August 17, 2023: Birthday Bests: 2020-2021

[On August15th, this AmericanStudier celebrated his 46th birthday.So as I do each year, here’s a series sharing some of my favorite posts fromeach year on the blog, leading up to a new post with 46 favorites from the lastyear. And as ever, you couldn’t give me a better present than to say hi andtell me a bit about what brings you to the blog, what you’ve found or enjoyedhere, your own AmericanStudies thoughts, or anything else!]

Here theyare, 44 favorite posts from the 11th year of AmericanStudying:

1)      August 24:Katrina at 15: Nature or Nuture?: I always enjoy posts that get meway out of my comfort zone, and writing about meteorology to kick off thisanniversary series definitely did the trick.

2)     August 31:Fall Semester Previews: A Policy of Care: I sure wasn’t happy with much abouthow the last academic year went—but I stand by everything I wrote in this post,and am so glad I made this my priority for each and every student.

3)     SpecialPost: The Rock Springs Massacre and Working-Class White Supremacist Violence: Thinkthis is the only time I’ve ever shared a piece outside the blog’s dailyoperations; it didn’t end up running for my SaturdayEvening Post column, so you got it here!

4)     September9: History through Games: Careers: Every piece in this series was a tonof fun to write, but none more so than this trip through American history andculture via the board game Careers.

5)     September19-20: Nazis in America: Project Paperclip and Hunters: I learned a whole lot while researching andwriting this series, all inspired by watching the problematic but compellingAmazon original show Hunters.

6)     September26-27: Crowd-sourced AutumnStudying: I won’t include every crowd-sourcedpost from the last year in this list—but I could, because I love love loveevery one of them.

7)     October 5:Recent Reads: How Much of These Hills is Gold: Gotta highlight two posts from thisseries of book recommendations: this one, on the best novel I read last year…

8)     October 9:Recent Reads: Susie King Taylor’s Memoir: And this one, on a favoritehistorical source I found (and about which I ended up recording a wholepodcast episode as well!).

9)     October15: Confederate Memory: The Shaaras: Revisiting childhood favoritesthrough an analytical lens is never easy, but it sure is important, especiallywhen it comes to topics like Civil War memory.

10)  October24-25: The World in 2020: If you look back through these bday lists,you’ll see that I hardly ever directly engaged current events in the blog’searly years. That’s been one main thread of my public scholarly evolution, asthis post illustrates.

11)  October31-November 1: Robin Field’s Guest Post on Toni Morrison & the Rape Novel: Alsomight not highlight every Guest Post in this list, which is a sign of the verynice fact that I had more than ever before in this past year. (If you want towrite one, you knowwhat to do!)

12)  November9-13: AmericanStudies’ 10th Anniversary and Online PublicScholarship: Once again gotta highlight a couple interconnected posts, theseanniversary reflections…

13)  November14-15: Anniversary Acknowledgments: And these anniversary, heartfeltthanks!

14)  November21-22: Laura E. Franey’s Guest Post on The Keepers: I dohave to highlight this Guest Post as well, since they rarely line up soperfectly and thoughtfully with the whole week’s series as Laura’s great postdid!

15)  November27: Book Thanksgivings: Y’all: Having a book coming out is a chance tothank so many folks, and I hope you’ll read every post in this series. But ifyou read just one, make it the one dedicated to you!

16)  December5-6: AIDS and COVID: I could have written many more posts aboutCOVID than I did, and I think that was the right call. But this series concludermade sense, and helped me think through some historical contexts and contrasts.

17)  December19-20: Crowd-sourced Fall 2020 Reflections: I value all my semester reflections,and I hope you’ll check them out. But this was a year for community andsolidarity, so here’s a small expression of those more vital than ever goals.

18)  December26-27: AmericanWishing: My Sons: Do I really need to say any morethan that title?

19)  December28: Year in Review: Race, Memory, and Justice: 2021 has shaped up to be even moredefined by those themes as 2020 was.

20)  January 4:Hope-full Texts: “A Long December”: Not sure I ever would havepredicted that I’d get to write about my favorite Counting Crows song in thisspace. Very glad I was wrong!

21)  January17: Emily Hamilton-Honey’s Hope-full Guest Post: I thinkthis is a first for the blog—an online friend and fellow AmericanStudier read aseries and crowd-sourced post and had so many thoughts that it turned into aGuest Post!

22)  January21: MLK Histories: Where Do We Go from Here?: We all have a lot more to learnabout and from MLK; for me, this final book of his was a striking case inpoint.

