project, a response to the New York Times magazine’s 1619 Project that seeks to commemorate “the anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth Rock.” Given that Plymouth Rock itself is a myth, one constructed more than a century after the Mayflower reached the New England coast, that framing concisely illustrates how mythic patriotism imagines national histories which can then be celebrated as idealized American origin points and legacies—but which also require the exclusion and even the erasure of other histories and communities, such as the native cultures that were already present when the Pilgrims arrived.”

2)      “Yet the idealized side to such celebratory patriotism can easily slip into propaganda, and too often our communal celebrations have been linked to the second, mythic form of patriotism. Bates’ second verse illustrates such mythic patriotism, particularly through her image of “pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress/A thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness!” While this myth does highlight certain aspects of what the Puritan arrivals brought to and experienced in America, it does so both by simplifying that community’s own histories and by entirely excluding the histories of Native American cultures in New England and beyond; that exclusion was particularly ironic in the late 19th century Western United States, the time and place where Bates first composed the lyrics just a year before the Wounded Knee massacre. Idealizing a particular American history and community at the expense of others creates an exclusionary vision of the nation that makes it much harder for all Americans to share in this form of patriotism, making mythic patriotism far more divisive and even destructive than other celebratory forms.”

Next patriotic category tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Examples of mythic patriotism you’d share?

January 11, 2021: Of Thee I Sing: Celebratory Patriotism

[This release date for my new book, Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism, has been pushed back a bit, but I don't know there's ever been a more important moment to talk about patriotism. So this week I’ll use portions of the book’s Introduction to briefly highlight each of my four categories of American patriotism, leading up to a special post on my goals for the project over the next couple months—and how you all can help!]

Here are two spots in the intro where I define my first category, celebratory patriotism (which is I believe what we most often mean when we use the term, although it too often slips into the more exclusionary second category about which I’ll write tomorrow):

1)      “What underlies such attacks on Vindman’s truth-telling as unpatriotic is a definition of patriotism that equates it with a celebration of the nation. Summed up by phrases like “my country, right or wrong” and “America: love it or leave it,” this celebratory form of patriotism suggests that anything other than a full embrace of the nation, a vision of America as “the greatest country in the world,” is unpatriotic. That celebratory patriotism is embodied in shared communal rituals: the singing of the national anthem with hat in hand and hand on heart; the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance by schoolchildren at the start of each day; the closing of speeches with “God bless the United States of America.” Out of such everyday rituals, scholar Michael Billig argues in his book Banal Nationalism (1995), a sense of national belonging and community is constructed. Those rituals and that community are at least potentially inclusive, able to be shared by all Americans, but in this form of patriotism they do require from their participants an endorsement of the celebratory vision of the nation.”

2)      “Each of my four focal forms of patriotism can also be found in one of the four verses of Wellesley College English Professor Katharine Lee Bates’ iconic lyrics for one of our most prominent national cultural works: “America the Beautiful.” The song’s most famous first verse, often the only one performed, illustrates an overtly celebratory embrace of America’s beauties: “spacious skies,” “amber waves of grain,” “purple mountain majesties,” “the fruited plain.” Originally written as Bates traveled the United States by train in the early 1890s, these celebratory descriptions are based on actual elements of the landscape such as Colorado’s Pike Peak, but are given heightened, idealized form through her poetic images and perspective. And like most examples of American celebratory patriotism, this one is potentially inclusive, able to be shared by all who are part of and appreciate this beautiful place.”

Next patriotic category tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Examples of celebratory patriotism you’d share?

January 9-10, 2021: Crowd-sourced Hope

[If there’s one thing I think we all need as we begin this new year, it’s hope. So this week, I’ve AmericanStudied a handful of cultural works which offer stories and images of that vital emotion, leading up to this crowd-sourced post featuring the responses and suggestions of fellow American Studiers—add yours in comments, please!]

To start us off, here’s Sabrina Marie sharing sentiments with which I very much agree: “We need a lot of hope and encouragement right now in this world. Your requests this week could not be more perfectly timed.”

 

In response to Monday’s post, musical hope:

The good folks at Pedagogy & American Literary Studies share that they play this “whole damn thing on repeat for hours.”

Bob Beatty tweets, “‘Dreams’ by the Allman Brothers Band immediately comes to mind. The lyrics are evocative, the band’s playing sympathetic to the emotion but never maudlin, and Duane Allman’s guitar solo (both fretted and slide) shows a path to redemption, beautifully in tune with the last verse.” He adds, “As a cultural work, I've drawn a lot of inspiration the past few months from the Avett Brothers’ the Gleam III.”

