August 8, 2024: Birthday Bests: 2013-2014

[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!]

Thirty-sevenfavorites from the 2013-2014 year on the blog!

1)     August 23:Still Studying: Known Unknowns: A series on things I’m stilllearning concludes with a post on three recent takeaways from that 21stcentury resource, Twitter.

2)     August 30:Fall Forward: Three Years: In honor of the blog’s upcoming thirdanniversary, three of my favorite memories from those first three years.

3)     September13: Newport Stories: To Preserve or Not to Preserve: A serieson stories and histories surrounding The Breakers wonders whether and how weshould preserve such historic homes.

4)     September17: Gloucester Stories: The Sense of the Past: As part of a series on theMassachusetts fishing town, why it’s so important to better remember thatcommunity.

5)     September25: Justice Is Not Color Blind: Duke: The most complex post in my serieson race and justice in America, on expectations, realities, and the role ofpublic scholars.

6)     October14: John Sayles’ America: Secaucus and the 60s: A seriesAmericanStudying my favorite filmmaker starts with the movie that echoes butalso challenges our narratives of a turbulent decade.

7)     October21: Book Talk Thoughts: MOCA: With my year of book talks underway, a poston the inspiringly pitch-perfect New York museum that helped inaugurate thosetalks.

8)     October28: Symbolic Scares: The Wendigo: A Halloween series starts with thesupernatural legend that offers cultural and cross-cultural commentaries.

9)     November7: Berkshire Stories: The Housatonic: Three complex and compelling sidesto a New England river, part of a series on histories from this beautifulWestern Mass. Region.

10)  November12: Veteran’s Week: Band of Brothers: As part of a Veteran’s Day series,nostalgia and nuance in one of our best recent depictions of war.

11)  November19: Times Like These: 1935: The debates over Social Security and how theydo and don’t echo our own divided moment.

12)  November29: Giving Thanks: Future AmericanStudiers: A Thanksgiving series concludes withan inspiring moment where past and future were in conversation.

13)  December20: Representing Slavery: 12 Years a Slave: A series on cultural images ofslavery concludes with two takes on the wonderful recent film, my own…

14)  December21-22: Representing Slavery: Joe Moser’s Guest Post: And thatof my friend and colleague (and Irish film expert) Joe Moser!

15)  December24: AmericanStudies Wishes: Reform Now!: My annual series of wishes for theAmericanStudies Elves included this post on the very American reasons why weneed immigration reform.

16)  January4-5: Ani DiFranco and Slavery: A special addition to a year-in-reviewseries, on a couple historical contexts for a very current controversy.

17)  January23: Civil Rights Histories: George Wallace: Why we shouldn’t judge a lifetime byits worst moments, but why we do have to focus on them nonetheless.

18)  January27: Football Focalizes: Concussions and Hypocrisy: A SuperBowl series opens with the gap between what we know and what we do, in footballas in history.

19)  February7: House Histories: Our Own Broad Daylight: A series on the House of the SevenGables concludes with a post on the literary and communal presences of thepast.

20)  February11: I Love Du Bois to His Daughter: My Valentine’s Day series includedthis tribute to an amazing letter from my American idol to his teenagedaughter.

21)  February17: YA Lit: Little House on the Prairie: What we can and can’t learn abouthistory from young adult lit kicks off a chapter-book-inspired series.

22)  March 8-9:Crowd-sourced Non-Favorites: One of my most epic crowd-sourced posts everrounded out a series on American things that don’t quite do it for us.

23)  March 21:Cville Stories: 21st Century Tensions:Nostalgia, fear, and the current divisions that threaten communities likeCharlottesville and America.

24)  March 27:Caribbean Connections: Bob Marley: On whether it’s entirely possiblefor an artist to cross cultural borders, and why the crossing matters in anycase.

25)  April 2:Baseball Stories: Field of Dreams and The Brothers K: MyOpening Day series included this post on divisive decades and histories, andwhether baseball can bring us together.

26)  April 16:Animated History: The Princess and the Frog: On race, representation, and seeingourselves and our histories on screen.

27)  April 28:Reading New England Women: Catharine Maria Sedgwick: A serieson 19th century New England women kicks off with a funny, tellingstory that was way ahead of its time.

28)  May 7:NeMLA Follow Ups: Roundtable on Contingent Faculty: Threemeaningful ways we can move forward with a crucial issue.

29)  May 12:Spring 2014 Recaps: 21st Century Writing: Asemester recap series starts with three wonderful student papers from myWriting II course.

30)  May 22:AmericanStudying Harvard Movies: Love Story: On the enduring appeal of fantasies,romantic and communal, and what it means to share them with future generations.

31)  June14-15: War Stories: Board Games: A D-Day series concludes with a specialpost on three board games from which I learned a good deal about histories ofwar.

32)  June 17:AmericanStudying Summer Jams: Summertime Blues: Thesummer song that gave multi-layered voice to the experience of youth.

33)  June 24:AmericanStudier Camp: Hello Muddah: As part of a summer camp series, thenovelty song with an extended, very American afterlife.

34)  July 14:American Beaches: Revere Beach: A beach series kicks off with threetelling stages of one of our most historic beaches.

35)  July 22:American Autobiographers: Olaudah Equiano: The controversial personal narrativethat should be required reading whatever its genre.

36)  August 1:Uncles and Aunts: Uncle Elephant: A series inspired by my sister’sbirthday concludes with the children’s book that’s as sad and as joyous as lifeitself.

37)  August 5:Virginia Voices: Thomas Nelson Page: For my latest return to VA, Ihighlighted interesting Virginia authors, including the question of whether andwhy we should read this once-popular writer at all.

Nextbirthday best post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Youknow what to do!