Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 5

September 29, 2025: The Thrilla in Manila: Boxing and America

[50years ago this week, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier met in Manila for theirthird and final professional boxing bout. So this week on the blog I’ll stepinto the ring with posts on a handful of contexts for that significantsports story, leading up to a tribute to one of our best sports scholars!]

On whyAmericanStudiers can’t forget the sweet science, and why I wish we could.

If I weregoing to make the case for boxing’s crucial significance in American historyand identity, I would start here: the story of African American life in the 20thcentury can be pretty succinctly told through the sequence of Jack Johnson to Joe Louis to Sugar RayRobinson to MuhammadAli to Mike Tyson (three of whom were focal points for posts in this2019 blog series, not coincidentally). Or maybe I would note how many greatfilms use boxing as a metaphor for American history and identity, from The Champ (1931) to On the Waterfront (1954), Raging Bull (1980) to Cinderella Man (2005), Rocky to Creed(2006), and dozens more besides (a handful of which were alsonon-coincidentally the focus of thisspecial weekend post at the end of that aforementioned series). Or maybeI’d talk about all the resonancesof the Hurricane—the boxer, the song, the movie (and perhaps Denzel’s best performance to date),the history. In any case, as this week’s series will hopefully likewise illustrate,boxing and America seem profoundly and permanently intertwined.

Before Iget into the rest of that series, however, I have to admit that I’ve got a coupleproblems with that association. For one thing, and it’s an obvious thing Iguess but a hard one to get around, boxing is so thoroughly and unavoidablyviolent and destructive. I wrote a post my2014 Super Bowl series on the necessary hypocrisy that comes withwatching football these days, given what we have learned and continueto learn about the sport’s impacts on the bodies and (especially) brainsof those playing it; I went even further in this poston MMA fighting. As with MMA, in the case of boxing such violent impact is notonly part of the sport, it’s the most central and consistent part—and indeed,the point of the sport is for each participant to try to be more violent thanhis or her opponent, to damage that opponent sufficiently that he or she cannotcontinue. To be honest, the nickname “the sweet science” seems tome to exist in part to mask the fundamental reality that boxing is neithersweet nor scientific, but instead (or at least especially) a savage test of whocan sustain the most violence and pain.

It’s hardfor me to argue that such a sport should occupy a prominent role in 21stcentury American society and culture. Of course, it’s also undeniable thatboxing has already lost much of its prior prominence, a change that has beendue not to its violence (since again the even moreviolent Ultimate Fighting is extremely popular at themoment) as much as to the impression that the sportis profoundly corrupt. And that’s my other problem with the role ofboxing in narratives of American history and identity—we may have recentlybecome more aware of the role that corruptpromoters and organizations, judges and paydays, and the like play in theworld of boxing, but as far as I can tell thoserealities have been part of the sport for as long as it has existed. Ofcourse America has always had its fair share of corruption and greed as well,but do we want a nationally symbolic sport that emphasizes those qualities?It’d be the equivalent of the Black Soxscandal being the norm in baseball, rather than a glaring exception. Ican’t deny boxing’s role in our past and identity, but I can’t pretend I don’tfind that more than a little disturbing.

NextThrilla talk tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Contexts for this fight or other boxing histories you’dhighlight?

September 27, 2025: Our New Website!

We interruptour regularly scheduled programming with a special and very exciting newbulletin:

Thanks tothe web designing (and penguin drawing) skills of my wife Vaughn Joy, she and Ihave launched our new public scholarly website, Black & White & Read All Over.While this blog will always be archived here as well (and new posts will appearhere until the end of January or so), it has migrated over to that space, alongwith her Review Roulette newsletter, my #ScholarSunday threads, and more. Pleasecheck it out, share your own announcements so we can add them, and see youthere (and here)!

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Any thoughtson the new site? Let us know!

September 27-28, 2025: September 2025 Recap

[A Recapof the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

September1: Fall Semester Previews: Honors Lit: My annual Fall semester previews seriesfocused this year on moments I’m looking forward to amidst, well, everything,kicking off with an opening text in my Gilded Age Honors Lit seminar.

