Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 175

March 10, 2020: Last Week Recaps: Serena Zabin’s Book Talk

[Last week was one of the busiest of my professional career, featuring a series of great Boston events, culminating in the 51st Northeast MLA convention. So this week I’ll recap that convention and those other events, leading up to a special weekend post on what’s next for NeMLA and how you can get involved!]On two takeaways from a wonderful talk on a vital new book.My busy week meant I didn’t get to too many of the city’s many commemorations of the Boston Massacre’s 250th anniversary (all of which were helpfully compiled by the public historian and BostonStudier par excellence J.L. Bell). But I did have the chance to follow up my own amazing experience giving a book talk at the Massachusetts Historical Society by attending another such talk, this time by my fellow AmericanStudier Serena Zabin on her groundbreaking and timely new book, The Boston Massacre: A Family History . My main point about that book is the Reading Rainbow one, but here I will highlight two takeaways, one on content and one on form, from Zabin’s compelling talk about this crucial work.My content takeaway is on (a very quick and reductive restatement) of Zabin’s central point, one implied by her provocative subtitle: that the British soldiers involved in those March 1770 events had over their two years in Boston, for a variety of reasons and in a number of significant ways, become part of the city’s evolving community and family (literally, through events like marriage and childbirth and the naming of god-parents and so on, as well as figuratively). Zabin pulls together a tremendous amount of primary source research (utilizing MHS’s own collections as well as many others) to make that case, and in so doing fundamentally reshapes our collective memories and narratives not only of the Boston Massacre, but of Boston, New England, America, and the 18th century (among other subjects!). Getting to hear how she found those materials and developed those arguments, as well as details and stories that flesh out those overarching historical goals, made the book talk a perfect complement to the book itself.My form takeaway has to go with one particular word in that last sentence: stories. As with any aspect of this profession, no matter how many book talks (or talks of any kind) I get to deliver, I always feel that I have a lot to learn about this genre, and learn particularly clearly from my inspiring fellow book talkers and public scholars. One thing Zabin’s talk modeled pitch-perfectly and thus really drove home for me was the central importance of stories and story-telling to public history, and I would argue public scholarship of any kind. I don’t know that the old-school debate between “academic” and “narrative” history fully persists into 2020, but I think there still can be a sense that those who tell historical stories are somehow doing work that is distinct from (if not lesser than, although too often that feels like part of the narrative) those who offer analysis. But to me it’s precisely the opposite: stories are what connect us to history, and what make it possible for us then to develop analyses and arguments and all other kinds of perspectives. Zabin’s book talk, like her wonderful book, makes that point clearly and potently. Next recap tomorrow,BenPS. If you were at NeMLA 2020, I’d love to hear your thoughts and takeaways as well!

