Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 282

August 22, 2016: Virginia Places: Lynchburg

[Inspired by my annual Virginia pilgrimage with the boys, this year’s series will focus on AmericanStudying interesting places in the Commonwealth. Leading up to a special weekend post on my presentation at the Historical Writers of America conference in Williamsburg!]Two interesting histories, and one troubling one, found in the small central Virginia city.1)      A proto-industrial giant: Thanks in multiple ways to its location on the James River—both because of the late 18thcentury (John) Lynch’s Ferry, which routed the tobacco trade and other traffic through the city; and because of the early 19th century construction of iron and steel factories along that river—Lynchburg became during the antebellum period, as Thomas Jefferson put it in 1810, “perhaps the most rising place in the U.S.” By the 1850s, the city was rivaled only by New Bedford (Massachusetts’ whaling center) in per capita wealth; and like any economic boomtown, it had its share of vice, centered in the infamous Buzzards Roost neighborhood. The Civil War, about which more in a moment, changed the city’s trajectory as it did so much of the South’s (although manufacturing continued throughout the postwar period)—but it’s certainly interesting to imagine an alternative Gilded Age history with Lynchburg as an icon of wealth.2)      A Civil War capital, briefly: Compared to other Virginia locales, Lynchburg saw a minimal amount of action during the war: principally the June 18, 1864 Battle of Lynchburg, during which Confederate forces under the command of General Jubal Early (aided, the legend goes, by local prostitutes, hopefully operating out of Buzzard’s Roost for blog paragraph continuity) repulsed Union troops led by General David Hunter. Because the city did not fall at that time, nor indeed was ever taken during the course of the war, it had the somewhat dubious honor of serving as Virginia’s (and thus, in some meaningful ways, the Confederacy’s, although Danville was the official post-Richmond choice) final wartime capital after the evacuation of Richmond, holding that title from April 6-10. On the 10th, Robert E. Lee surrended to Ulysses S. Grant at nearby Appomattox Courthouse, ending both the war and Lynchburg’s brief stint with political fame. 3)      A shameful practice: For nearly 50 years, from the early 20th century through the 1970s, Lynchburg (or rather its suburb of Madison Heights) was home to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, site of more than 8000 forced sterilizations carried out in the name of eugenics. The most famous of those thousands of victims was Carrie Buck, an 18 year old girl sterilized in 1924 for being “feeble-minded” and the plaintiff in Buck v. Bell (1927), the case in which the Supreme Court shamefully sided (in an overwhelming 8-1 decision, with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. writing for the majority) with Virginia’s compulsory sterilization statute (ruling that it did not violate the victims’ 14th Amendment rights). The sterilizations were only stopped in 1972, making this shameful period of Lynchburg’s (and Virginia’s) history at least as long as its era of economic dominance. But that’s the yin and yang of Virginian places and histories, as this week’s series will illustrate time and again.Next VA place tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Interesting places (in any state) you’d highlight?

