Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 50

March 12, 2024: NeMLA Reflections: NeMLA Reads Together

[This pastweekend I attended the one scholarly conference I never miss: the Northeast MLA. It was agreat time as it always is, so as usual here’s a seriesof reflections on some of the great work I heard, saw, and shared there! Leadingup to a few more reflections on NeMLA as an organization!]

On twotakeaways from the latest example of a wonderful communal endeavor.

Almostexactly four years ago, I wrote a NeMLAreflection post highlighting the first iteration of the organization’s then-newestconference idea, NeMLA Reads Together (which that year featured Andre Dubus IIIand his book Gone So Long). Before Isay a couple things about this year’s Read and author, I’d ask you to check outthat post if you would and then come on back.

Welcomeback! This year’s NeMLA Reads Together book was Landof Love and Drowning (2014), the debut novel from our keynoteaddress speaker Tiphanie Yanique. Landof Love and Drowning is a wonderful example of one of my very favoritegenres: a multigenerationalfamily novel, spanning decadesin the lives of (in this case) a family on St. Thomas in the U.S. VirginIslands. Many of the novels I’ve read in that genre could be described associal realism, but while Yanique’s certainly includes those layers, it alsofeatures more supernatural elements in a prominent and particularly powerfulrole (putting in conversation with another great multigenerational CaribbeanAmerican novel from a now frustratinglyfraught author, Junot Díaz’s TheBrief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao [2008]). I’ll have to think more about howI’d analyze those supernatural elements, and look forward to the chance to doso while teaching Yanique’s novel at some point; but I know they addedsomething striking and meaningful to her work in this familiar literary genre.

The most importantbenefit of the NeMLA Reads Together initiative is not just the chance to have andread this shared text ahead of the conference, wonderful as that opportunityis. It’s also and especially the opportunity to follow up that collective readingby hearing from the author at the conference, in this special keynote address.As illustrated by countless interviews like thisone on Land of Love and Drowningwith Noreen Tomassi of Brooklyn’s Center for Fiction, Yanique is a thoughtfuland compelling voice far beyond her fiction, one who can connect her formal,stylistic, and genre choices to thematic questions of place and community,culture and heritage, the history of the Virgin Islands and the Caribbean, spirituality,and more. To hear directly from such a voice offers distinct yet complementarypleasures and inspirations to reading their work, and I came away from Yanique’stalk as moved and inspired as I’ve been from every NeMLA Reads Together authorand work alike.

Nextreflection tomorrow,

Ben

PS. If youwere at NeMLA, what would you share? If not or in any case, other organizationsyou’d highlight?

March 11, 2024: NeMLA Reflections: Opening Address

[This pastweekend I attended the one scholarly conference I never miss: the Northeast MLA. It was agreat time as it always is, so as usual here’s a seriesof reflections on some of the great work I heard, saw, and shared there! Leadingup to a few more reflections on NeMLA as an organization!]

On threeimportant layers to openingspeaker Dr. Rickie Solinger’s public scholarly work.

1)     Books: Like every scholarly keynote speakerI’ve ever encountered at NeMLA, Dr. Solinger brought along and prolific publishing career with her to that podium. In this case, thatcareer has centered on a range of different publications tracing the historyand significance of reproductive politics in the United States, from monographslike WakeUp Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roev. Wade (1992) and TheAbortionist: A Woman Against the Law (2019) to textbooks like ReproductiveJustice: An Introduction (2017, co-authored with Loretta Ross). Wecan’t talk about reproductive politics in our own moment without engaging withthose multilayered histories and issues, and Dr. Solinger’s publications offera great starting point for that work.