March 9, 2020: Last Week Recaps: SSN Boston and 2020 in Massachusetts

[Last week was one of the busiest of my professional career, featuring a series of great Boston events, culminating in the 51st Northeast MLA convention. So this week I’ll recap that convention and those other events, leading up to a special weekend post on what’s next for NeMLA and how you can get involved!]On the first of two great events, and how you can contribute to the second!It’s been a bit since I’ve written here about my work with the Scholars Strategy Network(SSN) and specifically my role as a Boston Chapter co-leader, alongside my awesome colleagues Tiffany Chenault and Natasha Warikoo—it looks like the brief mention in this November post was the last time—but SSN has continued to be an important part of not just my professional life, but also and especially my sense of solidarity, my feeling that I’m not alone in the fights that all of us who care about America are fighting these days. That means engagements with public narratives and collective memories, the kinds of conversations I’m hoping to influence and help shape through my own public scholarly writing; but it also means another central side of SSN: direct conversations with policymakers, activists, researchers, and all those who help shape political and social efforts, at the local as well as the national level.Last Tuesday we had our first event of 2020, and it was a perfect example of those latter goals, as we brought together folks in all those categories for panels on three crucial 2020 Massachusetts policy priorities (and proposed legislation related to each): the climate crisis and carbon tax legislation; deep poverty and a bill that addresses it; and ranked choice voting and a proposed ballot initiative to bring that to MA elections. I was fortunate enough to moderate the climate conversation, which featured State Representative Dylan Fernandes, the economist and self-proclaimed “climate hawk” James Stock, and the community leader, non-profit director, and activist Dwaign Tyndal. Our really excellent conversation moved between practical efforts, philosophical questions, and expressions of collective solidarity in this work (as well as frustration with aspects of it, of course, but you know what this critical optimist is gonna emphasize!). As I know was the case with the other two panels, most of all that conversation modeled the kinds of connections and crossovers that make SSN such a vital organization, for public scholars and everyone else in these fights.Sound good? Well fortunately for you (and all of us) that was just the first of two such Spring 2020 events! At the next, to be held on Wednesday May 6th, we’ll do the same for two other significant issues and three proposed bills: funding for public education at both the secondary and higher ed levels (and the proposed Cherish and Promise Acts); and immigration (and the proposed Safe Communities Act). If you’re in the New England area and would like to be part of those conversations, please let me know and/or plan to join us on May 6that Suffolk University! But wherever you are, you can and should add your voice, not only as part of those conversations but in the planning stage. So please let me know if you have thoughts on those topics that we should make sure to include, folks or types of folks we should make sure to invite (either as panelists or audience members), or any other contributions to these ongoing and vital 2020 discussions!Next recap tomorrow,BenPS. If you were at NeMLA 2020, I’d love to hear your thoughts and takeaways as well!

March 7-8, 2020: Boston Sites: My Talk at MHS

[On March 5th, 1770, the events of the Boston Massacre unfolded on King’s Street. On March 5th, 2020, the Northeast MLA conventionwill begin in Boston. So for both the Massacre’s 250th anniversary and that ongoing convention, this week I’ve highlighted some historic sites and collective memories in Boston, leading up to this special post on my recent book talk at the Massachusetts Historical Society!]On three reasons why my February 27thtalk at MHS was one of my most inspiring such events yet.For each talk at the historical society, MHS Librarian Peter Drummey pulls a few selected materials from the society’s unrivaled collections to showcase in conjunction with the event. He had options for pretty much all of my book’s chapters (a testament to the breadth as well as depth of those collections), but in consultation we decided to go with some of their amazing materials related to Elizabeth Freeman and slavery in the American Revolutionary era. Honestly, if you can’t get next-level excited to give a book talk a few feet away from handwritten 1780s primary sources about which you wrote in that book, you are almost certainly, to quote Monica Geller, dead inside.But—and I say this at the risk of losing my AmericanStudier card, but candor first, my friends—not even the most unique and inspiring historical materials can compare with the people and communities to which we can connect at events like this. As at so many amazing institutions, that starts with the staff, who like Peter all made this event one of the most welcoming, smooth, and successful I’ve had. Director of Programs Gavin Kleepsies and Public Programs Coordinator Sarah Bertulli were particular rock stars, as supportive and engaging on the night as the talk as they were helpful and efficient throughout the preparations. And the talk likely wouldn’t have happened at all without Sara Georgini, whose own books and work on the Adams papers and family are public scholarly inspirations in their own right. (Also, to experience the MHS’s amazing efforts for yourself, check out their current Boston Massacre exhibition before it closes in June!)Finally, as at every book talk (but uniquely in each and every case, which is why I can’t recommend all opportunities for talks strongly enough), the audience responses, questions, and conversations added so much to my own continued thoughts. That included a couple folks with whom I’m proud to be connected beyond that evening: Salem State Professor Neenah Estrella-Luna, whom I’ve met through the Scholars Strategy Network’s Boston Chapter; and the archivist and food studies scholar Laura Kitchings, whom I’ve met through the #twitterstorianscommunity. But most of my conversations before and after the talk were with folks I was meeting for the first time, but with whom I shared the scholarly, AmericanStudies, communal solidarity that makes events like this one, and spaces like the MHS, so inspiring and important. Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Other sites and collective memories (in Boston or anywhere else) you’d highlight?

