March 3-4, 2018: February 2018 Recap

[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]January 29: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: Bad News Bears and Boys: A Super Bowl sports movie series starts with our obsession with lovable losers, and the problem with it.January 30: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: Hoosiers and Rudy: The series continues with the appeal of underdog champions, and the untold sides to their stories.January 31: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: The Longest Yard(s): What the changes between an original and a remake can tell us about America, as the series rolls on.February 1: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook: The interesting results when an unconventional filmmaker works in a conventional genre.February 2: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: Remember the Titans: The series concludes with the over-the-top scene that shouldn’t work, and why it somehow does.February 3-4: Crowd-sourced SportsMovieStudying: For Super Bowl weekend, crowd-sourced sports movie responses and nominations—be a good sport and add yours in comments, please!February 5: Famous Boy Scouts: Michael Jordan and Hank Aaron: A series for the Scouts’ birthday starts with comparisons and contrasts between two iconic athletes.February 6: Famous Boy Scouts: Neil Armstrong and George Takei: The series continues with two different, equally groundbreaking forms of extraterrestrial exploration.February 7: Famous Boy Scouts: John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart: Two Hollywood legacies and a film that purposefully complicates both, as the series rolls on.February 8: Famous Boy Scouts: William Boyce: On the Scouts’ 108thbirthday, their quasi-mythic origin story and some very real, complex subsequent histories.February 9: Famous Boy Scouts: Alfred Kinsey and Bill Gates: The series concludes with two Scouts who changed the world, and whether the organization has changed with it.February 10-11: The Scouts in Context: A colleague contextualizes the Scouts with an international organization in this special weekend post.February 12: Songs I Love: Dar Williams’ “After All”: A Valentine’s series on favorite songs starts with the difficult and crucial skill this song models.February 13: Songs I Love: Steve Earle’s “Taneytown”: The series continues with a favorite song that gets inside some of our darkest histories.February 14: Songs I Love: Bruce Springsteen’s “American Skin (41 Shots)”: For the holiday itself, two more reasons I have come to love my long-time favorite song.February 15: Songs I Love: Tori Amos’ “Me and a Gun”: A raw and stunning song about sexual assault and violence, as the series rolls on.February 16: Songs I Love: Macklemore’s “White Privilege 2”: The series concludes with rap, activism, and the #BlackLivesMatter movement.February 17-18: Learning to Love Mariah Carey: A special weekend post on the lessons I take away from my evolving perspective on a music legend.February 19: Anti-Favorites: Columbus’s Letter: An anti-favorites series focused on exclusionary moments starts with the subtle exclusions in a letter full of them.February 20: Anti-Favorites: Jefferson’s Paragraph: The series continues with important historical contexts for a foundational text, and why it frustrates nonetheless.February 21: Anti-Favorites: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: The Treaty that displaced and excluded an entire American community, as the series rolls on.February 22: Anti-Favorites: The Geary Act: The extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act that went far and far more troublingly further.February 23: Anti-Favorites: Anti-Filipino Racism: The series concludes with three dark and destructive moments of 1930s discrimination.February 24-25: Crowd-sourced Anti-Favorites: My annual crowd-sourced airing of grievances—get it off your chest and add yours in comments, please!February 26: Inclusive Figures: Las Casas and de Vaca: A complementary inclusion series starts with two of the first truly inspiring American voices.February 27: Inclusive Figures: Revolutionary Slaves: The series continues with four figures who together embody the contribution African Americans made to Revolutionary America.February 28: Inclusive Figures: Ruiz de Burton: The Mexican American author who resisted and rewrote 19th century exclusions, as the series rolls on.March 1: Inclusive Figures: Yung Wing: The inclusive life and legacy of one of my all-time favorite Americans.March 2: Inclusive Figures: Carlos Bulosan: The series concludes with the author and book that introduce under-narrated histories and redefine American identity.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Topics you’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!