August 20-21, 2016: Birthday Bests: 2015-2016

[On August 15th, this AmericanStudier enters the last year of his 30s. So this week I’ve shared posts of birthday favorites for each of the blog’s prior years, leading up to this 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!]So here they are, 39 favorite posts from the last year on the blog:1)      Cape Cod Stories: The Changing Cape: One of my favorite things about blogging remains the chance to explore in depth topics about which I thought I knew a lot already—Cape Cod certainly qualifies, and this whole series was a wonderful reminder of how much I have to learn.2)      AmericanStudying 9/11: The Siege: I can’t imagine a work of art, in any genre, that more Americans should see and engage with in 2016 than Ed Zwick’s prescient 1998 film.3)      Given Days: The Great Molasses Flood: I never expected a Dennis Lehane novel would give me a week’s worth of topics, but The Given Day did, and this largely forgotten historical moment stands out.4)      September Texts: See You in September: Little inside blog-baseball here: sometimes I create a series and then see what might fill it. The results are always surprising, and I hope as interesting to read as they are to search and write!5)      AMST in 2015: The chance to share great AmericanStudies voices and sites is always welcome, and these three are just as worth your time in 2016!6)      Before the Revolution: Crispus Attucks: Think you know all about Mr. Attucks, first casualty of the Revolution? Well, so did I until I researched and wrote this post.7)      Siobhan Senier’s Guest Post on Dawnland Voices: Voices is one of the most important American anthologies ever published, and it was an honor to share these thoughts by its editor.8)      21stCentury Villains: Wilson Fisk: If I couldn’t write about an American character and performance as rich as Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk, why maintain this blog??9)      American Inventors: Eli Whitney’s Effects: But at the same time, the cotton gin is just as crucial to a blog called AmericanStudies as is a streaming Netflix superhero show!10)   SHA Follow Ups: Little Rock and Race: My first visit to Little Rock, for the Southern Historical Association conference, was just as inspiring as you would expect.11)   Cultural Thanks-givings: Longmire: Am I sharing this post only because I got into a Twitter conversation with Lou Diamond Phillips thanks to it? No, but that doesn’t hurt!12)   AmendmentStudying: On Not Taking the 13th Amendment for Granted: It’s not easy to really think through all the paths American history could have taken, and why each moment is so complex and central. But it’s important that we try, as I did in this post.13)   Circles of Friends: The Darker Side of Friends: It’s also not easy to critique works of art that give us pleasure, but just as important that we do so.14)   Wishes for the AmericanStudies Elves: Ida B. Wells’ Crossroads: There’s a reason this moment will be at the heart of my next book—there are few more inspiring ones in our history.15)   AmericanStudying 2015: Trump: Hard to remember the way we felt about candidate Trump back in late December—but even more crucial to AmericanStudy his unprecedented and historically horrific campaign now, of course.16)   DisneyStudying: Tom Sawyer Island: If you guessed that my first trip to Disney World would yield some rich AmericanStudies topics, well, you guessed right!17)   21stCentury Civil Rights: An MLK Day series concluded with some of the many current fronts in the ongoing battle for civil rights and equality for all.18)   Colonial Williamsburg: The Governor’s Palace Maze: There’s nothing quite like researching and writing a blog post about a favorite childhood place.19)   Football Debates: Missouri Activism Update: Our 24-hour news cycle culture moves way too quickly past stories on which we should linger—and the Missouri football team’s inspiring activism is one such story to be sure.20)   Teacher Tributes: My Fiancé: Every post in this week of teacher tributes was special to me—but this Valentine’s Day post remains one of my favorites in the blog’s history.21)   AmericanStudying Non-favorites: “Africa” and Graceland: Paul Simon fans didn’t appreciate this one so much, and I got some reasoned and convincing pushback—but I still would call Simon’s album dangerously close to cultural appropriation.22)   Rap Readings: Macklemore, J. Cole, and #BlackLivesMatter: This was a seriously fun series to think about and write, and these are songs and artists well worth your time.23)   Montreal Memories: Anglais and French: I took a lot away from my first trip to Montreal, but perhaps most striking was the multi-lingual model the city offers us in the US.24)   Puerto Rican Posts: The Statehood Debate: We’ve recently seen another troubling moment in this evolving and too-often-overlooked American history.25)   NeMLA Recaps: Many Thanks: I loved everything about my NeMLA conference in Hartford, and about writing this recap series. But I have to highlight here one more time my overwhelming gratitude for all those who made it happen and supported it.26)   19thCentury Humor: Melville’s Chimney: This deeply weird short story had stuck with me for decades, and AmericanStudying it offered some much-needed analytical therapy.27)   Remembering Reconstruction: The Civil Rights Act of 1866: The battle for whether and how we should remember Reconstruction during its sesquicentennial will likely continue for a good long while—and I fully expect to keep adding my voice to that debate.28)   American Outlaws: Bonnie and Clyde: One of those posts where I started in a totally different place from where the research and histories took me.29)   21stCentury Patriots: Deepa Iyer: Highlighting contemporary critical patriots was a lot of fun, and I’d emphasize in particular this increasingly vital new book.30)   Classical Music Icons: Florence Foster Jenkins: Before you see the Meryl Streep movie, read the Ben Railton post!31)   Semester Reflections: A Writing Associate in Major Authors: The opportunity to share inspiring favorite FSU students is always a blog highlight.32)   AmericanStudying 60s Rock: Jimi Hendrix’s Covers: From Florence Foster Jenkins to Jimi Hendrix—the six degrees of AmericanStudier!33)   New Scholarly Books: Finding Light between the Pages: You should read all the wonderful books in this series—but for my birthday week, I’ll share this one on my own forthcoming project!34)   The 1876 Election and 2016: If you need any more reason to see this election as a crucial one, history offers us a compelling such argument.35)   Crowd-sourced Beach Reads: Crowd-sourced posts are always great, but the beach reads series brings out a particularly wide and deep group of voices and nominees.36)   ApologyStudying: Lessons from Canada: It can be tough to let current events impact the blog when I’m trying to write and schedule them in advance—but it’s always worthwhile, and this post and series are great illustrations of that.37)   SummerStudying: Irony and “Summertime Sadness”: Cleanth Brooks, Emily Dickinson, T.S Eliot, and Lana Del Rey—ain’t that AmericanStudies!38)   Gone with the Wind Turns 80: Revisiting Rhett Butler : I enjoyed the chance to revisit the subject of my first article, and to see where my ideas have shifted and where they’ve endured.39)   Modeling Critical Patriotism: Frederick Douglass’ July 4th Speech: No better place to end this list than with a figure and text that offer pitch-perfect exemplification of all that I’m trying to do, here and everywhere.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. You know what to do!

August 19, 2016: Birthday Bests: 2014-2015

[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!]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 150thAnniversary 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.New list this weekend,BenPS. You know what to do!

August 18, 2016: Birthday Bests: 2013-2014

[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 21stcentury 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 19thcentury 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,BenPS. You know what to do!