March 6, 2020: Other Exemplary Boston Sites

[On March 5th, 1770, the events of the Boston Massacre unfolded on King’s Street. On March 5th, 2020, the Northeast MLA conventionwill begin in Boston. So for both the Massacre’s 250th anniversary and that ongoing convention, this week I’ll highlight some historic sites and collective memories in Boston!]On five other spots (in no particular order) to experience the best of Boston history and culture.1)      The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: That hyperlinked post kicked off a week-long series on my favorite spot in Boston, so I don’t know that I need to write too much more here about why the Gardner is always, always, always worth a visit. 2)      The Boston Athenaeum: Similarly, in that hyperlinked post on my December book talk at the Athenaeum I highlighted at least a bit of the historic library/archive’s beauty and significance. It also features unique exhibitions that dive into both the city’s history and related themes like the history of the book (that great exhibition closes this month, so hie thee hence with some urgency if you’re around!). 3)      Mount Auburn Cemetery: Once again, that hyperlinked post kicked off a series on Cambridge’s spectacular cemetery and its many historical and cultural contexts. One of the most beautiful spaces in the area, and one that changes dramatically with every season. Check it out, and make sure to climb the tower for the best views in Boston!4)      The Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site: In that Mount Auburn post I also highlighted the vital role of landscape architect Olmsted in creating so many Boston sites and spaces. I’m ashamed to admit that, as of this late-December writing at least, I haven’t had the chance to visit the National Historic Site at Olmsted’s home (despite frequently driving past it). But maybe including it in this list will finally get me to Brookline to visit a museum dedicated to one of my favorite Bostonians!5)      The Boston Harbor Islands: In this post I highlighted my favorite Harbor Island spot to visit with my sons: Fort Warren, the National Historic Landmark located on Georges Island. What can I say, we’re suckers for the chance to use flashlights to walk down anything known as “The Dark Tunnel.” But that’s just the tip of the Harbor Islands iceberg, and you could spend multiple days exploring this collection of beautiful and historic spaces.Special post this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Other sites and collective memories (in Boston or anywhere else) you’d highlight?

March 5, 2020: Boston Sites: Remembering the Massacre

[On March 5th, 1770, the events of the Boston Massacre unfolded on King’s Street. On March 5th, 2020, the Northeast MLA conventionwill begin in Boston. So for both the Massacre’s 250th anniversary and that ongoing convention, this week I’ll highlight some historic sites and collective memories in Boston!]On three media that have contributed to our collective memories of the Massacre.1)      Pamphlets: As you might expect from the era that gave us Tom Paine and the Declaration being distributed instantly to read aloud, rapid-fire political pamphlets became a weapon of choice for both sides in the Massacre’s immediate aftermath. The colonists had A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston and its sequel, Additional Observations to A Short Narrative , which gathered depositions from numerous witnesses (or at least alleged witnesses) to make the case against the British soldiers. Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson produced his own pamphlet, A Fair Account of the Late Unhappy Disturbance in Boston , which used contrasting depositions gathered by Hutchinson’s agents to tell an alternative story. I don’t imagine that any of the texts in this pamphlet propaganda battle did much to sway supporters of the opposing perspective, but at the very least they provide a compelling set of contemporary accounts of the events in King Street and their collective interpretations.2)      Engravings: By far the most famous such propagandistic portrayal of the Massacre was a visual one, however. My weekend Guest Posters will have more to say about the propaganda behind the famous Paul Revere engraving, which is so mythically remembered that it turns out it wasn’t even initially created by Paul Revere—his was apparently a copy (famously published in the Boston Gazette) of an artistic rendering by the young artist Henry Pelham (John Singleton Copley’s half-brother). And as that last hyperlinked story indicates, there were at least a couple other contemporary engravings that entered the image competition around the same time, muddying the waters of artistic originality and collective copying yet further. For an event so dependent upon different and competing histories and collective memories, it’s only appropriate that the visual representations became a multi-vocal conflict in their own right, a battle to determine whose rendering became and remained the definitive portrayal. 3)      Memorials: Both the pamphlet and engraving battles unfolded in the Massacre’s immediate aftermath; precisely because of those and many other heated and contested histories and stories, it took far, far longer for any more permanent commemoration to be constructed. Indeed, it was not until 1888 that a memorial was erected on Boston Common, the same time that the Massacre’s five immediate casualties were reinterred beneath a new gravestone in the city’s historic Granary Burying Ground. Given that these two historic sites are now prominently located on the Freedom Trail and at the heart of tourist Boston, it would be easy for visitors to see them as longstanding commemorations, rather than the more recent additions (and thus reflections of the gradual collective embrace of the Boston Massacre participants) that they are. Which is as good a reminder as any both that memorials are themselves contested expressions of collective memory, and that we need to study and analyze them just as much as we might learn from them. Last site tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other sites and collective memories (in Boston or anywhere else) you’d highlight?