2)     Exhibitions: As I know everyone reading thisblog would agree with, scholarly publications are far from the only way to getour voices and ideas to audiences and into our conversations, and in her workas a curator Dr. Solinger has also consistently done so through another medium:museum exhibitions, both installed and traveling. A great example is 2013’s InterruptedLife: Incarcerated Mothers in the United States, a traveling exhibitionwhich as that write-up describes featured five mixed-media installations thatoffered a variety of ways to present the voices, perspectives, identities,experiences, and communities of its focal women. I had the chance many yearsback to be part of a planned traveling exhibition for the then-in-development American Writers Museum, I canattest to the incredible work that curators as well as artists put into theseexhibitions, making them very much a form of collaborative public scholarship.

3)     Engagement: As the NeMLA talk itself reflectedof course, Dr. Solinger, like most of us interested in public scholarship,finds many opportunities to share her work beyond those more formal forms. Thatincludes not only more familiar forms like this compelling NeMLA keynoteaddress, but other and more unusual opportunities like the chance to talkwith an adoption rights blogger, or a lunchtimeconversation (alongside her co-author Loretta Ross) with a student grouplike UMass Students for Reproductive Justice. Every NeMLA keynote speaker I’veseen has been distinct in important ways, but one linking thread has been theirdesire to connect with audiences, including but far beyond that conferencecommunity, and Dr. Solinger embodies that goal to be sure.

Nextreflection tomorrow,

Ben

PS. If youwere at NeMLA, what would you share? If not or in any case, other organizationsyou’d highlight?

March 9-10, 2024: National Park Studying: National Historic Parks

[On March3rd, 1849, Congress created a new federal government agency, theDepartment of the Interior. One of the department’s most significant focalpoints has become the National ParkSystem, so this week I’ve celebrated Interior’s 175th birthdayby AmericanStudying a handful of our great Parks, leading up to this post onNational Historic Parks!]

On oneparticularly impressive thing each at three of America’s many wonderful NationalHistoric Parks.

1)     AppomattoxCourt House: I visited Appomattox with my sons on a number of our annual Virginiatrips, and each time I was struck by the same thing: the incrediblyimpressive short informational film at the visitors center. That might be astrange thing to highlight at a site surrounded by such history, but at thesame time the informational film is a key part of any historic site visit andexperience. And I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a better one than Appomattox’s: injust a few minutes it manages to feature not only the specific military anddiplomatic contexts of the Civil War’s closing moments, but also broaderhistories of the build-up to the war, the war overall, and (most importantlyand impressively) the aftermaths of peace and abolition for African Americansand the nation as a whole. If you’re ever in the Lynchburg, Virginia area, Irecommend Appomattox Court House National Historic Park for that wonderfulfilm alone (and a lot more, but the film by itself is enough to get you there)!

2)     Lowell:I’ve been to the Lowell Mills National Historic Park a handful of times, includingtwo wonderful visits with my sons’ respective 5th grade class fieldtrips. That has given me a unique appreciation for how the site teaches itshistories and stories to elementary school kids, and I have nothing but greatthings to say about those educators and their tours and programs. But on thosetwo visits, just as on my prior and subsequent ones, I was most struck by oneparticular exhibit: Mill Girls& Immigrants, an exhibit that makes perfect use of one of the mill’searly 19th century boardinghouses. There’s a lot of great stuff inthat exhibit, but it features perhaps my favorite single museum space: arecreated boardinghouse bedroom where, at the press of a button, the voices ofa group of mill workers (quoting from actual letters and journals) emerge fromdifferent corners of the bedroom, overlapping and fading and reemerging in acombination of individual identities and communal experience. I can’t possiblydo it justice, so if you’re ever in Lowell, be sure to visit the second floorof that Mill Girls & Immigrants exhibit and see and hear it for yourself!

3)     MinuteMan: My sons’ other big 5th grade field trips were to Concord’sMinute Man National Historic Park, but I didn’t get to tag along on those.I’ve been to Minute Man a few times, however, and have each time beenparticularly struck by one core element of the park. While the park features avisitors center and a number of individual sites, its main attraction is thelong winding path on which visitors can follow the trail of the colonial Minute Men and the British Redcoatson that historic April 1775 day. While the highway is visible from certainspots along the path, from many others it’s not; and overall the path, thesurrounding historic buildings, and even I believe the woods and other naturallandmarks have largely been preserved as they were in 1775. The effect reflectsthe best kind of immersive experience that these National Historic Parks cancreate, a sense that we have truly entered into a historic world and areexperiencing a partial but powerful version of that place and time.