23)  February6-7: Sports in 2021: Revolutionary Change: I think it’s fair to say sports haveand haven’t lived up to this potential over the last six months—but there’sstill time!

24)  February13-14: Short Stories I Love: Ilene Railton’s Stories: If youthought I wouldn’t share this Valentine’s series post, well, you were sorelymistaken.

25)  February20-21: Crowd-sourced Non-Favorites: The annual crowd-sourced airing ofgrievances didn’t disappoint!

26)  February27-28: Adam Golub’s Guest Post on Creativity and American Studies: Adam wasone of my first online AMST colleagues (and Twitter follows), and it was a joyto finally get to share a bit of his work in this Guest Post.

27)  March 8:Spring Break Films: Spring Break: Like most universities, we didn’tget a Spring Break this year—but I took us all down to sunnier climes throughthis fun series, starting with this (rightfully) forgotten 80s film.

28)  March13-14: Of Thee I Sing Update!: OfThee I Sing was published on March 15, so I kicked off a series on itscentral concepts and my book talk plans with this special post (I hope you’llcheck out the whole series, as well as thispage with talks, podcasts, etc.!).

29)  March 29:Key & Peele Studying: Negrotown: Dedicating my annual April Fool’sseries to my favorite sketch comedy duo was a very good and very fun idea.

30)  April 6:NeMLA Recaps: Grace Sanders Johnson’s Talk: I enjoyed everything about thisyear’s virtual NeMLA conference, and hope you’ll check out the whole recapsseries—but Grace’s talk was one of the most inspiring I’ve ever heard.

31)  April 21:RadioStudying: Alan Freed: If you’re like me, you know the name AlanFreed largely if not solely through the payola scandal. Suffice to say, there’sa lot more to the man and his legacies than that!

32)  April24-25: Kate Jewell’s Guest Post: A Love Letter to College Radio: I’veteam-taught numerous AmericanStudies with Kate, which means I was super excitedto finally feature a Guest Post from her and just as excited to share it withyou again here!

33)  May 8-9:Victoria Scavo’s Guest Post on Gender Roles in Italian American Culture &Literature: Fine, maybe I am gonna share most of the year’s Guest Posts.They’re just all unique and meaningful—like this one, from an undergraduatestudent of my friend and her fellow Guest Poster Robin Field!

34)  May 10:Spring 2021 Moments: Jericho Brown and the Power of Poetry: ThisSpring was the toughest semester of my teaching career, but even amidst allthat there were moments of grace and inspiration. This one really stood out.

35)  May 18:Small Axe and America: Remembering Reggae: It was fun thinking about how toapply Steve McQueen’s wonderful film series about West Indian Englishcommunities to AmericanStudying. This was my favorite in the series.

36)  May 29-30:Sarah Satkowsi’s Guest Post on T.C. Boyle: You knew I couldn’t share one GuestPost from a student of Robin Field’s and not the other!

37)  June 5-6:A Memorial Day Tribute: War and patriotism are two topics it’s easyto caricature—but both, individually and especially together, can and should becommemorated, just not in the ways we far too often have and do.

38)  June 11:Basketball Stories: WNBA Stars: The ad campaign for the new WNBAseason was about how we should all be ashamed we haven’t been watching. Notsure about it as a marketing strategy, but, well, it’s damn accurate.

39)  June 14:American Whistleblowers: Daniel Ellsberg: For the 50th anniversaryof the Pentagon Papers, this post got Twitter engagement from none other thanEllsberg himself!

40)  June 28:Talking Of Thee I Sing: GCE Lab School: It’s been a great Spring of booktalks and conversations about my new book, and I’d love for you to check outthis whole series and then suggest some more such opportunities, please!

41)  July10-11: Pop Culture Workers: Another very fun post to plan and write,from John Sayles to Hustlers and a lot of work and works in between.

42)  July 20:Expanding Histories: United States v. Burr: I’ve long professed my love forBurr, so this was a tough but important look at the seedier sides of US historyto which he so fully connects.

43)  July26-August 1: AmericanStudiers to Highlight: Gonna cheat and make this wholeseries one highlight, as you should really check out all these great folks& voices (including Hettie Williams’ Guest Post on the weekend, natch)!

44)  August 2:AmericanStudies Websites: Steve Railton’s Trio: I couldsay the same about all the websites in this series; but I can’t help but singleout this filial focus.

Nextbirthday post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Youknow what to do!