Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 313

August 25, 2015: More Poems I Love: Piatt’s “Pique”

[A few years back, I shared a handful of my favorite American poems in a weeklong series. Before I go back to sharing poems for money—well, teaching them as part of my job, but you get the idea—I wanted to highlight another week’s worth of favorite poems and a couple reasons why I love each. Share your favorites in comments, please!]Today’s favorite poem is Sarah Piatt’s “A Pique at Parting” (1879).I love “Pique” because it exemplifies Piatt’s dialogic style and perspective, her use of conversation (even when ostensibly within one speaker’s point of view, as is “Pique”) to build a sense of how our identities and voices exist in relationship to those of others. I love it because it challenges gender ideals and myths without becoming the slightest bit preachy or pedantic. And I love it because it’s as smart and funny as Piatt’s contemporary writer Fanny Fern, without losing a bit of the poetic complexity that made Piatt a worthy rival of her fellow contemporary Emily Dickinson.Next favorite tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts on this poem? Other favorites you’d share?

August 24, 2015: More Poems I Love: Larcom’s “Weaving”

[A few years back, I shared a handful of my favorite American poems in a weeklong series. Before I go back to sharing poems for money—well, teaching them as part of my job, but you get the idea—I wanted to highlight another week’s worth of favorite poems and a couple reasons why I love each. Share your favorites in comments, please!]Today’s favorite poem is Lucy Larcom’s “Weaving”(c. 1862).I love “Weaving” because it builds on Larcom’s amazing biography—from a starting point as one of the Lowell Mill workers who started the Lowell Offering to a life as an abolitionist activist and a dean of American poetry and letters—and brings all those stories and histories together into its central, multi-layered image and metaphor. We talk about the concept of “intersectionality”in identity and society in the 21st century—well, Larcom and her poem portrayed and modeled it pitch-perfectly in the mid-19th. Next favorite tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts on this poem? Other favorites you’d share?