T.S. Flynnshares Ry Cooder’s “I Think It’s Going to Work Out Fine.”

Matthew Teutsch nominates “This one from mewithoutYou, ‘Allah, Allah, Allah.’”

Sabrina Marie highlights “Moving On” by Blue October.

Andrew DaSilva makes a whole playlist: “Glenn Miller's ‘In The Mood,’ ‘The Night I Fell in Love’ by the Pet Shop Boys, Bruce Springsteen's ‘Streets of Philadelphia,’ Puccini's Madam Butterfly, in particular ‘Ancora un passo,’ ‘Home from the Sea’ performed by Liam Clancy, ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ performed by Judy Garland, ‘Don't Rain on my Parade’ performed by Barbra Streisand, ‘I Will Survive’ performed by Gloria Gaynor, ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ performed by Sam Cook, ‘Make Your Own Kind of Music’ performed by Mama Cass, ‘This Will Be Our Year’ by The Zombies, ‘If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out’ by Cat Stevens, ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ and ‘Blue Wonderful’ performed by Sir Elton John, ‘New World in the Morning’ performed by Roger Whittaker, ‘In the Land of Beginning Again’ performed by Bing Crosby, ‘The Boxer’ performed by Simon and Garfunkel, ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?’ performed by Roberta Flack, ‘Our House’ performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Then there are of course the many Roman Catholic hymns, such as ‘Salve Regina,’ ‘Stabat Mater,’ ‘Ave Maria,’ ‘Panis Angelicus,’ and ‘Ubi Caritas.’”

 

In response to Tuesday’s post, novels of hope:

Matt Gabriele highlights Station Eleven by Emily Mandel.

The folks at V21 Collective share New York 2140.

Sara Georgini nominates Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler.

Paul Daley shares “The Perks of Being a Wallflower. No book have I ever read where I related so much to the protagonist and felt inspired by his words.”

Andrew DaSilva shares a “Three-way tie between The Perks of Being a Wallflower, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, and Murphy's Boy by Torey Hayden.”

Robin Field highlights Diana Abu-Jaber’s Crescent, while Abu-Jaber herself checks in to share Olive Kitteridge.

Chris Phillips nominates “a book-length poem—Ross Gay’s Be Holding.”

Lara Schwartz shares Everything Matters! by Ron Currie Jr. She adds, “I'd try to write something to explain the choice but the book is so intimate, I feel like each person will find something different in it.”

Jesse Goldberggoes with N.K. Jemisin’s The Stone Sky, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (specifically Pilate), and Fred D'Aguiar’s Feeding the Ghosts.

@thecarie tweets Pynchon’s Inherent Vice.

Larry Rosenwald highlights “The Plague, actually. Sozaboy.”

Marcy Colalillo shares, “I just finished The Ministry of Utmost Happiness last night. What an amazing book! Not sure why I hadn't picked it up before. Anyway, I guess I would call it bittersweet and uplifting at the same time.”

Olivia Lucier nominates “To Kill a Mockingbird. I’m telling you the line ‘Hey Boo’ gets me every damn time.”

Jeff Renye highlights “Louis Sachar’s Holes. Novel in the YA category, and it’s been a while since I read it, but it’s a well-woven story that addresses racial prejudice, friendship, and hope.”

 

Katy Covino shares, “A Gentleman in Moscow—I've read this novel many, many times. Each time, I'm vastly comforted by the idea of the hero's rich life and deep impact on others. I think reading it now amplifies both the constraints of our current lives and also our clear ability (and our imperative) to treat each other well. Whether under house arrest or in quarantine, we can still try to make a positive difference in the world. We can still live lives of intelligence, dignity, and worth even if our circle and our reach is small.”

 

Amanda Lynn nominates Jane Eyre.

 

Nicole Bjorklund writes, “Oooh, any of Fredrik Backman's books. It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini. The Nightingaleby Kristin Hannah. And I just finished the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwabb last week and that could definitely fall in the ‘gives me hope’ category too.”

 

In response to Wednesday’s post, cinematic hope:

Connor Towne O’Neill nominates Arrival.

Anne Holub highlights Amelie!

Jeff Renye seconds me on Shawshank, and adds the Lord of the Rings Extended Editions.

Amanda Lynn highlights The Fountain.

Beth Locke Cunningham writes, “I always respond to Rudy.” Later she adds, “I thought of another ‘hope’ favorite, Stranger Than Fiction.”