August 17, 2016: Birthday Bests: 2012-2013

[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!]For my 36th birthday I highlighted 36 of my favorite posts from the blog’s third year:1)      Bad Memories, Part Four: As part of a series on how we could better remember our darkest histories, I considered memoir, photography, and fiction of the Japanese Internment.
2)      Crowd-Sourcing Bad Memories: Perhaps my favorite of the crowd-sourced posts to date, as many fellow AmericanStudiers weighed in on the week’s theme.
3)      Books That Shaped AmericanStudier, Childhood: I began a series on books that have hugely impacted me with one of my first favorites, the Hardy Boys series.
4)      Isabella Stewart Gardner: A Gardner Museum-inspired series began with a post on Gardner herself, one of my favorite Americans.
5)      John Singer Sargent: Posts on Gardner and Sargent go together as perfectly as, well, Gardner and Sargent did!
6)      Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Any post that allows me to write more about the greatest American sculptor, and one of the most inspiring Americans period, is well worth sharing again.
7-11) The five posts in this series on American hope remain perhaps my most definitive statements of the complexities, contexts, and crucial importance of this elusive emotion. 
12) Up in the Air, Part Five: Summer camps, childhood memories, and nostalgia—one of my more universal and, I believe, broadly relevant posts.
13) Ezra Jack Keats: This post, in a series on children’s books, expressed the importance of this pioneering author—and was linked to by the Keats Foundation!
14-18) Another series in which I need to highlight all five posts—this has been the longest and hardest year of my life, and writing these posts on how Americans have responded to adversity helped me get through it.
19) American Spooking, Part 3: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Grant Wood, and American Horror Story help me think about whether America can have homegrown horror, and where we might find it.
20) Extra Thanks: A Thanksgiving series concludes with a few reflections on one of my most unexpected and inspiring moments of the year.
21) American Winter, Part Four: The very different but equally American perspectives at the heart of two winter classics.
22) AmericanStudying the Pacific, Part Four: On the limitations and lessons of a childhood spent building models.
23) Lincoln, Culture, and History: Some of my thoughts on Steven Spielberg’s popular and important historical film (with this additional post after I saw it!).
24) Making My List (Again), Part Five: A series of wishes for the AmericanStudies Elves ends with the educational experience I wish all children could have.
25) AmericanStudying Our Biggest Issues: Climate Change: As I’ve shifted more fully to an emphasis on public scholarship, I’ve worked hard to find ways to connect my subjects to contemporary concerns—and this post exemplifies that goal.
26) American Homes, Part Four: The American narratives inside (perhaps deep inside) one of our silliest films.
27) Remembering Wheatley and Washington: A Black History Month series on conversations begins with the time the poet met the (future) president.
28) I Love Three Pages in Ceremony: I’ve always wanted to write about my single favorite moment in American fiction. Here I did!
29) Popular Fiction: Christian Novels: It’s always fun to write (and so learn) about subjects I myself know too little about, and this post definitely qualifies.
30) Supreme Contexts: Santa Clara County and Revision: Few Supreme Court decisions are as relevant to our contemporary moment, and thus worth remembering, as this one.
31) Spring in America: Children’s Stories: Two pioneering children’s classics that captures two opposing sides to a new season.
32) Baseball in America: The Black Sox: This whole baseball series was fun to research and write, so I’ll just highlight one of its posts (yes, the one that includes John Sayles!).
33) Comic Book Heroes: Wonder Woman: Ditto for this comic book series, but this post was the one for which I learned the most and had my eyes opened most completely.
34) Roopika Risam’s Guest Post: I could include any and all guest posts in this list—but Roopika’s was certainly a wonderful addition to the blog.
35) American Swims: Cheever’s Swimmer: Part of the fun of this blog is sharing American texts that I think we should all read, and Cheever’s short story is a great example.36) Book Release Reflections, Part Four: I have to end the list with one of the things I’m most     excited about in the year to come (and I now have at least 20 talks definitely coming up!).Next list tomorrow,BenPS. You know what to do!