March 4, 2020: Boston Sites: The U.S.S. Constitution

[On March 5th, 1770, the events of the Boston Massacre unfolded on King’s Street. On March 5th, 2020, the Northeast MLA conventionwill begin in Boston. So for both the Massacre’s 250th anniversary and that ongoing convention, this week I’ll highlight some historic sites and collective memories in Boston!]On what the historic ship-turned-museum helpfully highlights, and what it minimizes.At the other end of the Freedom Trail from the Shaw Memorial and the State House sits a very different kind of historic Boston site: the U.S.S. Constitution , a late 18th/early 19th century naval ship turned museum (the Bunker Hill Monument National Historical Park is also at this end). As I wrote in Monday’s post, the experience of walking the Freedom Trail, of winding through 21st century Boston while experiencing these historical landmarks and the events and figures to which they connect, is a unique and compelling way to connect to both the past and its relationship to the present. That experience shifts but is also amplified when walkers, still following the Freedom Trail’s painted red path, cross the North Washington Street Bridge (usually known as the Charlestown Bridge), a sizeable bridge (soon to be replaced, it seems) that spans the Charles River and connects the North End to the very distinct neighborhood of Charlestown. Doing so reminds us that the Revolution and its aftermaths, like all of the city’s and new nation’s histories, enfolded multiple spaces and communities, and offers an important revision to any narrative of Boston or history that would focus only on the parts of the city that might seem to be the most “historic.”That’s all part of what the Charlestown Freedom Trail sites help us remember, but the Constitution site/museum in particular likewise highlights other, more specific and equally valuable historical lessons. The US didn’t really have a navy yet during the Revolution (that side of the war was left to our invaluable allies the French), but over the next few decades, including the “Quasi-War” conflicts of the 1790s and up through the War of 1812, many of the nation’s significant battles involved ships in a central role. The Constitution, one of six frigates authorized by the ground-breaking Naval Act of 1794 and launched in 1797, became a key part of those efforts, protecting merchant shipping during the Quasi-War and single-handedly winning War of 1812 battles against five British warships (including a legendary triumph over the H.M.S. Guerriere that led to the ship’s new nickname of “Old Ironsides”). The Constitution museum is dedicated to the history of the US Navy, particularly in those earliest decades and conflicts, and since you can’t narrate the history of the Early Republic United States at all without those contexts, that gives this museum a truly national significance.The Quasi-War and the War of 1812 both featured complicated contexts with which Americans could certainly become more familiar, but the U.S.S. Constitution also took part in another Early Republic conflict that is even less well-known and even more fraught: the First Barbary War. Indeed, as I wrote in that hyperlinked post, the Constitution not only participated in that war’s naval battles, but subsequently transported the Tripoli Monument , the tribute to six American soldiers killed in the war, back to the US after its creation in Italy. Yet compared to the Quasi-War and the War of 1812, both of which can be framed (somewhat accurately, if again complicatedly) through a lens of national self-defense, the First Barbary War represents a far different type of international conflict, one in which (whatever the war’s initial causes, which did include attacks on US merchant ships) troops from the new US traveled across an ocean (on ships like to the Constitution) to invade another sovereign nation. That’s a very distinct role for naval vessels and the US military, and one which (in my experience of the museum a few years ago—I welcome any updates and responses in comments as always!) the U.S.S. Constitution historic site and museum does not quite engage with the depth it could.Next site tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other sites and collective memories (in Boston or anywhere else) you’d highlight?