Maria DiFrancesco nominates Shadowlands.

Glenna Matthews shares a list: “Duck Soup, Bringing Up Baby, Some Like It Hot, Help!, Legally Blonde, and Little Miss Sunshine.”

So does Craig Reid, writing, “Off the top of my head, I’d say: Boyhood, Do The Right Thing, Milk, and Good Will Hunting,” adding, “especially Boyhood.”

And so does Andrew DaSilva, highlighting “Star Wars (the 1st 6), the original Star Trek films, Of Gods and Men, The Great Beauty, The V.I.P.s, The Confessions (the Toni Servillo one), Léon Morin, Priest, The Razor's Edge, Silence, Elling, Hostiles, Simon Birch, Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Flawless (the Robert De Niro one not the Michael Caine one), Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, 1985, In the Heat of the Night, Wild Strawberries, and The Bells of Saint Mary’s.

 

In response to Thursday’s post, poetic hope:

Vicki Ziegler, founder of the wonderful #todayspoemhashtag, writes, “Anne Carson describes hope beautifully in Red Doc>(2013): "this / sensation of hope - like / glimpsing a lake through / trees or that first steep / velvet moment the opera / curtains part.”

Rob Velella writes, “Longfellow's ‘A Psalm of Life’ is one of the most complex poems he ever wrote. Also, Paul Laurence Dunbar’s ‘The Poet and His Song.’ I’m sure there are many others.”

Maura Bailey highlights Naomi Shihab-Nye’spoetry, including “Gate A-4.”

Laura Hartmann-Villalta shares Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones,” adding, “I love its acknowledgement of really huge problems that are enough to make a person weep with despair, BUT BUT there are good bones.”

 

In response to Friday’s post, examples of scholarly and pedagogical hope:

Josh Eyler seconds Radical Hope, and adds Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire, Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks.

Jeff Renye nominates “A person named Vincent Kling” (a nomination this AmericanStudier enthusiastically seconds). He also highlights “Daisaku Ikeda's talk on global citizenship.”

Matthew Teutsch shares, “I find Lillian Smith hopeful, not necessarily her novels, but her writing.” And Angie Maxwell agrees, “She’s my fave.” Matthew adds, “I have another book. Initially, I didn't think about Bitter Rootas a hopeful series, but talking with Chuck Brown totally changed my mind.”

Andrew DaSilva highlights “theologians to scholars such as Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, Dom Helder Camara, Fr. Ernesto Cardenal, Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez, Leonardo Boff, Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, Peter Singer, and Reinhold Niebuhr to name a few scholars or teachers who give one hope...”

Emily Hamilton-Honey writes, “There is a lot of American childhood history scholarship that gives me hope. So many new ways of finding unheard voices, new approaches to evidence and interdisciplinarity, etc.”

Shayne Simahk shares Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacyby Gholdy Muhammad.

 

And to conclude on a profoundly 2021 note, Rochelle Davis Gerber, a childhood friend and a frontline worker, highlights “The Beatles’ ‘Here Comes the Sun,’” adding, “We play it every time we discharge a COVID patient.”

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Texts or voices which help you find hope?

January 8, 2021: Hope-full Texts: Radical Hope

[If there’s one thing I think we all need as we begin this new year, it’s hope. So this week, I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of cultural works which offer stories and images of that vital emotion—share the texts or voices which give you hope for a hope-full crowd-sourced weekend post, please!]

On perhaps the best of the many things I’ve learned from inspiring fellow teachers like Kevin Gannon.

Gannon’s Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto (2020) was perhaps the single most inspiring text I read in 2020. That’s partly for its specific ideas and recommendations, such as the ungrading practices that I began employing in earnest in my Fall 2020 courses and plan to carry forward into my Spring 2021 ones. But it’s mostly because Gannon’s book and perspective really does live up to the title, making the case for how all of our practices—from individual classes to entire institutions to the overarching world of education—can be amplified, reshaped, and strengthened if we embrace the kinds of critical, thoughtful, impassioned hope and optimism about which I’ve written throughout this week’s posts. I’ve traced them through various literary and cultural genres, but Gannon’s book and work remind us that both public scholarly writing and pedagogical practices can and should likewise model the possibilities, potential, and power of radical hope.

Crowd-sourced post this weekend,

Ben

PS. So one more time: what do you think? Texts or voices which help you find hope?

