May 3-4, 2025: April 2025 Recap

[A Recapof the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

March31: Foolish Texts: A Fool’s Errand: For this year’s April Fool’s series, IAmericanStudied “fool”-ish cultural works, starting with Albion Tourgée’sironic and powerful Reconstruction novel.

April1: Foolish Texts: “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: The series continues withlessons and limits from an English classic rock anthem.

April2: Foolish Texts: Nobody’s Fool: Two AmericanStudies takeaways from one ofour quirkier and more affecting films, as the series fools on.

April3: Foolish Texts: This Fool: Three Latino cultural works that can contextualizethe recent sitcom about Los Angeles cholos.

April4: Foolish Texts: Fool: The series concludes with a trio of pop cultureadaptations of Shakespeare, inspired by Christopher Moore’s 2009 novel.

April7: A Great Gatsby Centennial: Gatsby’s Pool: For the centennial of Fitzgerald’snovel, a tribute series kicks off with a tragic dip that’s as difficult to pindown as the man taking it.

April8: A Great Gatsby Centennial: Three Phone Calls: The series continues withthree calls that illustrates the novel’s portrayal of Modern technologies.

April9: A Great Gatsby Centennial: Foshay Tower: The building and entrepreneurthat bring an American icon to life, as the series reads on.

April10: A Great Gatsby Centennial: Gatsby’s American Dreams: Two contrastingbut also interconnected ways to analyze the novel’s ambiguous title character.

April11: A Great Gatsby Centennial: Novelist-Narrators: The series concludeswith a link to my 2011 American Literary Realism article on thisinnovative narrative technique.

April12-13: A Great Gatsby Centennial: Fellow GatsbyStudiers: And here’s aspecial weekend post highlighting a ton of great work from fellow studiers ofthe novel!

April14: Kyle Contexts: Younger Siblings: A series inspired by my awesomeyounger son’s 18th birthday kicks off with prior posts on badassyounger siblings in American history and culture.

April15: Kyle Contexts: The ACLU: The series continues with three significantstages in the evolution of the nation’s preeminent civil rights organization.

April16: Kyle Contexts: Musical Crossovers: A handful of examples of historicmusical crossovers, as the series celebrates on.

April17: Kyle Contexts: Track & Field Fighters: Five moments when trackstars (like my younger son) dealt with and overcame challenges (like my youngerson has).

April18: Kyle Contexts: Chinchillas: The series concludes with three ways tocontextualize my son’s favorite cute animal.

April19-20: Kyle Railton’s Guest Post on the OJ Simpson Trial: And I couldn’tdedicate a series to Kyle without re-sharing his excellent Guest Post!

April21: EarthquakeStudying: San Francisco in 1906: For Charles Richter’s 125thbirthday, an earthquake series kicks off with two distinct, equally inspiring responsesto one of our most destructive disasters.

April22: EarthquakeStudying: Three Other California Quakes: The series continueswith one striking detail about each of three major 20th centuryquakes.

April23: EarthquakeStudying: The Indian Ocean in 2004: Three cultural works thatcan help us remember one of the most devastating natural disasters in history,as the series shakes on.

April24: EarthquakeStudying: Haiti in 2010: Two interconnected ways toAmericanStudy a Caribbean disaster.

April25: EarthquakeStudying: Movies: The series concludes with takeaways fromthree blockbuster films about catastrophic quakes.

April26-27: EarthquakeStudying: Charles Richter: For his 125th birthday,the very strange things I learned about Charles Richter, and what we do with suchprivate details about public figures.

April28: Ending the Vietnam War: The Mayaguez Incident: For the 50thanniversary of the symbolic end of the Vietnam War, a series on culturalrepresentations of that conclusion kicks off with a maritime crisis turnedmilitary incident.

April29: Ending the Vietnam War: First Blood: The series continues with what aniconic film speech gets wrong about the end of the war, and what it gets veryright.

April30: Ending the Vietnam War: Miss Saigon: Two bravura sequences that revealwhat a musical can and can’t do with history, as the series rolls on.

May1: Ending the Vietnam War: “Galveston Bay”: Two ways an underrated Springsteensong importantly adds to his body of work about the war.

May2: Ending the Vietnam War: Da 5 Bloods: The series concludes with onefraught and one vital meaning of “unfinished business” in Spike Lee’s recentfilm.

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Topicsyou’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!