August 22-23, 2015: Crowd-sourced Summer Getaways

[For many up here in New England, summer means a trip or twelve to the Cape—Cape Cod, that is (with no disrespect to the beautiful Cape Ann). So this week, I’ve AmericanStudied five Cape Cod stories. This crowd-sourced post is drawn from the responses and summer getaways of fellow AmericanStudiers—add yours in comments, please!]Responding to the Cape Cod posts, Brianna Jaquetteremembers, “Vacationed there every year as a child. Ordered lots of coffee-flavored ice cream. Thought it was a very sophisticated choice.” She adds, “Still stand by the choice but think I also made it because of the Cape, which seemed a little more polished than I ever felt.”Greg Specter Tweets, “Make sure to visit the Pilgrim Monument& Provincetown Museum. Never went until a few years ago. Now visit all the time.”Michele Karol likewise only visited the Monument after years of daytrips to Provincetown, and now is a big fan and would highlight all three parts: “the Monument, the Museum, and the gift shop, all of which are engaging for kids as well as interesting for adults.” And she adds that as crowded as the Cape’s sites get, there are still ways to get away from the crowds: whether “walking further down a beach or visiting a site early in the morning or later in the evening, you can still find ways to get away from the crowds and experience the Cape for yourself.”Michael Miles Tweets, “Gotta get fried scallops at the Lobster Potin P-town.”Responding as only a born writer can, Rob Gosselin writes, “When I was seventeen I went camping one summer in Truro on Cape Cod. I was with a group of about 12 people. A young woman came with us. She had long black hair and green eyes. I remember her name, perhaps one of the few things I remember about those wild and reckless days, but I won’t repeat it here. One night we all went walking on the beach. There was no moon. We all stood by the ocean. The green-eyed woman and I drifted apart from the rest of the group. Then the two of us noticed that there were small, bio-luminescent fish in the sea. Whenever a wave crashed onto the beach the space where the water met the sand would glow with a line of soft blue-green. If you looked down the beach, you could see the line of luminosity run like pearly lightning all along the edge of the ocean. The long line of running light went almost to the horizon. Then I kissed her. More importantly, she kissed me back. That was 37 years ago, and to this day whenever I see the ocean I think of that night on Cape Cod.”Lifelong Cape Cod resident Amy Johnson writes, “I recently went on a graveyard tour in Sandwich. It was free! (I did not know there was a difference between a cemetery and graveyard. I thought they were one and the same.) One interesting thing I learned was about a former slave that is buried there. He was granted his freedom when his master died and he went on to become well respected in the community. The former slave (Titus) left his whole earnings to a church to purchase a black clock. It eventually broke and bonged hundreds of times in the middle of the night which is kind of hilarious to think about... I've driven by that church hundreds of times and had no idea of the symbolism behind the clock. I guess my reason for sharing this interesting tidbit is because there are still so many hidden facets and historical facts that I am still discovering depsite having lived on the Cape for almost 20 years.”Offering her own summer getaway, Meg Koslowski highlights Lake Shirley, sharing, “The endless hours I’ve spent there with my husband over the past few years. Starting the day off with a drive around the lake, making our way to our favorite cove to float in the water for the day until the sun sets.”Andrew DaSilva, another lifelong Cape Codder, shares, “Cape Cod is at its best in October when the tourist are gone. The tacky tourist traps have closed and only the locals remain. The fall foliage from the top of Scargo tower is pretty awesome and occasionally one can still catch a decent play at one of the local theaters in Brewster, Orleans or the big one in Dennis. That salty marsh smell is nice 'n crisp when watch'n the sun rise and no one cares if you pull over to watch it ‘cause all them tourists are gone and traffic is close to nonexistent. The bike trail is often empty which is great for bird watch'n and leaf peep'n. The crowds at the Truro Vineyards for wine tasting have disappeared and one can sample wine without being rushed by the yuppies that drive cars with New York plates. One can drive from Brewster to Sandwich and dine at the Bee~Hive Tavern without sitting in traffic. While dining at the Bee~Hive one can listen to the live music they play from time to time without the chatter and cackling of the tourists. All in all I don't really like the tourists if ya couldn't tell by now however I do very much like the Cape. I like how small town it is. We don't have a large supermarket where I live, just mum and pop sorta places. No traffic lights. I cast my ballot come election day in a church. The guy who cuts my meat at the market I went to high school with as is the lady who sells me my booze at the liquor store. When I do go fish'n I get my bait from a bait and tackle store owned by my best friend’s uncle. And chances are high if ya get pulled over (seeing crime is close to none-exsistant in Brewster, traffic violations such as speeding being the exception) it would be one of the fella's dad who ya went to high school with. It's sorta like that TV show Cheers where everyone knows your name. And well that's kinda nice.”
While Max Aelwyn shares a different perspective: "Having grown up there I'd say that the Cape is a cultural wasteland. The arts continually languish and year after year of kids there fall into drugs, booze or both. I remember growing up that if you needed weed you just had to go to the vineyard because there was nothing there and the cops didn't care. There are more and more stories every winter of people getting mugged, attacked, etc. as all of that tourism money goes away and people get desperate. Schools are underfunded because the people who own half the land for the summer homes continually vote against raising taxes to pay for anything. The Cape is dying and its future ain't great." notes, “For the Cape I automatically think of Martha’s Vineyard—we would visit the brass ring merry-go-round every trip!” And she adds, “For me summer is time spent on Lake Ossippee in NH! My family has a house up there and my father is a teacher while one of his best friends is a firefighter meaning they had long stretches of time off together! My father would take my brother and me up with his friend and his two children for almost every week going home on weekends to see our mothers! It was almost like our own personal summer camp often named ‘beach tour’ as we would try and boat a large variety of lakes throughout the summer. We were even christened with ‘lake names’ every year such as ‘Swamp girl’ or ‘the gnat’! Just thought you might appreciate since I know how precious your relationship with your sons is—I think the summer bonds made with my father really helped us later in life!”Andrea Grenadier highlights “Little Boar’s Head, New Hampshire,” adding, “For many years, I went up with friends whose family owned a big house up there, as well as a fish house right on the water. Those were some incredible times with wonderful people! I won't be up there this summer, since I've just started a new temporary work gig at the Dept. of Commerce. So next summer, I hope!”Karen Valeri writes, “York Beach (Long Sands), Maine is my favorite. I also love Hampton Beach, NH, but it tends to be crazy busy. The state park at Hampton is nice for camping.”Ben Lieberman ventures “further north in Maine,” to “Popham Beach and Reid State Park.”And Monica Jackson shares, “I just visited the Carlsbad Caverns in NM and the Grand Canyon in AZ. The Caverns were the best part though and we also drove through Roswell. We didn't get to stop there this time, so we might go back next summer.”Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Other summer favorite places you’d highlight?

