March 2011 Recap

March 1: Boo?: Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves, and what horror can do.March 2: Faith: The inspiring life, identity, beliefs, and writings of Reverend Peter Gomes.March 3: Going Green: Frederick Law Olmstead's inspiring career and creations.March 4: Revisiting a Thorny Problem: A repeat of November's post on Robert Penn Warren's worst and best literary engagements with segregation and race.March 5-6 [Tribute post 6]: The World as a Classroom: My first trip to Chicago inspired this tribute to five cities I've visited from which I've learned a great deal.March 7: Birthday Parting: The divisions and communities captured by the July 4th, 1876 events at Philadelphia's Centennial Exposition.March 8: Forrest Chump: Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of American history's genuine villains.March 9: Little Mensches: Jewish American identity and education as represented by Mary Antin, Anzia Yezierska, and my sons.March 10: Who's (Listening to) The Boss?: Famous and frustrating mis-readings of songs by my personal favorite AmericanStudier, Bruce Springsteen.March 11: A Not Tricky Treaty: The Treaty of Tripoli and the clear and overwhelming evidence that the Founders intended the American separation between church and state to be real and absolute.March 12 [Tribute post 7]: The Risk Takers: A tribute to American artists who have taken significant and inspiring risks.March 13: Collaborators Wanted: A request for input on strategies for teaching content, for an article-in-progress; the article has come out but the ideas would still be welcome!March 14: Medicine Women: The "woman doctor novels" of the late 19th century and questions of political and social realism and purposes in fiction.March 15: The Personal is Political: What The Wire, Traffic, Maria Full of Grace, and the war on drugs can teach us about the intersections between people and politics.March 16: The Whole Truth: The incredibly complicated, contradictory, and profoundly American and inspiring life of Sojourner Truth.March 17: Lit of the Irish: A St. Patrick's day special on five seminal books on the Irish American experience.March 18: So It Goes?: A repeat of a January post on Slaughterhouse Five and the unavoidable horrors and atrocities of war.March 19 [Tribute post 8]: Conference Connections: A tribute to six great friends and colleagues I have met through scholarly conferences.March 20: No and Yes: Thoughts on the realities and even inspiring qualities of rejections in an academic career (and probably in most others too).March 21: Engaging Histories: Gore Vidal's American Chronicle and the unique strengths and possibilities of historical fiction (at its best).March 22: Their AIM is True: Repeat of an early November post on the American Indian Movement, the Pine Ridge shootings, and two underrated American films.March 23: My Brother's Keeper?: The war in Libya, Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms," and some unanswerable but pretty important AmericanStudies questions.March 24: A Downside of Public Scholarship: A brief response of mine and a longer one of James Fallows' to the horrific treatment of Professor William Cronon by the Wisconsin GOP.March 25: Reconstituting America: The irresolvable dualities and contradictions of John Brown, and the value of remembering his revision of the Constitution.March 26-27: Student Teachers: An orgy (in the non-sexy sense) of grading reminds me of three AmericanStudies things about which I have learned a great deal from my students.March 28: Case by Case: Phillis Wheatley's most striking and challenging poem, and how a literary critical perspective can strengthen an AmericanStudies analysis of it.March 29: Why We're Here, Still: Two political quotes remind me of the ultimate stakes in how we understand and define American identity, past, present, and future.March 30: The Worst of Times, the Best of Times: William Cronon and the arrival of my second book lead me to consider the worst and best of our contemporary moment and public scholarship's presence and role in it.March 31: No Fooling: A brief and inconsequential (if not downright foolish) prelude to the next day's post. Seriously, there's no reason to read this one!