March 3, 2020: Boston Sites: The Black Heritage Trail

[On March 5th, 1770, the events of the Boston Massacre unfolded on King’s Street. On March 5th, 2020, the Northeast MLA conventionwill begin in Boston. So for both the Massacre’s 250th anniversary and that ongoing convention, this week I’ll highlight some historic sites and collective memories in Boston!]On three of the many reasons to walk the wonderful Black Heritage Trail.1)      The Museum of African American History (MAAH): The heart of the Trail is a wonderful museum that is likewise (as I argued about the Black Heritage Trail in yesterday’s post) frustratingly overlooked when it comes to Boston area sites, the MAAH (or rather its Boston Campus—I just learned that there’s also a Nantucket Campus, which might finally get me to visit that island!). A glimpse at some of the museum’s past exhibits makes clear that this is a historic site that does justice to far more than the histories and stories of this Boston neighborhood (vital and too-often forgotten as those are); indeed, prior to the opening of the Smithsonian’s new museum, the Boston MAAH was one of the preeminent African American history museums in the country. It may not have to do quite as much of that heavy lifting any more, but the MAAH remains a wonderful space, one deeply embedded in Boston histories but opening up to key conversations and ideas in American history and identity as well.2)      David Walker: 81 Joy Street, a private residence along the trail, features a plaque commemorating the African American writer, abolitionist, and activist David Walker, who lived there for some years in the early 19th century (as, interestingly enough during the same time period, did another iconic writer, orator, and abolitionist, Maria Stewart). As this ongoing project argues, a more full memorial to Walker in the city is very much in order, and hopefully can be funded and constructed at some point in the near future. But the plaque is not nothing, and indeed, much like the Trial overall, if encountered and remembered by more visitors and Bostonians would help us engage with the unique yet amazingly representative life, voice, and work of this Early Republic titan. 3)      Reframing the Shaw Memorial: As I argued in yesterday’s post, it’s not enough just to better remember the Black Heritage Trail itself—we also have to work to connect it to the Freedom Trail, and through such links make clearer the relationships between these Boston and American sites, histories, and communities. Fortunately, there’s an overt and excellent pivot point between the two Trails at which to start that process: the Shaw Memorial. Despite the Memorial’s name, I would argue (as I did in the above hyperlinked post) that it stands out more for sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ ground-breaking depictions of the African American soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts than for anything about Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (inspiring as he was in life and in death). But of course it’s not either-or—these two elements of the Memorial, like the soldiers and Shaw, and like the Black Heritage Trail and the Freedom Trail, were and are entirely interconnected, indeed cannot be remembered or understood without each other. A lesson that requires us to walk the Boston Black Heritage Trail!Next site tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other sites and collective memories (in Boston or anywhere else) you’d highlight?