August 21, 2015: Cape Cod Stories: The Changing Cape

[For many up here in New England, summer means a trip or twelve to the Cape—Cape Cod, that is (with no disrespect to the beautiful Cape Ann). So this week, I’ll AmericanStudy five Cape Cod stories—share your own summer favorite places and their stories for a crowd-sourced weekend getaway, please!]On what the Cape isn’t any more, what it is, and what’s next.The plentiful fishing that gave Cape Cod its name (or rather that led Bartholomew Gosnold to give it its name, as I highlighted yesterday) has been perceived as endangered for at least a century. Take David Belding’s 1920 Report upon the Alewife Fisheries of Massachusetts , for example, which dedicates much of its attention to “causes of decline” in the industry (and, to be fair to Belding, to proposed “remedial efforts” to reverse that decline). By the time Billy Joel sang, as the fisherman speaker of “The Downeaster Alexa”(1989), that “they say these waters aren’t what they used to be” and “there ain’t much future for a man who works the sea,” those historical, environmental, and economic trends were becoming clearer and clearer, and perhaps were already irreversible. Cod may well deserve to be called “The Fish that Changed the World,” that is, but the world has changed since, and Cape Cod has had to change with it.The Cape has done so mostly through embracing tourism and all that it brings. As Thoreau’s mid-19th century sojourns to the Cape illustrate, such visits have a longstanding history of their own; by the late 19th century, it was a fact universally acknowledged that wealthy Boston families like those on whom William Dean Howells’ The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) focuses hadn’t achieved true social prominence until they had a summer home on the Cape. Yet just as it has on the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket to the South of the Cape, tourism to Cape Cod has absolutely exploded in the last century or so, reaching a 21stcentury crest that shows no signs of abating (just ask anyone who tries to drive across the Bourne Bridge on any summer Friday afternoon; they’ll be easy to find, as they’ll still be in traffic as of Saturday morning). It’s a fine and arbitrary line to be sure, but I would argue that the Cape has in the last half-century or so gone from being a touristed area, one popular with visitors but with a distinct, longstanding identity and economy of its own, to being a place defined by tourism, one whose primary identity is as a vacation destination.Regardless of how we narrate or define those historical and social stages and evolutions, the more vital question is where the Cape goes from here. If tourism is going to continue at such record numbers, preserving both the natural landscape and the historic identity of the Cape will become more important than ever; the former is especially salient given the striking and ongoing effects of global climate changes. Entities like the Cape Cod National Seashore offer a template for such preservation efforts, and deserve the support of anyone who agrees with Thoreau (and me) about the Cape’s amazing and unique treasures, human as well as a natural. None of these challenges are limited to Cape Cod, of course; they are in many ways the fundamental questions facing both the post-industrial United States and a world dealing with climate change. But national and global challenges often benefit from local frames and responses—and in this as in so many other ways, Cape Cod offers a vital American setting and story.Crowd-sourced post this weekend,BenPS. So one more time: what do you think? Summer favorite places you’d highlight?