September2: Fall Semester Previews: First-Year Writing: The series continues with afun close reading assignment in my FYW classes.

September3: Fall Semester Previews: American Lit II in Person: A semester-endingconversation that always connects me to so many unfamiliar artists, as theseries teaches on.

September4: Fall Semester Previews: American Lit II Online: How my online studentsdefy stereotypes and really engage with each other in that virtual space.

September5: Fall Semester Previews: The Boys in College!: The series concludes withthe fall semesters I’m definitely most looking forward to!

September6-7: A Preview of My Podcast’s 2nd Season: A weekend follow-up,looking forward to my long-form scholarly project over this academic year.

September8: Comic Strip Studying: The First American Comic: For the 150thanniversary of the first comic strip in an American periodical, a series on themedium kicks off with two publications that help contextualize that groundbreakingcultural work.

September9: Comic Strip Studying: The Yellow Kid: The series continues with two waysin which a short-lived, easily misunderstood comic strip character has lived onfor more than a century.

September10: Comic Strip Studying: Dennis the Menace: Three telling aspects of a longstandingfunny pages troublemaker, as the series draws on.

September11: Comic Strip Studying: Doonesbury: Three interesting evolutions of one ofour longest-running and most influential comic strips.                                                         

September12: Comic Strip Studying: The Boondocks: The series concludes with twocontrasting but complementary ways the turn of the 21st centurystrip broke new ground.

September13-14: Comic Strip Studying: Fellow ComicsStudiers: A special weekendfollow-up, highlighting a handful of the many awesome folks we should all bereading to learn more.

September15: Censorship Histories: The Zenger Case: For the 40thanniversary of the Congressional hearings on music warning labels, a series oncensorship histories kicks off with two distinct but interconnected lessonsfrom a groundbreaking 1730s trial.

September16: Censorship Histories: The Comstock Act: The series continues with oneimportant application of a controversial law, and a far more significantunderlying problem.

September17: Censorship Histories: The Sedition Act: Three frustrating examples of federalcensorship under the authoritarian aegis of a 1918 law, as the series struggleson.

September18: Censorship Histories: Banning vs. Challenging Books: Why the concept of“banned” books isn’t quite as obviously wrong as we might think.

September19: Censorship Histories: The 1985 Hearings: The series concludes with ananniversary post on three pairings that reflect the multiple angles throughwhich the PMRC sought to censor pop music.

September20-21: Challenging Censorship in 2025: I couldn’t write about censorshiphistories without engaging a bit with what’s happening in our own moment, andmore exactly with lessons on how we can challenge these unfolding histories.

September22: Recent Scholarly Reads: Action Without Hope: A series featuring recentreads I’d recommend to all starts with Nathan Hensley’s bracing and vital bookon Victorian literature after climate collapse.

September23: Recent Scholarly Reads: We Now Belong to Ourselves: The series continueswith Arianne Edmonds’ wonderful book that challenges any easy definition ofwhat is and isn’t “scholarly.”

September24: Recent Scholarly Reads: The Rediscovery of America: The first of twobooks that my sons gave me for Father’s Day, this one Ned Blackhawk’crucial indigenousreframing of American history and identity.

September25: Recent Scholarly Reads: Frederick Douglass: And the second of the Father’sDay books, David Blight’s beautiful bio of the legendary American.

September26: Recent Scholarly Reads: Selling Out Santa: The series concludes withthe forthcoming book I’m looking forward to most, my wife Vaughn Joy’s SellingOut Santa!

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

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

September 26, 2025: Forthcoming Scholarly Reads: Selling Out Santa

[It’s beena while since I shared a series on scholarly books I’ve had the pleasure ofchecking out recently, and for this latest iteration I wanted to highlightrecent reads that have offered inspiration in these very tough times!]