August 16, 2016: Birthday Bests: 2011-2012

[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!]35 of my favorite posts from my blog’s second year!August 16: Me Too: In which I follow up the birthday favorites by highlighting five posts that make clear just how much I too continue to learn about America.August 23: Virginia, Cradle of American Studies: The first post in what I believe was my first series (now of course the blog’s central format), on a few of Virginia’s American Studies connections.September 1: First Questions: A back to school post, highlighting both the role that teaching plays in my American Studying and my (continued!) desire for your input on my topics here.September 2: Not Tortured Enough: On torture, American ideals and realities, and how contemporary politics and overarching American questions intersect.September 12: The Neverending Story: Perhaps the most vital American Studies response I can imagine to September 11th and its decade-long aftermath.October 6: Native Voices: Linking the NEASA conference at Plimoth Plantation, the hardest part of my dissertation and first book, and a key American question.
October 11: Remembering an Iconoclastic Genius: One of my most important jobs here, I think, is to help us better remember important (and often inspiring) people and histories and stories that we’ve forgotten; Derreck Bell is one such person.
October 19: The Importance of Reading Ernest: Making the case for an under-read American great, and remembering to keep my literary interests present in this space at the same time.
November 7: Moments That Remain 1: The fall’s NEASA conference was one of the best weekends of my life, and it was very exciting to be able to bring a bit of it to the blog.
November 14: Kids Say the Darnedest Things 1: Of the few different ways I’ve tried to grapple with the Penn State scandal in this space, I think this series, using student voices and ideas to remember the best of what college should be, is my favorite.
November 28: Bond, Racist Bond?: It’s not easy to analyze something we love—but I tried that here, with one of my favorite films in my favorite series.
December 5: Defining Diversity: Transitioning from a topical post (one responding to other American commentators) to the continued development of my own ideas about American culture and identity.
December 12: Cross-Culture 1: It’s Not Only Rock and Roll: And then extending those ideas to one of the many different media, genres, and disciplines that American Studies helps us analyze.
December 19: Making My List 1: Memory Days: The Memory Days have become a separate and ongoing project and page here, but this is where they began.
December 29: Year in Review 4: School for Scandal: Another stab at Penn State—not searching for answers so much as highlighting some of the key American Studies questions.
January 4: Gaga for American Studies: What American Studies can help us see in and say about Lady Gaga. Enough said.
January 21: American Studies for Lifelong Learning: A series that helped me plan the spring semester, connect my teaching to this blog, and, in this case, move me toward both a new experience and what would turn out to be my third book.
January 23: Mexican American Studies: I’m maybe most proud of this series out of all that I’ve done in this space this year, and this is where it started.
February 2: The Three Acts of John Rocker: Trying to do complex justice to a figure and story that are both close to my heart (or at least the Atlanta Braves are) and easily over-simplified.
February 16: Remembering Yasuhiro Ishimoto: Another far-too forgotten figure, and a post inspired by an idea from a friend (which was the origin for the now-frequent crowd-sourced posts).
February 24: Detroit Connections: I think it’s fair to say that I hadn’t thought about this topic at all prior to coming up with the series and writing the post. That’s part of what a blog allows us to do, and while the results have to speak for themselves, I love the opportunity.
March 6: Celebrating Zitkala-Sa: The whole Women’s History series was a lot of fun, but any time I get the chance to recommend this unique and amazing author, I take it.
March 21: Balboa Park: Family vacations will never be the same, now that they’re part of my American Studying and blogging too. That’s fine by me.
March 27: Race and Danny Chen: Like the prior day’s subject, Trayvon Martin, Chen is a tragically killed American whose story we should all know and with which we have to engage.
April 4: Melville’s Confidence Man: A good reminder that both literature and laughter have their place on the blog too.
April 19: How Would a Patriot Act? Part Three: This post on the amazing and inspiring Yung Wing helped me continue developing book three.
April 26: Great American Stories, Part Four: One of the very best American short stories, by one of my very favorite authors.
May 10: Maurice Sendak: Sometimes I feel locked into a week’s series, but Sendak’s death reminded me that sometimes I need to shift gears and write about a topical and important subject.
May 29: Remembering Pat Tillman: I hope I did justice to the complexities and ambiguities in this American life and death; this remains by far my most-read post on the Open Salon version of this blog, so it seems like it struck a chord with folks.
June 2-3: Remembering or Commemorating War: Michael Kammen, Kurt Vonnegut and Clint Eastwood, and big American questions—if that’s not American Studying, what is?
June 12: Playing with America, Part 2: But this is American Studying too—analyzing some of the cultural and historical causes behind the hula hoop fad.
June 16-17: Crowd-sourced Post on Material Culture: My first crowd-sourced post, now one of my favorite aspects of the blog. Add your thoughts for this week’s!
July 6: Newton’s Histories, Part 5: To come full circle to the August 16thpost, Jonathan Walker reminds me of how much I still have to learn about American history and culture.July 27: Jennings on the Long Haul: And the inspiring life and career of Frances Jennings reminds me of why continuing to learn, study, analyze, teach, and write about America is so important and so rewarding.Next list tomorrow,BenPS. You know what to do!