August 20, 2015: Cape Cod Stories: Provincetown

[For many up here in New England, summer means a trip or twelve to the Cape—Cape Cod, that is (with no disrespect to the beautiful Cape Ann). So this week, I’ll AmericanStudy five Cape Cod stories—share your own summer favorite places and their stories for a crowd-sourced weekend getaway, please!]Three significant stages in the life of a Cape Cod community.No place was more meaningful to the development of English settlement in New England (and beyond) than Provincetown Harbor, located at the Cape’s extreme tip (which, because of the quirks of the Cape’s shape and geography, is also actually its closest point to Boston). It was while navigating the harbor that Bartholomew Gosnold, considered the region’s first English explorer and one of the principal architects of English settlement in the New World overall, gave Cape Cod its name. And it was while the Mayflower lay anchored in the harbor that the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact and began the coastal explorations that would lead them to Plymouth. The latter event in particular is the source of Provincetown’s longstanding motto, one inscribed on the flagstaff near the town hall: “Birthplace of American Liberty” (although other Massachusetts sites such as Lexington and Boston claim that honor for themselves).Whether we buy that particular nickname or not (the Pilgrims, while pursuing a certain form of liberty to be sure, also practiced without question their own restrictions on liberty), there’s no doubt that Provincetown has subsequently helped give birth to a couple significant American freedoms. For one thing, there’s the artistic freedom represented by the Provincetown Players and the town’s early 20th century experimental theater community, which in many ways (often linked specifically to Eugene O’Neill, but captured at least as successfully by his fellow playwright and theatrical collaborator Susan Glaspell) signaled the first truly ground-breaking American dramatic forms and works, finally free of the 19th century conventions of melodrama. That’s probably an overstatement, and there’s plenty worth remembering and studying in 19th century American drama; but nonetheless the Provincetown theater community represented a watershed moment for American drama and literature, and one thoroughly tied—as is all performance and live art—to the place in which it was created. “Birthplace of American Theater” has a nice ring to it too, doesn’t it?“Birthplace of American Gay Tourism” is a bit more unwieldy, but it fits quite nicely a third stage of Provincetown’s American story. The town’s experimental theater community and artists’ colonyhelped create a more welcoming environment for gay Americans than in most early 20th century places, and there were apparently prominent drag performances in town as early as the 1940s. By the 1970s, the town’s identity as a vacation destination for gay visitors was well-established enough to merit the 1978 formation of the Provincetown Business Guild (PBG), an organization dedicated to promoting gay tourism. Coming less than a decade after the Stonewall Riot, with most of the nation still thoroughly hostile to (or at least unwilling to acknowledge the existence of) gay Americans, the PBG’s formation reflects just how much Provincetown took the lead on gay rights. It has continued to do so in the decades since, and on the 2010 censushad the nation’s highest rate of same-sex couples, at 163.1 per 1000 couples. A 21st century reflection of Provincetown’s continuing yet evolving role as a prominent site of American community, history, and ideals.Last Cape story tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Summer favorite places you’d highlight?

August 19, 2015: Cape Cod Stories: The National Seashore

[For many up here in New England, summer means a trip or twelve to the Cape—Cape Cod, that is (with no disrespect to the beautiful Cape Ann). So this week, I’ll AmericanStudy five Cape Cod stories—share your own summer favorite places and their stories for a crowd-sourced weekend getaway, please!]Three exemplary sites within the National Park Service’s Cape Cod National Seashore.1)      The Dune Shacks: The particular form of house and living that developed on Cape Cod’s outermost beaches has come to be known as a “dune shack,” and has within the last few years been preserved within the National Register’s Dune Shacks of Peaked Hill Bars Historic District. Initially used mostly by fisherman and the Coast Guard, the dune shacks also came to be associated with the Cape’s artistic community, particularly through the writings and life of “poet of the dunes” Harry Kemp. And the National Park Service has found a wonderful way to preserve and carry forward that latter legacy, working with non-profits to offer an artist-/writer-in-residence program at the Dune Shacks.2)      The Penniman House: Located atop Fort Hill in Eastham, the impressive second home of prominent local whaling captain Edward Penniman (constructed in 1868) has become a site through which the Park Services tells a representative “Whaling Story.” As that second linked site illustrates, such stories were and still are composed out of a combination of the profession’s mythos (see: Captain Ahab) and its often far different realities (see: the concept of the Widow’s Walk, which may be apocryphal but captures the hardships and losses of whaling accurately in any case). And on both those levels, along with its roles in the local and global economies, whaling comprised a vital part of Cape Cod’s and American community and identity throughout the 19th century, making the Penniman House an important stop for any visitor to the National Seashore.3)      Doane Rock: One impressive and unique site that captures two Cape Cod histories, Doane Rock is both Cape Cod’s largest exposed glacial boulder and the namesake of Deacon John Doane, one of the first residents of Plymouth Colony to settle the Eastham area in 1644. As such, the Rock both represents deep continuities, across nearly 20,000 years and certainly linking the region’s earliest European arrivals to our own moment, and at the same time reflects the vast changes that the area has undergone in its natural as well as its human histories. An ancient world still with us and an ever-changing place that we must approach with new eyes—that about sums up the Cape for me, and Doane Rock helps us consider and appreciate both sides.Next Cape story tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Summer favorite places you’d highlight?