I reallyenjoyed and was glad to be able to share each of the books I’ve highlighted inthis week’s series, but I can’t lie, there’s no competition with how excited Iam to share the forthcoming book with which I’m ending the series: my wife VaughnJoy’s SellingOut Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy (2025). Dueout in just under two months (November 17th, if you want to mark your calendars as you damn well should) and available for pre-order at that hyperlink and whereveryou buy your books (if you can't wait until November, as you damn well shouldn't), Vaughn’s readable and rigorous, historical and timely, vital work offers equally compelling and cruciallenses on an easily dismissed cultural genre, mid-20th centuryAmerican culture and society and politics, and some of the most fraught trends anddebates in our own 21st century moment. It’s also an incredibly well-writtenand engaging book, one that is as fun to read as the ending of It’s aWonderful Life is to watch—but also as bracing and thought-provoking as, y’know,much of the rest of Capra’s film. I hope you’ll get your own copy and that you’llshare your responses here and everywhere else when you do—and you know you’ll be hearing a lot moreabout it, and all of Vaughn’sexceptional work, in this space!

SeptemberRecap this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Recent reads you’d share?

PPS. Also an important announcement that I'll keep sharing in this space: Vaughn and I have just debuted our new public scholarly website, Black and White and Read All Over. It'll be a home for this blog, my #ScholarSunday threads, Vaughn's wonderful Review Roulette newsletter, and a lot more. & we hope y'all will contribute your own Announcements for that part of the site too. Check it out, watch this space and that space for more, and enjoy!

September 25, 2025: Recent Scholarly Reads: Frederick Douglass

[It’s beena while since I shared a series on scholarly books I’ve had the pleasure ofchecking out recently, and for this latest iteration I wanted to highlightrecent reads that have offered inspiration in these very tough times!]

The otherbook that my sons gifted me for Father’s Day is a bit older, and indeed theonly one in this week’s series that didn’t come out within the last year or so.I don’t really have an excuse for not having already read David W. Blight’smagisterial, Pulitzer-winning biography FrederickDouglass: Prophet of Freedom (2018) other than, well, [gestures ateverything]. But I also don’t know that it would have hit me nearly as hard in2018 as it did in the summer of 2025, and for exhibit A I’ll share these linesfrom the conclusion of Blight’s Introduction: “It is Douglass’s story, though,that lasts and gives and instructs. There is no greater voice of America’sterrible transformation from slavery to freedom than Douglass’s. For all thosewho wish to escape from outward or inward captivity, they would do well to feelthe pulses of this life, and to read the words of this voice. And then go actin the world.” At that point I was thoroughly hooked, and then Blight began hisfirst chapter with a stunning analysis of a bracing and vital speech I knew fartoo little about: Douglass’soration at the April 1876 dedication of Washington, DC’s EmancipationMemorial. Seriously, folks, don’t be like me and let another half-dozen years goby before you read this book.

Last recentread tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Recent reads you’d share?

September 24, 2025: Recent Scholarly Reads: The Rediscovery of America

[It’s beena while since I shared a series on scholarly books I’ve had the pleasure ofchecking out recently, and for this latest iteration I wanted to highlightrecent reads that have offered inspiration in these very tough times!]

The nexttwo books I’ll be highlighting in this series are especially meaningful to me,as they were my sons’ very thoughtful Father’s Day presents for me this pastJune (yet another example of how much Icontinue to learn from the boys!). Without our ever having talked about them,the boys chose two books that I had been meaning to check out for a while, andthat was especially the case with today’s subject: Ned Blackhawk’s TheRediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History(2024). In thislong-ago post I highlighted Ronald Takaki’s book ADifferent Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993), which asmuch as any single work I’ve read shifted my perspective on America’s foundationalidentity and community. I genuinely don’t think any work I’ve encountered sincehas achieved that goal as fully and potently as did Blackhawk’s book—while ofcourse I know a good deal more about American history and identity than I didwhen I first read Takaki, I still learned so much from Blackhawk’s book, aboutboth histories that I did have a sense of already and those that he added to myunderstanding (such as the attacks on California Native Americans by federally fundedmilitias in the early days of the Civil War). This book is truly, in everysense of the phrase, a must-read for all Americans.