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other National Parks, Historic or otherwise, you’d highlight?

PPS. After scheduling this post, I published a Saturday Evening Post Considering History column inspired by our newest National Historic Site and looking at a range of others beyond these three!

March 8, 2024: National Park Studying: Acadia

[On March3rd, 1849, Congress created a new federal government agency, theDepartment of the Interior. One of the department’s most significant focalpoints has become the National ParkSystem, so this week I’ll celebrate Interior’s 175th birthday byAmericanStudying a handful of our great Parks, leading up to a post on NationalHistorical Parks!]

On a fewtelling moments in the strikingly French history of the Maine National Park.

Frenchexplorer Samuel de Champlain named Maine’s Mount Desert Island when hesailed past it on his second voyage to the Americas, in September 1604;Champlain noted that “the tops of [the island’s mountains] are bare of trees,because there is nothing there but rocks,” and so Mount Desert it was. Nineyears later, in 1613, the Jesuit priest Father Pierre Biard and fortysettlers established the first French missionary colony on the island, in thearea of Southwest Harbor; but later that same year, the EnglishCaptain Samuel Argall sailed north from Jamestown anddestroyed the settlement, taking two priests back to Jamestown as prisoners. Asthat last hyperlinked article illustrates, the early 17th centurywas full of such back and forth conflicts between the French and English up anddown the Eastern seaboard, and the earliest history of what would become Acadiawas defined largely by those shifting European American winds (while the region’sWabanaki people were of course an established part of that history as well andremained a vital part of it through each evolution).

The islandchanged hands between the two nations at least a few more times over the nextcentury and a half, but a late 18th century moment reflects a verydifferent international relationship as of the period of the AmericanRevolution. Mount Desert Island had been under the control of the English RoyalGovernor of Massachusetts, SirFrancis Bernard, since 1760, and in 1780 the newly independent state ofMassachusetts granted the western half of the island to (or, I suppose, kept itin the possession of) Bernard’sson John. But the eastern half was granted instead to MarieTherese de Gregoire, a Frenchwoman and granddaughter of theFrench explorer and island’s 17th century titleholder Antoine dela Mothe Cadillac. Both John Bernard and Marie de Gregoire wereof course the descendants of elite families, reflecting a continuation oflanded gentry roles even in Revolutionary and post-Revolution America. But atthe same time, this joint US and French ownership of the island was from what Ican tell a first in its history, and illustrates both France’svital role in the American Revolution and the ongoing relationship betweenthe two nations (one that, of course, would be severelytested before the end of the 18th century).

When muchof Mount Desert Island was first preserved by the federal government in theearly 20th century, the two initial such efforts overtly honoredthese Franco-American histories. In July 1916 President Woodrow Wilsonestablished Sieur deMonts National Monument, naming it after an early French explorer andcompatriot of Champlain’s (PierreDugua, Sieur de Mons). Three years later, when the area was upgradedto full National Park status, it was named LafayetteNational Park in honor of the Revolutionary War hero the Marquis deLafayette. Even Acadia, the name given to the park instead in 1929, is atribute to the French legacy in the area, as Acadia wasa French colony in northeastern North America that included Maine. But Sieur deMonts and Lafayette more directly highlight and embody those Franco-Americanfigures and stories, and better remembering them as part of the establishmentand development of Acadia National Park helps us keep those contested,conflicted, crucial Maine and American histories in our collective memories.

NationalHistorical Parks this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other National Parks you’d highlight?