August 18, 2015: Cape Cod Stories: Thoreau and the Cape

[For many up here in New England, summer means a trip or twelve to the Cape—Cape Cod, that is (with no disrespect to the beautiful Cape Ann). So this week, I’ll AmericanStudy five Cape Cod stories—share your own summer favorite places and their stories for a crowd-sourced weekend getaway, please!]On two complementary reasons to read Thoreau’s often-overlooked Cape Cod (1865).Between 1849 and 1857, Henry David Thoreau traveled four times to Cape Cod (no quick or easy journey for any Concord resident in those days, much less one who preferred walking to the train). He was as taken by the place as have been so many of its visitors, and eventually compiled his observations and reflections on those journeys into a single book manuscript, treating the four trips as one symbolic meta-visit to the Cape. Not yet published upon his untimely death in 1862, the book was released in 1865, but has I would argue been largely forgotten in the century and a half since; when the Thoreau canon is expanded beyond Walden and “Civil Disobedience” to include his travel writing, the choice is often A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849). A Week, like all those works, deserves our attention to be sure, but there’s a case to be made that Cape Cod offers two significant contributions of its own to our collective memories.For one thing, it gives us a far different Thoreau. As was known even to his contemporary Concordians and has become clearer and clearer ever since, the Thoreau of Walden and the like was a carefully constructed persona, an imagined version of the self created in order to model a perspective and identity for those neighbors he was hoping to wake up. Whereas I very much agree with scholar Henry Beston (in his Introduction to an edition of the book) that in Cape Cod we find “Thoreau as a human being,” and more exactly “what he was at the time, a Concord Yankee gone traveling.” He was also one of our keenest observers of and writers about nature, both scientific (particularly as a botanist) and human—and while he included those observations in all his works, the lack of an overt moral or social purpose to Cape Cod allows them to take center stage in a particularly compelling and successful way. Cape Codmay not be as immediate or authentic as Thoreau in his Journals, but it’s a far more concise work and one written with audience engagement in mind, and thus it complements his other published books with a more intimate glimpse into Thoreau than we otherwise get from them.Moreover, Cape Cod also offers an important glimpse into both the natural landscapes and human communities of the region prior to its full development as a tourist getaway. In Chapter IV, for example, Thoreau finds himself on a Wellfleet beach that would become part of the Cape Cod National Seashore (on which more tomorrow): “In short, we were traversing a desert, with the view of an autumnal landscape of extraordinary brilliancy, a sort of Promised Land, on the one hand, and the ocean on the other. Yet, though the prospect was so extensive, and the country for the most part destitute of trees, a house was rarely visible--we never saw one from the beach--and the solitude was that of the ocean and the desert combined. A thousand men could not have seriously interrupted it, but would have been lost in the vastness of the scenery, as their footsteps in the sand.” And in the very next chapter, he ventures inland to converse with one of the most finely observed human subjects in all his writing, “The Wellfleet Oysterman.” Taken together, these two chapters give us a striking glimpse into Cape Cod in the mid-19thcentury, a world quite apart from Concord and the rest of Massachusetts, and one captured with the unique precision and power of which Thoreau was capable.Next Cape story tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Summer favorite places you’d highlight?

