August 5, 2024: Birthday Bests: 2010-2011

[On August15th, this AmericanStudier celebrates his 47th 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 47 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!]

In honor of this AmericanStudier’s 34thbirthday in 2011, here (from oldest to most recent) were 34 of my favoriteposts from the blog’s first year:

1)      TheWilmington Massacre and The Marrow of Tradition: My firstfull post, but also my first stab at two of this blog’s central purposes:narrating largely forgotten histories; and recommending texts we should allread.

2)      PineRidge, the American Indian Movement, and Apted’s Films: Ditto tothose purposes, but also a post in which I interwove history, politics,identity, and different media in, I hope, a pretty exemplary American Studiesway.

3)      The ShawMemorial: I’ll freely admit that my first handful of posts were also justdedicated to texts and figures and moments and histories that I love—but theMemorial, like Chesnutt’s novel and Thunderheartin those first two links, is also a deeply inspiring work of American art.

4)      TheChinese Exclusion Act and the Most Amazing Baseball Game Ever: Probablymy favorite post to date, maybe because it tells my favorite American story.

5)      Ely Parker: The postin which I came up with my idea for Ben’s American Hall of Inspiration; I knowmany of my posts can be pretty depressing, but hopefully the Hall can be a wayfor me to keep coming back to Americans whose stories and legacies are anythingbut.

6)      MyColleague Ian Williams’ Work with Incarcerated Americans: Thefirst post where I made clear that we don’t need to look into our nationalhistory to find truly inspiring Americans and efforts.

7)      RushLimbaugh’s Thanksgiving Nonsense: My first request, and the first postto engage directly with the kinds of false American histories being advanced bythe contemporary right.

8)      The Pledgeof Allegiance: Another central purpose for this blog is to complicate, and attimes directly challenge and seek to change, some of our most accepted nationaland historical narratives. This is one of the most important such challenges.

9)      PublicEnemy, N.W.A., and Rap: If you’re going to be an AmericanStudier,you have to be willing to analyze even those media and genres on which you’refar from an expert, and hopefully find interesting and valuable things to sayin the process.

10)   Chinatownand the History of LA: At the same time, the best AmericanStudierslikewise have to be able to analyze their very favorite things (like this 1974film, for me), and find ways to link them to broader American narratives andhistories.

11)   The Statueof Liberty: Our national narratives about Lady Liberty are at least asingrained as those about the Pledge of Allegiance—and just about as inaccurate.

12)   TillieOlsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” and Parenting: Maybe the first post in which Ireally admitted my personal and intimate stakes in the topics I’m discussinghere, and another of those texts everybody should read to boot.

13)   DorotheaDix and Mental Health Reform: When it comes to a number of the people onwhom I’ve focused here, I didn’t know nearly enough myself at the start of myresearch—making the posts as valuable for me as I could hope them to be for anyother reader. This is one of those.

14)   BenFranklin and Anti-Immigrant Sentiments: As with many dominant narratives,those Americans who argue most loudy in favor of limiting immigration usuallydo so in large part through false, or at best greatly oversimplified andpartial, versions of our past. 

15)   Divorce inAmerican History: Some of our narratives about the past andpresent seem so obvious as to be beyond dispute: such as the idea that divorcehas become more common and more accepted in our contemporary society. Maybe,but as with every topic I’ve discussed here, the reality is a good bit morecomplicated.

16)   My Mom’sGuest Post on Margaret Wise Brown: The first of the many great guestposts I’ve been fortunate enough to feature here; I won’t link to the others,as you can and should find them by clicking the “Guest Posts” category on theright. And please—whether I’ve asked you specifically or not—feel free tocontribute your own guest post down the road!

17)   JFK,Tucson, and the Rhetoric and Reality of Political Violence: Thefirst post in which I deviated from my planned schedule to respond directly toa current event—something I’ve incorporated very fully into this blog in themonths since.

18)   TributePost to Professor Alan Heimert: I’d say the same about the tributeposts that I did for the guest posts—both that they exemplify how fortunateI’ve been (in this case in the many amazing people and influences I’ve known)and that you should read them all (at the “Tribute Posts” category on theright).

19)   MartinLuther King: How do we remember the real, hugely complicated, and to my mindeven more inspiring man, rather than the mythic ideal we’ve created of him? Apretty key AmericanStudies question, one worth asking of every truly inspiringAmerican.

20)   AngelIsland and Sui Sin Far’s “In the Land of the Free”:Immigration has been, I believe, my first frequent theme here, perhaps because,as this post illustrates, it can connect us so fully to so many of the darkest,richest, most powerful and significant national places and events, texts andhistories.

21)   Dresdenand Slaughterhouse Five: One of the events we Americans have workedmost hard to forget, and one of the novels that most beautifully and compellingargues for the need to remember and retell every story.

22)   Valentine’sDay Lessons: Maybe my least analytical post, and also one of my favorites. Itain’t all academic, y’know.

23)   Tori Amos,Lara Logan, and Stories of Rape: One of the greatest songs I’ve everheard helps me respond to one of the year’s most horrific stories.

24)   PeterGomes and Faith: A tribute to one of the most inspiring Americans I’ve ever met,and some thoughts on the particularly complicated and important American themehe embodies for me.

25)   The Treatyof Tripoli and the Founders on Church and State:Sometimes our historical narratives are a lot more complicated than we think.And sometimes they’re just a lot simpler. Sorry, David Barton and Glenn Beck,but there’s literally no doubt of what the Founders felt about the separationof church and state the idea of America as a “Christian nation.”

26)   NewtGingrich, Definitions of America, and Why We’re Here: Thefirst of many posts (such as all those included in the “Book Posts” category onthe right) in which I bring the ideas at the heart of my second book into myresponses to AmericanStudies narratives and myths.

27)   Du Bois,Affirmative Action, and Obama: Donald Trump quickly and thoroughly revealedhimself to be a racist jackass, but the core reasons for much of the oppositionto affirmative action are both more widespread and more worth responding tothan Trump’s buffoonery.

28)   IllegalImmigrants, Our Current Deportation Policies, and Empathy: Whatdoes deportation really mean and entail, who is affected, and at what humancost?

29)   Tribute toMy Grandfather Art Railton: The saddest Railton event of the year leadsme to reflect on the many inspiring qualities of my grandfather’s life,identity, and especially perspective.

30)   MyClearest Immigration Post: Cutting through some of the complexities andstating things as plainly as possible, in response to Sarah Palin’s historicalfalsehoods. Repeated and renamed with even more force here.

31)   PaulRevere, Longfellow, and Wikipedia: Another Sarah Palin-inspired post,this time on her revisions to the Paul Revere story and the question of what is“common knowledge” and what purposes it serves in our communal conversations.

32)   “Us vs.them” narratives, Muslim Americans, and Illegal Immigrants: Thefirst of a couple posts to consider these particularly frustrating and divisivenational narratives. The second, which also followed up my Norwegian terrorismresponse (linked below), is here.

33)   AbrahamCahan: The many impressive genres and writings of this turn of thecentury Jewish American, and why AmericanStudiers should work to push downboundaries between disciplines as much as possible.

34)  Terrorism,Norway, and Rhetoric: One of the latest and most importantiterations of my using a current event to drive some American analyses—andlikewise an illustration of just how fully interconnected international andAmerican events and histories are.

Nextbirthday best post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Youknow what to do!