March 7, 2024: National Park Studying: Mesa Verde

[On March3rd, 1849, Congress created a new federal government agency, theDepartment of the Interior. One of the department’s most significant focalpoints has become the National ParkSystem, so this week I’ll celebrate Interior’s 175th birthday byAmericanStudying a handful of our great Parks, leading up to a post on NationalHistorical Parks!]

On twodistinct but complementary effects to a foundational AmericanStudier moment.

When I wasin 7th grade, my family and I took a trip out West to visit a numberof SouthwesternNational Parks. We saw Zion, Bryce, Four Corners, and the Grand MotherfuckingCanyon (pardon my French, but I’m pretty sure that’s the full official name),and even checked out a bit ofLas Vegas when we flew in and out of the city. But there’s no doubt at allthat it was Colorado’sMesa Verde National Park that most affected this 12 year oldAmericanStudier. There were lots of spaces and moments in Mesa Verde that hitme, but by far the most moving was a post-sunset encounter with a coyote as weexplored an aboveground (ie, not a cliff dwelling) Pueblo ruin in the park.Probably didn’t hurt that I had been reading abunch of Tony Hillerman mysteries on the trip, as the moment feltright out of such evocative Southwestern thrillers (although luckily we didn’tstumble upon a dead body or awaken an ancient curse or the like). But I wouldsay that the moment affected me, and indeed was foundational for my lifelongAmericanStudying, in a couple key ways that go well beyond Leaphorn & Cheemysteries and that also reflect essential elements to a site like Mesa Verde.

For onething, the moment made crystal clear something that a know-it-all 12 year old(or 41 year old…) can sometimes have difficulties remembering: just how much Ididn’t and don’t know. As I wrote in that same blog poston Hillerman, Mesa Verde has long been defined by a couple central mysteriesof its own: the question of why theAnasazi people abandoned theircliff dwellings, and what happened to them after they left. It appears that somesignificant recent progress has been made in answering those questions,which of course is part of the historical and cultural process as well. But intruth, the mystery of Mesa Verde is just a more extreme version of afundamental but all too easily forgotten fact about all historicalknowledge—there’s a lot more that we don’t know than we’ll ever know, and mostof the things we do know we only kinda know (to get all Rumsfeldian on ya).And that’s never more true than when it comes to the simple but crucialquestion of what it meant, or really what it felt like, to live in thesehistorical periods and places. I love the interpretations of the past at placeslike PlimothPlantation and ColonialWilliamsburg, but that’s all they are, interpretations; we’ll never reallyknow what life was like for those folks in those worlds, and I felt thatdivide, acutely and potently, as I stood atop that darkened Mesa Verde ruin.

But at thesame time, I felt something else, something I’d call not contradictory so muchas complementary: I wanted to bridge that divide. I wanted to learn as much asI could about periods and places and peoples, really all of ‘em but mostespecially all those that felt most distinct from me and mine. I wanted to readabout them and talk about them and, perhaps most of all, write about them, helpcreate stories that could, not exactly bring them back to life of course, butmake them a part of our own moment and world as fully as those unavoidable gapswould allow. I don’t think that was the first time I felt that desire soacutely (I’m sure I did on my CampVirginia trips, for example), but it was one of the strongest such moments, andit has stuck with me to be sure. I’ve visited and been inspired by a lot ofcultural and historic sites in the decades since, including a number of federalNational Historic Parks, and will write about some of my favorites in thatlatter category in the weekend post. But Mesa Verde remains striking andperhaps singular in that regard, a place and moment with which I was confrontedwith especial force with both the challenges and the call of all that I’vetried to spend my career doing. So, y’know, it’s well worth a visit if you’re outthat way!

Last Parktomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other National Parks you’d highlight?

March 6, 2024: National Park Studying: Everglades

[On March3rd, 1849, Congress created a new federal government agency, theDepartment of the Interior. One of the department’s most significant focalpoints has become the National ParkSystem, so this week I’ll celebrate Interior’s 175th birthday byAmericanStudying a handful of our great Parks, leading up to a post on NationalHistorical Parks!]