August 15, 2016: Birthday Bests: 2010-2011

[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!]
In honor of this AmericanStudier’s 34th birthday in 2011, here (from oldest to most recent) were 34 of my favorite posts from the blog’s first year:
1)      The Wilmington Massacre and The Marrow of Tradition: My first full post, but also my first stab at two of this blog’s central purposes: narrating largely forgotten histories; and recommending texts we should all read.
2)      Pine Ridge, the American Indian Movement, and Apted’s Films: Ditto to those purposes, but also a post in which I interwove history, politics, identity, and different media in, I hope, a pretty exemplary American Studies way.
3)      The Shaw Memorial: I’ll freely admit that my first handful of posts were also just dedicated to texts and figures and moments and histories that I love—but the Memorial, like Chesnutt’s novel and Thunderheart in those first two links, is also a deeply inspiring work of American art.
4)      The Chinese Exclusion Act and the Most Amazing Baseball Game Ever: Probably my favorite post to date, maybe because it tells my favorite American story.
5)      Ely Parker: The post in which I came up with my idea for Ben’s American Hall of Inspiration; I know many of my posts can be pretty depressing, but hopefully the Hall can be a way for me to keep coming back to Americans whose stories and legacies are anything but.
6)      My Colleague Ian Williams’ Work with Incarcerated Americans: The first post where I made clear that we don’t need to look into our national history to find truly inspiring Americans and efforts. 
7)      Rush Limbaugh’s Thanksgiving Nonsense: My first request, and the first post to engage directly with the kinds of false American histories being advanced by the contemporary right.
8)      The Pledge of Allegiance: Another central purpose for this blog is to complicate, and at times directly challenge and seek to change, some of our most accepted national and historical narratives. This is one of the most important such challenges.
9)      Public Enemy, N.W.A., and Rap: If you’re going to be an AmericanStudier, you have to be willing to analyze even those media and genres on which you’re far from an expert, and hopefully find interesting and valuable things to say in the process. 
10)   Chinatown and the History of LA: At the same time, the best AmericanStudiers likewise have to be able to analyze their very favorite things (like this 1974 film, for me), and find ways to link them to broader American narratives and histories.
11)   The Statue of Liberty: Our national narratives about Lady Liberty are at least as ingrained as those about the Pledge of Allegiance—and just about as inaccurate.
12)   Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” and Parenting: Maybe the first post in which I really admitted my personal and intimate stakes in the topics I’m discussing here, and another of those texts everybody should read to boot.
13)   Dorothea Dix and Mental Health Reform: When it comes to a number of the people on whom I’ve focused here, I didn’t know nearly enough myself at the start of my research—making the posts as valuable for me as I could hope them to be for any other reader. This is one of those.
14)   Ben Franklin and Anti-Immigrant Sentiments: As with many dominant narratives, those Americans who argue most loudy in favor of limiting immigration usually do so in large part through false, or at best greatly oversimplified and partial, versions of our past.  
15)   Divorce in American History: Some of our narratives about the past and present seem so obvious as to be beyond dispute: such as the idea that divorce has become more common and more accepted in our contemporary society. Maybe, but as with every topic I’ve discussed here, the reality is a good bit more complicated.
16)   My Mom’s Guest Post on Margaret Wise Brown: The first of the many great guest posts I’ve been fortunate enough to feature here; I won’t link to the others, as you can and should find them by clicking the “Guest Posts” category on the right. And please—whether I’ve asked you specifically or not—feel free to contribute your own guest post down the road!
17)   JFK, Tucson, and the Rhetoric and Reality of Political Violence: The first post in which I deviated from my planned schedule to respond directly to a current event—something I’ve incorporated very fully into this blog in the months since.
18)   Tribute Post to Professor Alan Heimert: I’d say the same about the tribute posts that I did for the guest posts—both that they exemplify how fortunate I’ve been (in this case in the many amazing people and influences I’ve known) and that you should read them all (at the “Tribute Posts” category on the right). 
19)   Martin Luther King: How do we remember the real, hugely complicated, and to my mind even more inspiring man, rather than the mythic ideal we’ve created of him? A pretty key AmericanStudies question, one worth asking of every truly inspiring American.
20)   Angel Island and Sui Sin Far’s “In the Land of the Free”: Immigration has been, I believe, my first frequent theme here, perhaps because, as this post illustrates, it can connect us so fully to so many of the darkest, richest, most powerful and significant national places and events, texts and histories.
21)   Dresden and Slaughterhouse Five: One of the events we Americans have worked most hard to forget, and one of the novels that most beautifully and compelling argues for the need to remember and retell every story.
22)   Valentine’s Day Lessons: Maybe my least analytical post, and also one of my favorites. It ain’t all academic, y’know.
23)   Tori Amos, Lara Logan, and Stories of Rape: One of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard helps me respond to one of the year’s most horrific stories.
24)   Peter Gomes and Faith: A tribute to one of the most inspiring Americans I’ve ever met, and some thoughts on the particularly complicated and important American theme he embodies for me.
25)   The Treaty of Tripoli and the Founders on Church and State: Sometimes our historical narratives are a lot more complicated than we think. And sometimes they’re just a lot simpler. Sorry, David Barton and Glenn Beck, but there’s literally no doubt of what the Founders felt about the separation of church and state the idea of America as a “Christian nation.”
26)   Newt Gingrich, Definitions of America, and Why We’re Here: The first of many posts (such as all those included in the “Book Posts” category on the right) in which I bring the ideas at the heart of my second book into my responses to AmericanStudies narratives and myths.
27)   Du Bois, Affirmative Action, and Obama: Donald Trump quickly and thoroughly revealed himself to be a racist jackass, but the core reasons for much of the opposition to affirmative action are both more widespread and more worth responding to than Trump’s buffoonery. 
28)   Illegal Immigrants, Our Current Deportation Policies, and Empathy: What does deportation really mean and entail, who is affected, and at what human cost? 
29)   Tribute to My Grandfather Art Railton: The saddest Railton event of the year leads me to reflect on the many inspiring qualities of my grandfather’s life, identity, and especially perspective.
30)   My Clearest Immigration Post: Cutting through some of the complexities and stating things as plainly as possible, in response to Sarah Palin’s historical falsehoods. Repeated and renamed with even more force here. 
31)   Paul Revere, Longfellow, and Wikipedia: Another Sarah Palin-inspired post, this time on her revisions to the Paul Revere story and the question of what is “common knowledge” and what purposes it serves in our communal conversations.
32)   “Us vs. them” narratives, Muslim Americans, and Illegal Immigrants: The first of a couple posts to consider these particularly frustrating and divisive national narratives. The second, which also followed up my Norwegian terrorism response (linked below), is here. 
33)   Abraham Cahan: The many impressive genres and writings of this turn of the century Jewish American, and why AmericanStudiers should work to push down boundaries between disciplines as much as possible.34)   Terrorism, Norway, and Rhetoric: One of the latest and most important iterations of my using a current event to drive some American analyses—and likewise an illustration of just how fully interconnected international and American events and histories are.Next list tomorrow,BenPS. You know what to do!