January 7, 2021: Hope-full Texts: “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”

[If there’s one thing I think we all need as we begin this new year, it’s hope. So this week, I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of cultural works which offer stories and images of that vital emotion—share the texts or voices which give you hope for a hope-full crowd-sourced weekend post, please!]

Emily Dickinson’s “’Hope’ is the thing with feathers” (also known by its numerical titles, 314 or 254) is as complex and challenging as her poems always were. So I’m mostly going to outsource this post to a convincing explication of the poem and its themes of hope from a next-generation AmericanStudier who’s a lot smarter than me (which is the American Dream, natch). Between that reading and a great Dickinson presentation many years back from one of my best FSU students, Ariana Garcia, I’ve learned a great deal about Dickinson’s poem from such younger readers. Which, now that I think about it, is about the best source of hope I could imagine.

Last hope-full text tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Texts or voices which help you find hope?

January 6, 2021: Hope-full Texts: The Shawshank Redemption

[If there’s one thing I think we all need as we begin this new year, it’s hope. So this week, I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of cultural works which offer stories and images of that vital emotion—share the texts or voices which give you hope for a hope-full crowd-sourced weekend post, please!]

On what we can learn about hope from three key quotes in a film focused on that theme (SPOILERS, if you’re that one person who hasn’t seen Shawshank).

1)      “Hope is a dangerous thing, my friend, it can kill a man”: The film ends up disagreeing with this sentiment, as of course would I. But I think it’s important to recognize that not every story ends as happily as do Andy’s and Red’s, and that there are indeed times and ways when hope can be so naïve as to be counter-productive if not downright destructive. I’ve tried to learn a lot, for example, from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ critical pessimism, including his belief that the struggle is the point, even (perhaps especially) if we know it is doomed to fail.

2)      “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies”: But of course, we can’t ever know the future with certainty—can’t know that things will work out well, but likewise can’t know that they are doomed to fail. That doesn’t mean that our hope can necessarily push things in the right direction (a great deal is and always will be outside of our control, after all); but it does mean that if we can’t know in any case, we might as well (it seems to me) let hope play a role in our perspectives and our actions.

3)      “I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope”: Red’s (and the film’s) moving final lines capture many different sides and iterations of hope: practical, personal, idealized. But I think that final two-word sentence gets at the heart of it: hope’s ultimate value isn’t about any one outcome (although it’s certainly valuable to have and work toward them), but rather about the emotion itself. Hope can’t be naïve, but if it’s critical and thoughtful, it is indeed one of the very best of things.

Next hope-full text tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Texts or voices which help you find hope?

January 5, 2021: Hope-full Texts: The Marrow of Tradition

[If there’s one thing I think we all need as we begin this new year, it’s hope. So this week, I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of cultural works which offer stories and images of that vital emotion—share the texts or voices which give you hope for a hope-full crowd-sourced weekend post, please!]

I don’t think there’s any literary work that I’ve written about more frequently, hereand elsewhere, than Charles Chesnutt’s novel The Marrow of Tradition (1901). One of my most recent such engagements was a Saturday Evening Post Considering History columnfor this past February’s Black History Month, on the novel’s embodiment of critical optimism (a parallel to the critical patriotism I write about in my next book, out next week!). That critical optimism, what I called “hard-won hope” in my book History & Hope in American Literature, is presented at the climax of a book that has portrayed some of the most horrific and destructive aspects of American history and identity, a climax when the possibility of a better future hangs on by the most fragile of threads. Chesnutt’s concluding line is “There’s time enough, but none to spare,” a sentiment that, like every aspect of his fraught, fragile, hard-won hope, feels here in January 2021 goddamn right (a bit of foreshadowing for tomorrow’s focal text).

Next hope-full text tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Texts or voices which help you find hope?

January 4, 2021: Hope-full Texts: “A Long December”

[If there’s one thing I think we all need as we begin this new year, it’s hope. So this week, I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of cultural works which offer stories and images of that vital emotion—share the texts or voices which give you hope for a hope-full crowd-sourced weekend post, please!]

I’m not sure I need to write too much about why I’d start this early 2021 series with a song that features the repeated line, “A long December and there’s reason to believe/Maybe this year will be better than the last.” In a VH1 Storytellers episode, Counting Crows lead singer and songwriter Adam Duritz said of “A Long December” that, “like a lot of songs on the end of an album it's not about everything turning out great, but it at least it is about hope... and the possibilities.” To me, the song’s most hopeful lines are its two final ones: “I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself/To hold on to these moments as they pass”; “And it’s one more day up in the canyon/And it’s one more night in Hollywood/It’s been so long since I’ve seen the ocean/I guess I should.” Hope, after all, is about imagining something better, not just in the future, but right now—imagining and then acting upon a vision that we can, indeed, make our present and world better, change things, embark on a different path. That’s a collective goal, but it’s also a deeply personal one, as this song beautiful song exemplifies.