On thevery American story of the woman who helped save the Everglades.

Since2018, the name Marjory Stoneman Douglas has likely and tragically becomesynonymous with the Parkland, Floridamass shooting in February at the high school named for her. Butwhile of course we can and should continue remembering the Douglas Highshooting (and celebrating the amazinggroup of Parkland students who have turned that tragedy into an occasionfor activism), Marjory Stoneman Douglas deserves separate and fullcommemoration as well. In a 108-yearlife that spanned nearly all of the 20th century (she wasborn in April 1890 and passed away in May 1998), Marjory Stoneman experienced anumber of striking and very telling moments, including many by the time sheturned 25: from watching her mother,concert violinist Florence Lillian Trefethen, get committed to amental hospital in Providence for being “high-strung” to attendingWellesley College and helping form its first suffrage club;from a brief marriage to charming con artist Kenneth Douglas (who was alreadymarried at the time and subsequently attempted to defraud Marjory’s father) to agroundbreaking 1915 divorce and move to Miami (then a small town of lessthan 5000) to rejoin her father and join the staff of his decade-oldnewspaper The Miami Herald.

For thenext few decades, Douglas (she continued to go by her married name for the restof her life) made quite a name for herself as a South Florida (and national)journalist and literary figure. (After serving in both the navy andthe Red Cross during World War I.) Besides her work forthe Herald, which included long stints as Book Review Editor and AssistantEditor, she also worked extensively as a freelance and creative writer; shepublished fortystories in the Saturday Evening Post, for example, and also wrote a numberof one-act plays for the Miami Theater as well as the forewordto the WPA’s 1941 guide to Miami. Around that same time, however,Douglas became involved with the cause that would define her secondhalf-century of life, and all of America, very fully. The publisher Farrar & Rinehartapproached her to write a book on the Miami River for their new Rivers ofAmerica series; as she began her research Douglas found herself unimpressed bythe river but profoundly moved by the Everglades, and convinced F&R to lether research and write a book on them instead. She spent five years researchingand writing, working closely with geologist Garald Parker, and theresult was TheEverglades: River of Grass (1947), a monumental achievement that soldout its initial printing in a month and remains one of the most significant andinfluential works of American naturalism.

River of Grass was justthe beginning, however (and not even that, as Douglas had been fighting forlocal environmental causes for decades by that time). Over the nexthalf-century, Douglas would more than earn her nickname “GrandeDame of Everglades,” waging continual war to protect andpreserve the wetlands from developers, politicians, corporations, sport huntersand fishermen, and just about every other adversary one could imagine. Douglastitled the last chapter of River ofGrass “The Eleventh Hour,” warning that the region was on the brink ofdestruction; but in December of that same year Everglades National Park wasdedicated, and thanks to those federal protections and Douglas’s lifelongefforts, the area instead has become the largest tropical wilderness in the USand the largest wilderness of any kind east of the Mississippi. No individualcan achieve such milestones single-handedly, of course; but at the same time,American history reminds us time and again of the power a determined andimpressive individual can have to help shape the future. Marjory StonemanDouglas most definitely did so for the Everglades and South Florida—and havinghad the good fortune to visit the Glades a few times as a kid (my maternalgrandparents had retired to South Florida), I can testify that she helpedpreserve a truly unique and amazing American space.

Next Parktomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other National Parks you’d highlight?

March 5, 2024: National Park Studying: Blackstone River Valley

[On March3rd, 1849, Congress created a new federal government agency, theDepartment of the Interior. One of the department’s most significant focalpoints has become the National ParkSystem, so this week I’ll celebrate Interior’s 175th birthday byAmericanStudying a handful of our great Parks, leading up to a post on NationalHistorical Parks!]

On twointeresting comparisons for one of our newest National Parks.