Next recentread tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Recent reads you’d share?

September 23, 2025: Recent Scholarly Reads: We Now Belong to Ourselves

[It’s beena while since I shared a series on scholarly books I’ve had the pleasure ofchecking out recently, and for this latest iteration I wanted to highlightrecent reads that have offered inspiration in these very tough times!]

One of thebest things about my more than five years collectingand sharing public scholarship through my #ScholarSundaythreads (every one of which is available in that Google Doc) has been thechance to connect to voices and work that’s not traditionally academic, andthat reminds us that “academic” is only one of many frames or starting pointsfor scholarship. Exemplifying that idea is Arianne Edmonds’s WeNow Belong to Ourselves: J.L. Edmonds, The Black Press, and Black Citizenshipin America (2025), a book written by its main subject’s great-greatgranddaughter which features personal narratives of her own identity, familystory, and journey through the archives but also offers an analytical andprofoundly public scholarly lens on what this early 20th centuryBlack journalist reveals about his own time period and our own alike. In thisThanksgiving post from last year, I highlighted how a groundbreaking workof experimental narrative history helped inspire my podcast and my owncontinued evolution as a public scholar, and Edmonds’s equally groundbreaking bookis sure to do the same as I move forward with that work.

Next recentread tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Recent reads you’d share?

September 22, 2025: Recent Scholarly Reads: Action Without Hope

[It’s beena while since I shared a series on scholarly books I’ve had the pleasure ofchecking out recently, and for this latest iteration I wanted to highlightrecent reads that have offered inspiration in these very tough times!]

I’ve beendeeply invested in the concept of critical optimism since at least myfourth book, which for most of its development was entitled Hard-Won Hope(a concept that remained at its heart). But as I wrote in this August2021 Saturday Evening Post Considering History column, it’s becomeincreasingly difficult to find reasons for such critical optimism in the faceof unfolding histories like the climate crisis (among others in recent years). Whichmade me particularly excited to learn about and check out Nathan K. Hensley’s wonderfulbook Actionwithout Hope: Victorian Literature after Climate Collapse (2025). Itdoesn’t hurt that Hensley’s unique approach opens up really compelling newsides to longtime favorites of mine like George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Butultimately, Hensley’s book is a particularly vital example of the thing I spendso much of my time trying to model and support, in this space and everywhereelse: public scholarship, connecting our scholarly subjects to every layer ofour world and every audience that’s part of it.

Next recentread tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Recent reads you’d share?

September 20-21, 2025: Challenging Censorship in 2025

[On September19th, 1985, Congress held hearings over the concept ofparental advisory warnings for music. So this week, I’ve commemorated thatcomplex anniversary by highlighting histories of censorship in America, leadingup to this weekend post on how we can respond to the very fraught state ofthese issues in 2025.]

On threeways we can challenge the seemingly ubiquitous attempts to censor books,educators, and the truth itself here in 2025.

I’ve beenwriting about our moment’s attacks on teachers and librarians for agood while now, both in thisblog and in other settings like my SaturdayEvening Post Considering History column.I can’t imagine that I need to tell any reader of this blog that those attackshave only gotten more frequent and worse here in the first year of Trump 2.0. Sorather than dwell on that incredibly frustrating fact, I wanted in this weekendpost to briefly highlight three ways we can challenge this trend.

1)     Community:I really love that hyperlinked June news story on how the residents of a Minnesotaschool district restricted and stopped the School Board’s attempts to removecertain books (in order to appease the MAGA types, natch). If we take thearguments for censorship at face value—and I do believe at least some of thesefolks do genuinely want to protect kids—then they are all about doing what’sbest for their communities. So what better way could there be to challengethose efforts than by communities stepping up to make the opposite case?