August 13-14, 2016: Jonathan Silverman’s Guest Post on How to Be the American President

[I’ve highlighted UMass Lowell Professor Jonathan Silverman’s excellent AmericanStudies work a couple prior times in this space. Now I’m very excited to have the chance to present his analyses of American presidential campaigns, narratives, and images, past and present, as my latest Guest Post. Jonathan’s hard at work on his latest book, on the year in Norway about which he writes in this post, and is also the newly elected New England ASA Vice President.]
One day early in my time in Norway, I went to Oslo Katedralskole, a school over 850 years old in my role as Fulbright Roving Scholar in American Studies. Over the year, I went to 60 schools, often speaking to four classes in a day, some as small as three students and to crowds larger than 300.
Part of my job, I was told, was to talk about the presidential election, which I did, delivering versions of the same lecture more than 50 times. More specifically, my job was to intervene and to explain American politics to an interested audience. Norwegians at the time were tested on the American presidential election, but I think they were interested anyway; the national news often led with mundane details of the campaign (as far I could tell, anyway—I have only a train station (togstasjon) knowledge of Norwegian).
The trick was going to be finding a way to use my expertise as cultural historian, journalist—and performer. There was no way I was going to be able to give a straightforward lecture about American politics; it would bore both me and my Norwegian audience.
So I came up with a lecture, “How to be the American President,” an illustrated PowerPoint slide show, featuring 20 steps. It began with “Be white” and ended with “Win the swing states.” In-between was a mix of demographic analysis, history, civic engagement, discussion of social media, and discussion of the quirks of the American electoral system, seasoned with a sense of the absurd and a dose of sarcasm expressed as irony.
The year began with a discussion of ten candidates, and by the time I gave my last lecture in June, it was down to three: Obama, Clinton, and McCain.
But my presentation, which I will annotate here, also gave both me and my students a real sense of the quirks of the election, which has also been on full display in 2016. I wanted to write something that acknowledged that our elections had a definitive, repeated structure that was formed ad-hoc and barely resembled any other election.
1. Be white. This I used to get students talking about the possibility of Barack Obama becoming president, a softball. I always acted a little surprised when they knew the specifics of the American election, even though after the first presentation I was not surprised. Norwegians followed the election very closely; it was often the first item on the national news, and each bit of new information was processed carefully.
For example, I was asked what I thought the impact of Edward Kennedy endorsing Obama the day after it happened. So I had to be able to deliver election analysis that addressed both historical and current trends.
2. Be male.I used this to talk about Hillary Clinton, another softball point. From pretty early on, I predicted that a Democrat would be president, and in mid-February I said, based on work that Nate Silver and others were doing, that Obama would win the nomination. And then the presidency. The Norwegians were skeptical: “Is America ready for a black man?” Turns out, maybe. 
3. Be Christian. Actually this wasn’t in the presentation at the beginning; a teacher in the small town of Fræna suggested it, but of course it fit, and if Hilary is elected, it will be one of the last demographic taboos to be challenged—all of our presidents have been straight (cisgender) Christians.
4. Go to a university with an elite reputation. I used this to explain the class orientation of American elections, and pointed out that not all presidents qualified under this, but most did, even ones we might not think of as elite. Obama had Columbia and Harvard; Hillary had Wellesley and Yale; McCain went to the Naval Academy, as Jimmy Carter had, and Romney went to Brigham Young and Harvard. Mike Huckabee did not have the pedigree, attending Ouachita Baptist University—but I don’t think that was the reason he lost.
Talking about education was also a window into talking about class and economic ambition, and who could participate in public life in the United States. The Norwegians were a society where equality was not just a watchword; it was enacted in many different ways, right down to the same audiovisual equipment being in every school, big and small (with universal nervousness by my hosts when I used my Mac laptop instead of the PC console to deliver my lecture).
5. Get an advanced degree.Almost every president has one, especially since the 1970s; many of them have law degrees, including both Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama; George W. Bush had an MBA. This point I merely amplified the previous one; that education led to privilege for these Americans running for president.
6. Choose a party. In Norway, there are a number of parties, and often the government is formed through party alliances. It’s actually not so different from the United States, which forms its parties through related constituencies and not party alliances. I took a Facebook quiz and found out I would have been part of the Norwegian Labor Party (it remains my party affiliation there), somewhere in the middle of the road for Norwegian politics. In general, not surprising for a socialist monarchy, Norwegians are on average more liberal than Americans.
7. Get married.
It’s been a while since the White House has been occupied by a single person—Grover Cleveland in 1884, though he married while he was president; James Buchanan was the last bachelor. I showed classes a photo of Obama’s family [art to provided] taken from his website when I talked about this, and how it made voting for a candidate seem less risky if he or she were married.
8. Get elected either governor, senator, or vice president. It’s been a while since we had one who was not, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who served as a prominent army general and then president of Columbia University. This too showed the way the populace diminished risk in choosing candidates for president. Clinton, Obama, and McCain were all senators at the time of 2008 election.
9. Decide to run for president.There are a lot of people who Americans would value as president who ultimately decline, former governor Mario Cuomo being one (and perhaps his son being another). I did talk about the human costs of the election, and this was before the Internet really got rolling in terms of its destructiveness. My friend Dean and I made this website talking about the cultural impact of Obama, but abandoned it once the vitriol began.