Just a fewyears ago, as a small part of a very large Congressional bill (the NationalDefense Authorization Act of 2015), the longstanding Blackstone River ValleyNational Heritage Corridor was upgraded, becoming(after a decade of efforts and activism) the Blackstone River Valley NationalHistorical Park. As that second linked article suggests, the change is far morethan semantic—gaining National Park status brings with it a great deal ofdevelopment and support, linking the area to the National Park Service andturning it into much more of a organized and coherent entity than had beenpossible in the prior incarnation. The self-proclaimed (American) “Birthplaceof the Industrial Revolution,” an area running along the potent BlackstoneRiver from Worcester all the way to Providence, Rhode Island (making it one ofthe few National Parks to span multiple states), will now be presentedand interpreted in all its historical and social significance forgenerations to come.

This newpark’s multi-state span is one of a few things that differentiate it from mostof its fellow National Parks, but I would still highlight a couple ofcomparisons that can shed light on what and how this park might achieve itsgoals most effectively. Salem,Massachusetts is home to a wonderful park, the Salem Maritime National Historic Site.Featuring a dozen buildings, multiple wharfs, areconstructed tall ship, and a number of other elements, the SalemMaritime park does an excellent job interpreting multiple centuries and stagesof work, community, and life in the city and region. The Derby Wharfsection alone includes all those centuries and stages in its differentbuildings and placards. Compared, for example, to battlefield national parkssuch as Gettysburg or Yorktown, whichfocus on a few days’ worth of historical events and issues, the BlackstoneRiver Valley Park will have to cover more than a century of industrial andsocial history and culture, and the Salem Maritime National Historic Siteprovides an excellent model for doing so successfully.

On theother hand, Salem Maritime occupies an area of a few square miles; theBlackstone River Valley Park will cover (as has the Heritage Corridor) adistance of some forty-five miles, to say nothing of how far it extends on bothsides of the river. For a comparison with that element, I would turn to one ofthe national parks around which I grew up: Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park. The SkylineDrive, a winding, scenic road atop the Blue Ridge Mountains, travelsmore than 100 miles, and yet is all part of the same unified national parkidentity and interpretation, with its many distinct stops and areas comprisingtheir own unique identities yet tied together consistently and coherently.While Shenandoah and Skyline focus much more on natural rather than historicalor cultural subjects, this large yet linked and coherent park community offersa rich and successful model for how a park as spacious and far-reaching asBlackstone River Valley can move through its many different places andcommunities yet maintain that overarching sense identity and history. I’ll beinterested to see how Blackstone River Valley takes its next steps!

Next Parktomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other National Parks you’d highlight?

March 4, 2024: National Park Studying: Yosemite

[On March3rd, 1849, Congress created a new federal government agency, theDepartment of the Interior. One of the department’s most significant focalpoints has become the National ParkSystem, so this week I’ll celebrate Interior’s 175th birthday byAmericanStudying a handful of our great Parks, leading up to a post on NationalHistorical Parks!]

On sixfigures who help narrate the unfolding history of an early National Park.

1)     Chief Tenaya and Lafayette Bunnell: The firstEuropean Americans that we know for sure entered California’s Yosemite Valley werea battalion of US Army soldiers led by MajorJames Savage; the so-called Mariposa Battalion were chasing AhwahneecheeChief Tenaya and his forces as part of 1851 military efforts todestroy the area’s Native American communities. That’s a pretty bleak startingpoint for a US relationship to Yosemite, but it didn’t go entirelyunchallenged—traveling with the battalion was Dr.Lafayette Bunnell, and the physician would go on to interviewTenaya at length, learn the region’s name and history from him, and eventuallyauthor the book Discoveryof the Yosemite and the Indian War of 1851 which Led to that Event (1880).Bunnell of course was wrong to call it a “discovery,” a choice that reflectedand reinforced a Eurocentric view of the region to be sure. But his book helpedmake more Americans aware of this beautiful and important space, and was acrucial step toward conservation.