August 17, 2015: Cape Cod Stories: The Mashpee Revolt

[For many up here in New England, summer means a trip or twelve to the Cape—Cape Cod, that is (with no disrespect to the beautiful Cape Ann). So this week, I’ll AmericanStudy five Cape Cod stories—share your own summer favorite places and their stories for a crowd-sourced weekend getaway, please!]On what’s complex and challenging about a historical rebellion, and what’s not.In this long-ago post on the early 19th century concept of “nullification” (a concept that has returned to our national conversations in recent monts), I noted that what seems to differentiate John Calhoun’s proto-Confederate attempts to resist the federal government from those of Cape Cod’s Mashpee Wampanoag tribe and community is, to put it simply, our sympathies. That is, of course to any thoughtful and knowledgable AmericanStudier a community like the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe had far more legitimate grievances than did Calhoun’s South Carolina (which along with its fellow Southern states had, I would argue, been favored at every stage of the American founding, from the Declaration to the Constitution and beyond). But whether legimitate historical grievances are an argument for an entire community refusing to follow state and federal law, as did the Mashpee during their Revolt of 1833-34—well, that’s a different and more challenging question to be sure.But there’s another history and concept that’s also relevant to the Mashpee Revolt, and that indeed does differentiate their situation from South Carolina’s: the developing idea of tribal sovereignty. Tribes like the Mashpee Wampanoag don’t just perceive themselves as sovereign nations, separate from the United States in key ways; they have long been treated as such by the U.S., including if not especially in its treaties and laws. That the U.S. has forgotten, broken, and otherwise failed to live up to those treaties and laws so consistently in no way undermines the concept of tribal sovereignty; if anything, it makes it that much more important that the tribes themselves emphasize and fight for their sovereign rights, as the Mashpee Wampanoag did (successfully) in the 1830s. Moreover, the specifics of such legal fights make a great deal of difference as well: the Mashpee Wampanoag were struggling for the right not to practice and extend an abhorrent social system like that of slavery (which may not have been the overt goal of Calhoun’s 1830s nullifications, but was at the least foreshadowed by that fight), but rather for their fundamental ability to control and make a living on their own tribal land. Remembering Cape Cod’s Mashpee Revolt helps us engage with and better understand those complex legal questions and histories, not only for Native Americans but for the nation as a whole in the antebellum era. Yet it also does more than that. For one thing, it gives us a starting point for better remembering the tragically short but profoundly influential life and work of William Apess, the itinerant minister and orator who joined the Mashpee in their fight. And for another, related thing, it reminds us of the presence and power of Native American voices in this early 19th century moment. Too often, our narratives of such histories focus solely or centrally on white allies and advocates, in part because for many decades theirs were the only voices and texts we had recovered. But while those voices are without question part of the story, it’s vital that we see them for what they were—supporting players in an unfolding drama that had at its heart, then as always, Native American orators and activists, leaders and communities. Cape Cod’s Mashpee Revolt offers a particularly clear and effective starting point for remembering their struggles and successes.Next Cape story tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Summer favorite places you’d highlight?

August 14-16, 2015: Birthday Specials: 38 for 38

[For a week that includes both my Dad’s birthday and mine, a special series of blog birthday posts, old and new. Cel … ebrate AmericanStudier birthdays, come on!]In honor of tomorrow’s 38th birthday, 38 favorite posts from the last year 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.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Topics you’d like to see covered in the next year? Guest posts you’d like to write? Lemme know!