I used this section to talk about unconventional candidates in other elections, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming governor of California, doing a very bad imitation of him. I explained that Arnold would not eligible because he was not born here. What would Norwegians say about the most unconventional candidate for president? More on that later. 
10. Raise money. This was an unfamiliar concept to Norwegians, who limit their campaigns and the ways candidates can spend money. When I spoke of the sums of money necessary to run for president, a lot of them were incredulous, and some of the more attuned ones questioned on whether that affected the relationship between the candidates and what they believed, which I tactfully answered: “Well, they say it doesn’t.”
11. Write a book. Every candidate in 2008 had at least one book, and many of them had two, including Mike Huckabee. I made the students giggle when I showed them his book, Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork , a self-help book based on his experiences losing weight. Books allow campaigning without campaigning.
12. Spend lots of time in Iowa and New Hampshire. I got the biggest laughs when I showed this slide, because students simply could not believe that two states so small and seeming inconsequential in American life, as opposed to California, New York, and Texas, could be so important to electing a president. Savvier students knew about the primaries, especially as we inched closer to the election. The Katedralskole student was an extreme example of a general tendency to know about the campaign and the United States; another high school student in Bodø knew all 50 state capitals.
13. Find ways to advertise and market yourself. I spent a lot of time on this one, talking about the incongruity of social media and electoral politics. There is the weird feature of Hillary Clinton’s age and hometown being listed on Facebook, and Obama’s crazy link heavy pages on the site. We talked about the inherent conservativeness of Obama’s popular music and movie choices, and the weird MySpace page of Mike Gravel (remember him?), who had only two friends, the founder of MySpace (Tom Anderson) and his son. 
We looked at John Edwards’ Twitter page; Twitter was definitely not a thing in 2008, but all the campaigns had twitter pages I believe.     Social media at that moment seemed outsized in importance, and I suppose it was, though it was only one way the Internet contributed to Obama’s win. 
14. Win enough delegates to gain the nomination. This was relatively easy to explain, especially after explaining caucuses and primaries.
15. Deliver a good speech at the convention. Convention speeches are highly visible parts of the electoral process, and so I talked about them. We were now talking about phenomenon that they would experience without me, and so I was trying to project experiences that I was not sure would happen; everything after this was a prediction.
16. Choose a strong running mate. I explained what a vice-president did, and the different philosophies that went into choosing them. Norwegians would not have been surprised by Obama picking Joe Biden after this lecture.
17. Raise more money.Another laugh; another sober explanation of money in politics.
18. Beat the other candidate in a debate. I explained the high stakes nature of debating in the United States, which they had seen in the primaries.
19. Handle surprises.I talked about the unpredictability of the campaign, and this was before Obama’s Jeremiah Wright moment. I talked about the revelation of GWB’s drunken driving conviction right before the 2000 election.
20. Win the swing states.This is where I got into the nitty gritty of electoral votes and purple America. I showed them the map by Princeton professor Robert J. Vanderbei that shaded locales red if they were Republican and blue if they were Democratic. The map shows the east and west coasts largely blue, and a huge portion of the United States red. “But don’t worry,” I assured students, “nobody lives there,” which got a laugh.
I told them about when I moved to Texas for graduate school my friends were concerned. But they needn’t have been, I said, because I was living here, pointing the bright blue spot of Austin in Texas.  I pointed to the purple hues of the rust and farm belts and the variegated states of Florida and Virginia and Colorado. Even a few shade changes would change the national election.
Often the more interesting part for me was the second part of the presentation, where I answered questions the students posed about American culture and politics. They were tough questions about American foreign policy, health care, and race, and I tried to answer them as honestly as I could.
I don’t remember this session specifically, but it would probably begin with a question like this:
“Why did you vote for George W. Bush twice?”
The question is a subtle question, indicating a depth of knowledge about American politics; knowing that there is a difference between the reasons one elects and re-elects show a subtlety of thought.
My answer: “The United States was at war with Iraq, and some Americans feel uncomfortable changing presidents at that time. I also think people were still in shock over 9/11, and that also made people reluctant to change.” I never defended Bush, and oddly, no one ever asked me about Kerry.
These sessions were interesting because I was trying to explain things that were somewhat unexplainable, give nuance to situations that many people do not think are particularly nuanced. You can see that I was somewhat protective and empathetic with those who may not deserve it. I’m not sure why in retrospect why I was relatively gentle with Bush and Republicans who wanted to deny poor people health care. I think part of it might just have been paranoia.
But there was also a sense that whatever I was, I was still part of the country that enacted these policies, and even though I voted against them, I couldn’t shirk some responsibility for them. And so then, the explanation is less charitable—I was protecting myself.
I also said that most of the questions that they ask are indeed asked by Americans; I told them it might seem that Americans are a certain way, but it's important to remember that American politics is marked by a diversity of views. And that was and is true, when I said that, I did feel a little better about the current state of the United States. [Next series starts Monday,BenPS. What do you think?]