2)     Creating:That’s not the only way we can do so, though, and I also love that hyperlinked piecefrom historian Averill Earls (excerpted from the Conclusion to her book Lovein the Lav) on how 20th century Irishwriter John Broderick kept writing through all attempts to censor hisworks. Too often the direct targets of our censorship efforts can’t fight back—they’rehistorical figures and communities, authors who are no longer with us, and soon. But one thing we can all do is continue creating, writing, sharing ourvoices and works, and you best believe I’m going to keep doing my part of that,here and everywhere.

3)     The Constitution: Creating in and of itself isa good bit of the battle, but of course the content of what we write and sayand share is important to consider as well. This past Wednesday we celebratedour latest Constitution Day, an occasion on which I’ve had the chance to sharemy public scholarly thoughts multiple times inthe past. The U.S. Constitution only directly addresses issues relevant tocensorship in (to my knowledge) one spot, although it’s a very prominent one:the 1stAmendment and its protection of “the freedom of speech” from government lawsand interference. But I also would argue that we can link that first amendmentto the Constitution’s other first thing, its Preamble,and in so doing can make the case that nothing is more important to thePreamble’s many goals for “We the People”—and most of all “securing theBlessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”—than our ability to learn,in all settings and forms, without our texts and truths being censored.

Next seriesstarts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Censorship histories or current events you’d highlight?

September 19, 2025: Censorship Histories: The 1985 Hearings

[On September19th, 1985, Congress held hearings over the concept ofparental advisory warnings for music. So this week, I’ll commemorate thatcomplex anniversary by highlighting histories of censorship in America, leadingup to a weekend post on the very fraught state of these issues in 2025.]

Three pairingsthat reflect the multiple angles through which the ParentsMusic Resource Center (PMRC) sought to censor pop music.

1)     Susan Baker andTipper Gore: The PMRC was formed in May 1985 by four powerful DC womenknown as the WashingtonWives: Baker (whose husband was Treasury Secretary James Baker), Gore (SenatorAl Gore), Pam Howar (realtor Raymond Howar), and Sally Nevius (City CouncilChairman John Nevius). All four played important roles in both the short-lived organizationoverall and the September 1985 Congressional hearings specifically, but it wasBaker and Gore who testified at length in those hearings, making an in-depthcase for at least labeling (and at worst directly censoring) pop music. Baker,for example, arguedthat pop songs feature “pervasive messages aimed at children which promoteand glorify suicide, rape, sadomasochism, and so on.”

2)     JosephCoors and Mike Love: As with most things in politics, it took a good bit offinancial support for the PMRC not just to come into being, but also and especiallyto become prominent enough to merit those Congressional hearings. One of theorganization’s chief funders isn’t a surprise: beer entrepreneur Joseph Coorshad been a key supporter of Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign, and a longstandingconservative activist and fundraiser before (and after) this moment. Butthe other chief financial backer of the PMRC is much more surprising, at leastto this AmericanStudier: Beach Boys founding member and vocalist Mike Love.It’s fair to say that the PMRC might have had less of an impact if it hadn’tbeen able to highlight a pop music icon as one of its supporters, had seemedentirely like outsiders to the industry—so Love’s support for this pop music censorshipwas as meaningful as it is frustrating.

3)     Joe Stuessy andPaul King: As a professor and public scholar, though, it’s this finalpairing of “experts” who testified at the Congressional hearings which I find particularlyfrustrating. Paul King was a child and adolescent psychiatrist, and so Isuppose it stands to reason that he might be willing to share his perspectiveon factors that could negatively affect those groups (although I bet his teen patientsweren’t happy with him). But Stuessy was a professor of music at the Universityof Texas at San Antonio, and one who, as he says in the opening of histestimony (available at the hyperlink above, and also in thisvideo excerpt), had “taught a course in the history of rock music for 12years at two universities.” I don’t like to judge the teaching of my fellowprofessors, especially not from afar, but I have to think Stuessy’s course didn’tdo a good job tracing just how consistently and aggressively rock music hadbeen under attack since its origins—attacks that he helped continue and amplifyat these 1985 hearings.

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Censorship histories or current events you’d highlight?