August 13, 2015: Birthday Specials: 2014 Birthday Best

[For a week that includes both my Dad’s birthday and mine, a special series of blog birthday posts, old and new. Cel … ebrate AmericanStudier birthdays, come on!]37 favorites from the 2013-2014 year on the blog!1)      August 23: Still Studying: Known Unknowns: A series on things I’m still learning concludes with a post on three recent takeaways from that 21st century resource, Twitter.2)      August 30: Fall Forward: Three Years: In honor of the blog’s upcoming third anniversary, three of my favorite memories from those first three years.3)      September 13: Newport Stories: To Preserve or Not to Preserve: A series on stories and histories surrounding The Breakers wonders whether and how we should preserve such historic homes.4)      September 17: Gloucester Stories: The Sense of the Past: As part of a series on the Massachusetts fishing town, why it’s so important to better remember that community.5)      September 25: Justice Is Not Color Blind: Duke: The most complex post in my series on race and justice in America, on expectations, realities, and the role of public scholars.6)      October 14: John Sayles’ America: Secaucus and the 60s: A series AmericanStudying my favorite filmmaker starts with the movie that echoes but also challenges our narratives of a turbulent decade.7)      October 21: Book Talk Thoughts: MOCA: With my year of book talks underway, a post on the inspiringly pitch-perfect New York museum that helped inaugurate those talks.8)      October 28: Symbolic Scares: The Wendigo: A Halloween series starts with the supernatural legend that offers cultural and cross-cultural commentaries.9)      November 7: Berkshire Stories: The Housatonic: Three complex and compelling sides to a New England river, part of a series on histories from this beautiful Western Mass. Region.10)   November 12: Veteran’s Week: Band of Brothers: As part of a Veteran’s Day series, nostalgia and nuance in one of our best recent depictions of war.11)   November 19: Times Like These: 1935: The debates over Social Security and how they do and don’t echo our own divided moment.12)   November 29: Giving Thanks: Future AmericanStudiers: A Thanksgiving series concludes with an inspiring moment where past and future were in conversation.13)   December 20: Representing Slavery: 12 Years a Slave: A series on cultural images of slavery concludes with two takes on the wonderful recent film, my own…14)   December 21-22: Representing Slavery: Joe Moser’s Guest Post: And that of my friend and colleague (and Irish film expert) Joe Moser!15)   December 24: AmericanStudies Wishes: Reform Now!: My annual series of wishes for the AmericanStudies Elves included this post on the very American reasons why we need immigration reform.16)   January 4-5: Ani DiFranco and Slavery: A special addition to a year-in-review series, on a couple historical contexts for a very current controversy.17)   January 23: Civil Rights Histories: George Wallace: Why we shouldn’t judge a lifetime by its worst moments, but why we do have to focus on them nonetheless.18)   January 27: Football Focalizes: Concussions and Hypocrisy: A Super Bowl series opens with the gap between what we know and what we do, in football as in history.19)   February 7: House Histories: Our Own Broad Daylight: A series on the House of the Seven Gables concludes with a post on the literary and communal presences of the past.20)   February 11: I Love Du Bois to His Daughter: My Valentine’s Day series included this tribute to an amazing letter from my American idol to his teenage daughter.21)   February 17: YA Lit: Little House on the Prairie: What we can and can’t learn about history from young adult lit kicks off a chapter-book-inspired series.22)   March 8-9: Crowd-sourced Non-Favorites: One of my most epic crowd-sourced posts ever rounded out a series on American things that don’t quite do it for us.23)   March 21: Cville Stories: 21st Century Tensions: Nostalgia, fear, and the current divisions that threaten communities like Charlottesville and America.24)   March 27: Caribbean Connections: Bob Marley: On whether it’s entirely possible for an artist to cross cultural borders, and why the crossing matters in any case.25)   April 2: Baseball Stories: Field of Dreams and The Brothers K: My Opening Day series included this post on divisive decades and histories, and whether baseball can bring us together.26)   April 16: Animated History: The Princess and the Frog: On race, representation, and seeing ourselves and our histories on screen.27)   April 28: Reading New England Women: Catharine Maria Sedgwick: A series on 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.New bday special post tomorrow,BenAnything you’d add (bday wishes or otherwise)?