March 2, 2020: Boston Sites: The Freedom Trail

[On March 5th, 1770, the events of the Boston Massacre unfolded on King’s Street. On March 5th, 2020, the Northeast MLA conventionwill begin in Boston. So for both the Massacre’s 250th anniversary and that ongoing convention, this week I’ll highlight some historic sites and collective memories in Boston!]On one thing I love about the historic path, one I don’t, and how we can move forward.As I wrote in this long-ago post, one of my favorite things about Rome, the only European city in which I’ve gotten to spend extended time, was how much its history and its contemporary (as of my 2002 visit, anyway) coexisted, how fully the historic spaces and sites felt part of the city’s life and identity in the early 21stcentury. Too often, American cities segregate the histories, treat them as separate sections to be visited by tourists or school field trips (and, implicitly, forgotten or ignored the rest of the time). One happy exception to that trend, however, is Boston’s Freedom Trail, a painted red line on the city’s sidewalks that leads walkers to many different historic and cultural sites and landmarks, all while winding its way through the city’s very current and busy downtown districts. I’m sure Trail walkers routinely bump up against frustrated businesspeople hurrying to their next appointment, but that’s precisely what I love so much about this way of leading us through history—it reminds us that our present communities are literally and figuratively built upon those pasts, and forces our experience of the past to butt up against the realities of the present.So I really do like the way the Freedom Trail presents Boston histories—but at the same time, it’s important to note that presenting them in that linked and guided way makes it that much more likely that visitors might not find or experience sites that are not included on the Trail. There’s no way everything could be included, of course—especially not sites that are beyond walking distance away from the current Trail’s location—but some exclusions nonetheless feel frustratingly arbitrary and damaging. Without doubt the most frustrating exclusion is of the parallel trail on which I will focus tomorrow’s post: the Black Heritage Trail. This Beacon Hill neighborhood walk past various historic sites and landmarks (about which, again, more tomorrow!) literally abuts the start of the Freedom Trail, near the Boston State House and the Shaw Memorial, and as a result it would seem particularly straightforward to extend the Freedom Trail’s red line to include the Black Heritage Trail. But unless things have changed in the few months since I was last in that area of the city, the Black Heritage Trail is not in any way linked to the Freedom Trail—not with the red line, and not in any other obvious way that would lead those visitors walking the Freedom Trail to add this profoundly parallel path into their excursion.How do we challenge that frustrating exclusion (one which, to be clear, I think is due much more to timing than racism; the Freedom Trail had existed for decades by the time the Black Heritage Trail was created)? One important way is to highlight the Black Heritage Trail as frequently and widely as possible (as I’ll do in tomorrow’s post); I can’t tell you how many Bostonians I’ve encountered who simply don’t know of its existence, and that, at least, is a very addressable problem! But at the same time, the separation of the Black Heritage Trail from the Freedom Trail is a distinct and telling problem of its own, and one that can’t be fixed simply with more awareness. For that, it seems to me, we need to literally change (or rather extend) the Freedom Trail, bringing its lines and its guidance to the Black Heritage Trail as well. I’ve reached out to the Freedom Trail folks through their email and phone number to make that case, and if you read this and are able to do the same, it couldn’t hurt! Thanks!Next site tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other sites and collective memories (in Boston or anywhere else) you’d highlight?

February 29-March 1, 2020: February 2020 Recap

[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]February 3: Immigration Laws: 19th Century Origins: Inspired by the anniversary of the 1917 Immigration Act, an immigration laws series kicks off with why 19thcentury state laws have to be part of the story.February 4: Immigration Laws: The Chinese Exclusion Act: The series continues with how my thoughts about a foundational, exclusionary law have evolved over time.February 5: Immigration Laws: The Immigration Act of 1917: On the anniversary of its passage, how the 1917 law built on the Chinese exclusion era, and how it went much further still.February 6: Immigration Laws: The Tydings-McDuffie Act: The specific contexts and broader implications of a xenophobic 1930s law, as the series rolls on.February 7: Immigration Laws: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965: Why the landmark law was indeed groundbreaking, and two ways to complicate that narrative.February 8-9: Immigration Laws and Narratives in 2020: The series concludes with two distinct but ultimately interconnected public scholarly lessons for the present.February 10: Fantasy Stories I Love: Revisiting Lloyd Alexander: This year’s Valentine’s Day series kicks off with the joys of watching my older son read a childhood favorite series of mine.February 11: Fantasy Stories I Love: Tolkien Takeaways: The series continues with three AmericanStudies lessons from the LOTR trilogy.February 12: Fantasy Stories I Love: Iron Crown Enterprises: The rise, fall, and enduring legacy of an innovative gaming company, as the series rolls (the dice) on.February 13: Fantasy Stories I Love: Robin Hobb: The prolific author who helped changed epic fantasy’s too-often trite narratives of gender and sexuality. February 14: Fantasy Stories I Love: George R.R. Martin: Why the book that took Martin’s blockbuster series off the rails also exemplifies his groundbreaking achievements. February 15-16: Fantasy Stories I Love: African Fantasy: The series concludes with my first experiences with a contemporary genre community, and my need to read a lot more.February 17: Non-Favorite Studying: To Kill a Mockingbird: The annual post-Valentine’s airing of grievances kicks off with what Harper Lee’s famous novel fails to do, and how reframing it might open up other conversations.February 18: Non-Favorite Studying: Citizen Kane: The series continues with two very American problems with one of our most important films.February 19: Non-Favorite Studying: Mad Men: The historical and American flaws in the acclaimed TV drama, as the series gripes on.February 20: Non-Favorite Studying: “Africa” and Graceland: Perhaps my most controversial non-favorite post ever, on how overt and more subtle acts of musical cultural appropriation. February 21: Non-Favorite Studying: Low Five: The series concludes with five historical figures with whom I have a bone—or a whole skeleton—to pick. February 22-23: Crowd-sourced Non-Favorites: As always, one of my favorite posts of the year, the crowd-sourced airing of grievances that concludes the non-favorites series—add yours in comments!February 24: Leap Years: 1816: A Leap Week (yes, I just made that a thing) series kicks off with significant global, cross-cultural, and national trends in a single Leap Year.February 25: Leap Years: 1848: The series continues with how three distinct events within a ten-day period helped change America and the world.February 26: Leap Years: 1904: Five of the many cultural legacies of the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, as the series leaps on.February 27: Leap Years: 1948: A couple significant contexts for a contested election beyond “Dewey Defeats Truman.”February 28: Leap Years: 1984: The series concludes with how three of the year’s huge blockbuster films reflected 1980s debates and divisions. Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Topics you’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