2)     John Muir and Robert Underwood Johnson: Aswith virtually all of the late 19th century’s conservation efforts,the push topreserve Yosemite was led by the Scottish-born naturalist,scientist, and activist John Muir. Muir became enamored of Yosemite ata young age, writing frequently about the region’s wonders and even helpingdevelop (in hisfirst published work!) the controversial (and now widely accepted)theory that they had beencreated by alpine glaciers. But Muir alone could not persuade thefederal government to help conserve Yosemite, and thankfully he had help fromother prominent Americans who shared his views. Chief among them was RobertUnderwood Johnson, one of the era’s most famed literary figures(he edited Century Magazine amongmany other roles); Johnsoncamped in Yosemite with Muir in 1889 and went on to help him successfullylobby Congress to pass the October 1, 1890 Act that created Yosemite NationalPark. Their partnership exemplifies the best of the nascent Progressive Era andof how allies from different communities can help advance causes ofenvironmental justice.

3)     Ansel Franklin Hall and Rosalie Edge: NationalPark status ensures a certain level of conservation and protection, but ofcourse doesn’t necessarily guarantee enough travel and support to keep a parkthriving beyond that starting point. One of the most important figures in thepark’s early years, Park Naturalist (and later the National Park Service’sfirst Chief Naturalist) AnselFranklin Hall, was crucial in moving thepark in those directions: he founded the YosemiteMuseum (which featured Native American craftspeople and interpreters),developed numerous interpretive programs, and edited the 1921Handbook of Yosemite National Park. Complementing Hall’s efforts frominside the park were those of external advocates like RosalieEdge, creator and head of the NationalAudobon Society’s Emergency Conservation Committee (ECC); in1937, Edgelobbied Congress to purchase 8000 acres of forest on thepark’s edge that were scheduled to be logged, making them part of the park’sexpanding identity instead. Thanks to Hall, Edge, and their peers, Yosemite notonly endured but expanded and thrived throughout the 20th century,and remains a vital American space and destination into the 21st.

Next Parktomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other National Parks you’d highlight?

March 2-3, 2024: February 2024 Recap

[A Recapof the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

February5: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: Bad News Boys and Bears: This year’sSuper Bowl series focused on sports films, starting with our problematicobsession with lovable losers.

February6: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: Hoosiers and Rudy: The series continuedwith the untold histories behind stories of underdog champions.

February7: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: The Longest Yard(s): What the changesbetween a film and its remake can tell us about American narratives, as the seriesplays on.

February8: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook:The interesting results when an unconventional filmmaker works in a deeplyconventional genre.

February9: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: Remember the Titans: The seriesconcludes with the over-the-top scene and speech that really shouldn’t work,but somehow do.

February10-11: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: My Pitch!: A special follow-up withmy pitch for a sports movie adapting one of our most inspiring histories!

February12: AmericanStudying Love Songs: “At Last”: With love in the air, thisyear’s Valentine’s series focused on love songs, kicking off with thebiographical and cultural layers to a timeless classic.

February13: AmericanStudying Love Songs: “Wake Up Little Susie”: The seriescontinues with the boundary between innocence and sex in early rock and roll,and a song that cut across it.

February14: AmericanStudying Love Songs: “You Can’t Hurry Love”: What’s specialabout one of Motown’s countless classic love songs, as the series serenades on.

February15: AmericanStudying Love Songs: “Storybook Love”: A beautiful example of afilm love song that’s about both the movie and the romance.

February16: AmericanStudying Love Songs: “Happy”: Couldn’t get through the weekwithout some Bruce, and here’s my favorite of his many great “adult love songs.”

February17-18: AmericanStudying Love Songs: Five New Classics: The series concludeswith five 21st century love songs sure to become classics!

February19: Prejudicial Non-Favorites: Jefferson and Banneker: For this year’snon-favorites series I focused on moments when generally impressive figuresgave in to white supremacy, starting with a Framer’s frustratingly racistresponse.

