August 9, 2024: Birthday Bests: 2014-2015

[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 honorof my 38th birthday, 38 favorite posts from 2014-2015 on the blog!

1)     August 18:Films for the Dog Days: Dog Day Afternoon: A part of a sweltering summerseries, I analyzed the gritty crime drama that’s sneakily subversive.

2)     September5: Fall Forward: A New Teaching Challenge: My Fall 2014 semester included abrand new course on a brand new (to me) topic, and that was a very good thing.

3)     September11: More Cville Stories: Fry’s Spring: Four exemplary stages to the Virginiahotspot where I spent many a summer’s day.

4)     September15: Country Music and Society: Gender and Identity: OnJohnny Cash, Dolly Parton, and gender-bending in one of our most traditionalcultural genres.

5)     September23: Women and War: Rosie the Riveter: Two ways to complicate and enrichour collective memories of an enduring American icon.

6)     October 8:AmericanStudying Appalachia: Murfree’s Mountains: AnAppalachianStudying series gave me a chance to write about one of our mostcomplex and talented authors.

7)     October25-26: De Lange Follow Ups: My Fellow Tweeters: My wholeexperience as a Social Media Fellow at the De Lange Conference was amazing, andI’d love for you to check out the weeklong series of follow ups. But I can’tnot focus on my amazing fellow Fellows!

8)     October29: AmericanSpooking: The Birds and Psycho: For my annual Halloween series, Iconsidered defamiliarization, horror, and prejudice.

9)     November7: Exemplary Elections: 1994: My election week series ended with thishighly influential recent election—and with this Lawyers,Guns, and Money post discussing and greatly amplifying my ownthoughts.

10)  November14: Veterans Days: Miyoko Hikiji: The veteran and book that helpbroaden and enrich our concept of American veterans—and now she’srunning for the Iowa State Senate!

11)  November28: 21st Century Thanks: E-Colleagues: AThanksgiving series concludes with five colleagues I haven’t had the chance tomeet in person, yet!

12)  December3: AmericanWinters: The Blizzard of 78: Two AmericanStudies contexts for anepic winter storm (which little did I know in December we’d end up surpassingin terms of total Boston snowfall in one winter!).

13)  December13-14: Andrea Grenadier’s Guest Post on Charles Ives: Anothergreat year for Guest Posts, including this gem from Andrea on a difficult andimportant composer.

14)  December24: AmericanWishing: Chesnutt’s “Wife”: Charles Dickens, one of my favoriteAmerican short stories, and holiday introspection were on my wish list thisyear.

15)  December31: End of Year Stories: The Immigration Debate: Twoonline pieces of mine that have contributed to an ongoing political andAmerican debate.

16)  January 6:Waltham Histories: The Waverly Trail: Three profoundly American moments inthe history of a beautiful natural wonder.

17)  January20: MLK Stories: Selma: What’s important and inspiring, and what’s abit more problematic, about the wonderful recent film.

18)  January26: AmericanStudying Sports Movies: Bad News Bears and Boys: A SuperBowl series starts with our obsession with lovable losers.

19)  February2: American Conspiracy Theories: Roswell: Historical and cultural contexts forone of our craziest American conspiracy theories.

20)  February20: American Studying Non-Favorites: Low Five: Five historical figures with whom Ihave a bone—or a whole skeleton—to pick!

21)  February26: Western Mass. Histories: The Bridge of Flowers: Threeevocative stages of a unique Massachusetts landmark.

22)  March 2:Forgotten Wars: The Second Barbary War: The anniversary of a forgotten EarlyRepublic conflict inspired this post and series on wars we should betterremember.

23)  March14-15: All That Crowd-sourced Jazz: Crowd-sourcing at its finest, withfellow AmericanStudiers adding wonderful nominations to my week’s series onjazz.

24)  March 24:American Epidemics: The Measles: An all-too-timely post, on three stagesin the history of a frustratingly persistent disease.

25)  April 2:April Fools: Minstrel Shows: What we do with comic art that’s just notfunny any more.

26)  April 6:Baseball Lives: Hank Greenberg: Why we should remember one of ourgreatest Jewish American athletes—and an inspiring icon.

27)  April18-19: Crowd-sourced Reading List: Another great crowd-sourced post,this one on nominations for an AmericanStudies reading list.

28)  April 27:Communist Culture: “The Palace-Burner”: What one of my favorite Americanpoems can teach us about difference, empathy, and identity.

29)  May 11:Semester Conclusions: I Can’t Breathe: Remembering one of my most radicalclassroom moments, and why it wasn’t.

30)  May 19:BlockbusterStudying II: Ghostbusters: Science, the supernatural, and WeirdTales in one of our funnier and more original summer blockbusters.

31)  May 26:Decoration Day Histories: Frederick Douglass: As part of a series on MemorialDay’s origins, I highlighted Douglass’s amazing 1871 Decoration Day speech.

32)  June 2:Mount Auburn Connections: Blanche Linden: Three inspiring sides to a hugelyinfluential AmericanStudier, scholar, and teacher.

33)  June 12:North Carolina Stories: Moral Mondays: Two historical parallels for thecrucial contemporary protests and activism.

34)  June 19:AmericanStudies Beach Reads: A Tragic, Compelling Life: Why weshould get serious at the beach, and the perfect book to help us do so.

35)  June 26:Gordon Parks and America: Portrait Photos and the Past: A seriesinspired by a wonderful (and ongoing) MFA exhibit concludes with some thoughtson what portraits can’t teach us about the past, and what they can.

36)  July 1:The 4th in Focus: Fireworks: The history, symbolism, andlimitations of an American holiday tradition.

37)  July11-12: Samuel Southworth’s Guest Post: In Honor of the 150thAnniversary of the US Secret Service: In my most recent Guest Post, Samconsiders the organization’s history, role, and importance, with a fascinatingfoonote in comments to boot.

38)  July 20:Billboard #1s: “I’ll Never Smile Again”: A series on Billboard hits startswith what’s hugely different about 1940’s #1 hit, and what’s not so differentat all.

Nextbirthday best post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Youknow what to do!