August 12, 2016: American Fathers: Sitcom Dads

[August 11thmarked the birthday of AmericanStudier pére, as well as one of the very best digital humanists, scholarly writers,and grandfathers I know, Steve Railton. In his honor, a series on some noteworthy cultural and historical American fathers! Share your paternal responses and reflections for the father of all crowd-sourced posts!]AmericanStudying the clichéd extremes of sitcom dads, and the men in the middle.1)      The Wise Men: It’s no coincidence that one of the first popular TV sitcoms was entitled Father Knows Best (1954-60, based on the 1949-54 radio show). A central thread throughout the genre’s history has been the trope of the wise father responding to his family’s problems and issues, from Father’s Jim Warren (Robert Young) and Leave It to Beaver’s Ward Cleaver (Hugh Beaumont, proving in that clip that father most definitely did not always know best) to The Cosby Show’s Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby, now ironically but nevertheless) and Growing Pains’ Jason Seaver (Alan Thicke), among countless others. It’s difficult to separate this trope from 50s stereotypes of gender and family roles (especially after seeing that hyperlinked Leave It to Beaver moment), but at the same time the trope’s endurance long after that decade reflects its continued cultural resonance. If sitcoms often reflect exaggerated versions of our idealized social structures, then there’s something about that paternalistic wise man that has remained a powerful American idea.2)      The Fools: Yet at the same time that the TV version of Father Knows Best was taking off, Jackie Gleason’s The Honeymooners (1955-56, based on a recurring comedy sketch) was experiencing its own brief but striking success. I’m not sure whether Gleason’s foolish, angry husband (not yet a father in Gleason’s case) character was a direct response to wise characters or just the natural yang to that yin; but in any case such foolish fathers have likewise continued to be a sitcom staple in the decades since, with Married with Children’s Al Bundy (Ed O’Neill) and The Simpsons’ Homer Simpson (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) representing two particularly exaggerated end of the century versions of the type. Yet also two significantly distinct versions—Al Bundy consistently desires to escape from his wife and family (putting him in the American tradition of characters like Rip Van Winkle), while Homer is a macho stereotype who loves his beer and donuts but also mostly loves his family. To paraphrase Tolstoy’s famous quote, each foolish sitcom father is foolish in his own way.3)      The Middle Men: Because these two extremes have been so prevalent in sitcom history, it’s easy to put each and every sitcom father into one or the other of these categories. But I think doing so would be a disservice to (among others) those sitcom dads who might superficially seem like caricatured fools, but whose characters included complexities and depths beyond that stereotype. I’d say that’s especially the case for a few 1970s dads: All in the Family’s Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), The Jeffersons’ George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley, who first appeared as the character on All), and Sanford and Son’s Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx). Each of those fathers could be as foolish and angry as any, but to stop there would be to miss much of what made them and their sitcoms memorable: partly the willingness to engage with social and political issues such as race and class; but also and just as importantly the messy, dynamic humanity each character and actor captured, all without losing an ounce of their comic timing and success. Few fathers are purely wise or foolish, after all, and these dads in the middle help remind us of the full spectrum of paternal possibilities.Crowd-sourced post this weekend,BenPS. So one more time: what do you think? Fatherly texts or figures you’d highlight?

August 11, 2016: American Fathers: Missing Fathers

[Today marks the birthday of AmericanStudier pére, as well as one of the very best digital humanists, scholarly writers,and grandfathers I know, Steve Railton. In his honor, a series on some noteworthy cultural and historical American fathers! Share your paternal responses and reflections for the father of all crowd-sourced posts!]On political, literary, and cultural engagements with a vexing late 20th century American issue.Few, if any, governmental publications have in our long national history achieved the kinds of controversial, galvanizing, long-lasting significance and effect as The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (1965). Written for President Lyndon Johnson by Assistant Secretary of Labor (and future Senator) Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and thus known forever after as The Moynihan Report, the document began as a simple statistical analysis of African American poverty and related issues, but as the subtitle suggests turned into a set of warnings and recommendations in response to those issues. By far the most famous, controversial, and to both Moynihan and his readers (critical and supportive) central of those warnings had to do with single-parent households, and more exactly with single mothers and missing fathers; it was that heavily present family dynamic, to Moynihan, that explained—even better than historic and broader contexts and causes, although he made clear that it was related to and in part caused by them—much of the worst of what impoverished African American families and children (particularly in the period’s disintegrating cities) were experiencing.In the more than fifty years since the Report’s release, that particular argument has, along with the rest of the Report’s findings and analyses, been subject to numerous critiques, addenda, agreements, revisions, and so on. But whatever we make of Moynihan’s ideas on the topic, there’s no question that the theme of missing black fathers has been an important and ongoing one in late 20th and early 21st century American society and culture. That theme, and more exactly what the missing fathers mean for their families and especially their sons, is at the heart of two of the greatest African American novels of the decades following Moynihan (or any time period for that matter): Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (1977) and David Bradley’s The Chaneysville Incident (1981). Without spoiling either of these mysterious and complex works, I’ll just note that Morrison’s Milkman Dead and Bradley’s John Washington are (in different but not unrelated ways) obsessively searching for the truths left behind by their missing fathers, and that both their quests and their culminating discoveries and choices represent profoundly powerful and symbolic narratives for late 20thcentury African American men and for the society in which they face these challenges.About a decade later, one of the period’s most original and important films, John Singleton’s Boyz in the Hood (1991), would extend and add further layers to these narratives. On the one hand, Singleton’s most famous character, Laurence Fishburne’s absolutely compelling Furious Styles, is for most of the film a single father to his son Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.), and one determined to perform his fatherly roles to the utmost (no matter how much Tre tries to resist). And on the other, the complex and tragic arcs and fates (spoiler alert!) of Tre’s friends Ricky (Morris Chestnut) and Doughboy (Ice Cube) seem entirely connected to the absence of a father in their lives, although the college-bound football star Ricky and the gang-banger Doughboy have prior to the film’s main events clearly responded to that absence in profoundly different ways. In its own ways, Singleton’s film is still grappling with precisely the same questions as Moynihan’s report—Doughboy’sfinal speech suggests a broad national culpability for its characters’ setting and experiences, while Furious might agree with Moynihan that more African American fathers need to take on their responsibilities as he has. The debate continues—and literary and cultural texts, as these great ones illustrate, have their place in that debate to be sure.Last father tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Fatherly texts or figures you’d highlight?PPS. Happy birthday, Dad!