February20: Prejudicial Non-Favorites: Lincoln’s Mass Execution: The seriescontinues with two ways in which our greatest president gave in to whitesupremacist violence and exclusion.

February21: Prejudicial Non-Favorites: Anthony’s Priorities: A collective and an individualfrustration with an inspiring figure’s worst quote, as the series gripes on.

February22: Prejudicial Non-Favorites: Harlan’s Exclusions: A history and acontemporary lesson from an iconic Justice’s prejudices.

February23: Prejudicial Non-Favorites: London’s Fighting Words: The series concludeswith an ugly moment when white supremacy trumped athletic supremacy.

February24-25: Biden and Anti-Immigrant Narratives: A special follow-up post,highlighting a thread where I critiqued our current president’s embrace ofxenophobia.

February26: Leap Years: 1816: For this once-every-four-years occasion, a Leap YearStudying series kicks off with three 1816 trends.

February27: Leap Years: 1848: The series continues with how three distinct eventswithin a 10-day period in early 1848 changed the world.

February28: Leap Years: 1904: Five of the many cultural legacies of the 1904 World’sFair, as the series leaps on.

February29: Leap Years: 1948: A couple significant 1948 election contexts beyond thejustifiably famous “Dewey Defeats Truman.”

March1: Leap Years: 1984 in Film: The series and month conclude with how three1984 blockbusters reflect 80s debates.

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

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

March 1, 2024: Leap Years: 1984 in Film

[In honorof this once-in-four-yearsphenomenon, I wanted to highlight and AmericanStudy a few interesting leapyears from American history.]

How threeof the year’s many blockbusterfilms reflect 1980s debates.

1)     Ghostbusters: I saidmuch of what I’d want to say about Ghostbusters’fraught relationship between science and the supernatural in that hyperlinkedpost. But it’s also worth stressing, as I did briefly there too, that thefilm’s conflicts also and perhaps ultimately boil down to the government vs.private citizens, with the film’s sympathies entirely resting with the lattercommunity. In that way, Ghostbusters canbe seen as an extension of RonaldReagan’s famous quote, “The nine most terrifying words in theEnglish language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Withwhich, when it comes to William Atherton’s deeply annoyingEPA agent Walter Peck, it’s difficult to argue.

2)     BeverlyHills Cop: The central conflicts in Eddie Murphy’s star-makingaction-comedy are distinct from, and to my mind a lot more complicated than,those in Ghostbusters. On thesurface, those conflicts are the titular ones related to class and setting, asMurphy’s working-class cop (Axel Foley) from the working-class mecca ofDetroit finds himself pursuing criminals in the nation’s most famouslywealthy, elite location. But it’s impossible to separate those contrasts fromissues of race, not least because Murphy’s character focuses a good bit on howhe is perceived and treated as a black man in the largely white world ofBeverly Hills. And yet, he eventually achieves his goals by partnering with awhite Beverly Hills cop (Judge Reinhold’s Billy Rosewood), arelationship that crosses all these boundaries and (in the long tradition of buddy copfilms) models a more productive form of community.

3)     Footloose: KevinBacon’s star-making film presents a somewhat similar fish-out-of-waterscenario, but in a very different direction: in this case the boy from the bigcity finds himself in a far more isolated and conservative small town, onewhere concerns of morality (guided by John Lithgow’s ministercharacter) have led to bans of both rock and roll music and dancing. Lithgow isa talented actor and so imbues that character and perspective with more depthand humanity than might otherwise have been the case, giving us a sense of whysomeone (and thus why an entire community) might pursue these extremistpractices. More broadly, I think the film reflects an emerging division thathas only become more pronounced in the 35 years since, a vision of a nation inwhich urban and rural communities seem defined by not only distinct butcontrasting values and identities. If only we had Kevin Bacon’s charismatic Rento teach us all to dance together!

FebruaryRecap this weekend,

Ben

PS.Thoughts on this year or other leap years that stand out to you?