February 28, 2020: Leap Years: 1984 in Film

[In honor of this once-in-four-years phenomenon, I wanted to highlight and AmericanStudy a few interesting leap years from American history.]How three of the year’s many blockbuster films reflect 1980s debates.1)      Ghostbusters : I said much of what I’d want to say about Ghostbusters’ fraught relationship between science and the supernatural in that hyperlinked post. But it’s also worth stressing, as I did briefly there too, that the film’s conflicts also and perhaps ultimately boil down to the government vs. private citizens, with the film’s sympathies entirely resting with the latter community. In that way, Ghostbusters can be seen as an extension of Ronald Reagan’s famous quote, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” With which, when it comes to William Atherton’s deeply annoying EPA agent Walter Peck, it’s difficult to argue.2)      Beverly Hills Cop : The central conflicts in Eddie Murphy’s star-making action-comedy are distinct from, and to my mind a lot more complicated than, those in Ghostbusters. On the surface, those conflicts are the titular ones related to class and setting, as Murphy’s working-class cop (Axel Foley) from the working-class mecca of Detroit finds himself pursuing criminals in the nation’s most famously wealthy, elite location. But it’s impossible to separate those contrasts from issues of race, not least because Murphy’s character focuses a good bit on how he is perceived and treated as a black man in the largely white world of Beverly Hills. And yet, he eventually achieves his goals by partnering with a white Beverly Hills cop (Judge Reinhold’s Billy Rosewood), a relationship that crosses all these boundaries and (in the long tradition of buddy cop films) models a more productive form of community.3)      Footloose : Kevin Bacon’s star-making film presents a somewhat similar fish-out-of-water scenario, but in a very different direction: in this case the boy from the big city finds himself in a far more isolated and conservative small town, one where concerns of morality (guided by John Lithgow’s minister character) have led to bans of both rock and roll music and dancing. Lithgow is a talented actor and so imbues that character and perspective with more depth and humanity than might otherwise have been the case, giving us a sense of why someone (and thus why an entire community) might pursue these extremist practices. More broadly, I think the film reflects an emerging division that has only become more pronounced in the 35 years since, a vision of a nation in which urban and rural communities seem defined by not only distinct but contrasting values and identities. If only we had Kevin Bacon’s charismatic Ren to teach us all to dance together!February Recap this weekend,BenPS. Thoughts on this year or other leap years that stand out to you?