Next hope-full text tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Texts or voices which help you find hope?

January 2-3, 2021: December 2020 Recap

[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

November 30: Stories of AIDS: Mark Doty: A World AIDS Day series kicks off with the multiple genres of one of the most compelling literary chroniclers of the AIDS epidemic (and beyond).

December 1: Stories of AIDS: World AIDS Day: The series continues with two ways that the global commemoration has evolved, and where we go from here.

December 2: Stories of AIDS: Angels in America and Rent: A groundbreaking play and popular musical that helped change our national conversations, as the series rolls on.

December 3: Stories of AIDS: Three Novels: Three novels from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s that help trace the epidemic’s cultural evolutions.

December 4: Stories of AIDS: The Deuce and Gay New York: The series concludes with an initially minor TV character who emerges alongside a community and a crisis.

December 5-6: AIDS and COVID: A special weekend post featuring a handful of links to public scholarly engagements with what the AIDS epidemic can help us see in our current pandemic.

December 7: Pearl Harbor Histories: The Attack: A Pearl Harbor series begins with three little-known histories that add layers to the attack itself.

December 8: Pearl Harbor Histories: The Conspiracy Theory: The series continues with how the conspiracy theory doesn’t hold up but why it’s illuminating nonetheless.

December 9: Pearl Harbor Histories: The Tokyo Trials: The complex question of whether a military attack is also a war crime, as the series rolls on.

December 10: Pearl Harbor Histories: The Varsity Victory Volunteers: A post-Pearl Harbor community who embody the best of Hawaii and America.

December 11-13: Pearl Harbor Histories: Remembering Infamous Days: The series concludes with the complex, challenging, crucial question of how we remember our most infamous days.

December 14: Fall 2020 Lessons: God Damn It, You’ve Got to Be Kind: A semester recap series like no other kicks off with the Fall’s most fundamental and crucial lesson.

December 15: Fall 2020 Lessons: Ungrading Works: The series continues with two unexpected, but ultimately unsurprising, effects of my first work with a new pedagogical approach.

December 16: Fall 2020 Lessons: Quantity (and Brevity) over Quality: Two tough but unavoidable lessons about my class content, this fall and moving forward, as the series learns on.

December 17: Fall 2020 Lessons: Doing Away with Deadlines: A key policy change I made this Fall, the challenges it presents, and why I’m likely to stick with it nonetheless.

December 18: Fall 2020 Lessons: Contemporary Connections: The series concludes with how this semester amplified and accelerated a gradual evolution in my teaching goals.

December 19-20: Crowd-sourced Fall 2020 Lessons: My latest crowd-sourced post, featuring the reflections of many fellow teachers and friends on this most challenging Fall.

December 21: AmericanWishing: Inspiring Figures: My annual holiday series kicks off with six amazing Americans whose stories should inspire us all.

December 22: AmericanWishing: Great Novels: The series continues with five great American novels we should all read.

December 23: AmericanWishing: Crucial Communities: Five historical communities whose impressive stories we should add to our collective memories, as the series wishes on.

December 24: AmericanWishing: Stunning Poems: Five powerful poems to inspire us all in the new year.

December 25: AmericanWishing: Thoughtful Scholars: Six scholarly voices, past and present, we can all learn from in 2021.

December 26-27: AmericanWishing: My Sons: The series concludes with what I most wish for my sons and their world in 2021.

December 28: Year in Review: Race, Memory, and Justice: My annual year in review series continues with two additional layers to the year’s renewed #BlackLivesMatter movement.

December 29: Year in Review: Climate Change: The series continues with the longstanding history of environmental disasters, and how it’s not nearly sufficient to understanding the present.

December 30: Year in Review: Economic Inequality: The flaws of Hillbilly Elegy, the strengths of Stephen Crane’s “Experiments,” and what 2020 can help us understand about deep poverty.

December 31: Year in Review: Migration and Refugees: A short story that helps cut to the human heart of an unfolding horror, as the series reflects on.

January 1: Year in Review: Public Higher Education: The series (and year) concludes with five links to help us understand the unfolding assault on public higher education.

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Topics you’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!