[It’s hard not to think about the climate crisis every day in 2024, but it’s impossible not to do so on Earth Day. So this week in honor of that solemn occasion, I’ll AmericanStudy cultural works that represent and help us engage with climate change.] On two complementary ways to read a climate change moment in a 21st century sonnet. I’ve written about the great contemporary poet Jericho Brown in multiple posts here, including this one on his wonderful TED talk and this one on a few different ways and settings in which he engages his audiences. As part of the latter post, I mentioned his poem ..read more

[It’s hard not to think about the climate crisis every day in 2024, but it’s impossible not to do so on Earth Day. So this week in honor of that solemn occasion, I’ll AmericanStudy cultural works that represent and help us engage with climate change.] On the necessity but limitations of disaster movies, and an important variation. It makes perfect sense that the first climate change film would have been a disaster movie. By far the most consistent type of disaster on which that longstanding genre focuses (although not the only one of course, and thank goodness or there’d be no Airplane!) is th ..read more

[It’s hard not to think about the climate crisis every day in 2024, but it’s impossible not to do so on Earth Day. So this week in honor of that solemn occasion, I’ll AmericanStudy cultural works that represent and help us engage with climate change.] On the long legacy of cli fi, and a stunning recent novel that reveals the genre’s true potential. The term “cli fi” (for “climate fiction”) has only been around for the last 10 years or so; it was apparently first coined in 2011 by activist and author Dan Bloom to describe Jim Laughter’s novel Polar City Red, and then gradually picked up by vari ..read more

[Up here in New England, the third Monday in April is a holiday, Patriots’ Day. But as I argue in my most recent book, patriotism is a very complex concept, and so this week I’ll highlight a handful of examples of the worst of what it has meant for how we remember our histories. Leading up to a weekend post on the state of mythic patriotism in 2024!] On the multiple mythic patriotic layers to a Puritan-centered American origin story. In the introduction to Of Thee I Sing, I define my book’s four types of American patriotism using the four verses of Katharine Lee Bates’ “America the Beautiful ..read more

[Up here in New England, the third Monday in April is a holiday, Patriots’ Day. But as I argue in my most recent book, patriotism is a very complex concept, and so this week I’ll highlight a handful of examples of the worst of what it has meant for how we remember our histories. Leading up to a weekend post on the state of mythic patriotism in 2024!] On how an iconic American image is mythic patriotic in both meanings and effects. I’ve written at length in this space about the mythic but ubiquitous American narrative of the “self-made man”: first for one of my earliest posts in October 2011 (m ..read more

[Up here in New England, the third Monday in April is a holiday, Patriots’ Day. But as I argue in my most recent book, patriotism is a very complex concept, and so this week I’ll highlight a handful of examples of the worst of what it has meant for how we remember our histories. Leading up to a weekend post on the state of mythic patriotism in 2024!] On two layers of mythic patriotism found in the later verses of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” There are multiple reasons why I decided to put Francis Scott Key conceiving of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and Colin Kaepernick kneeling during a performan ..read more

[Up here in New England, the third Monday in April is a holiday, Patriots’ Day. But as I argue in my most recent book, patriotism is a very complex concept, and so this week I’ll highlight a handful of examples of the worst of what it has meant for how we remember our histories. Leading up to a weekend post on the state of mythic patriotism in 2024!] On two ways that a project dedicated to “patriotic education” embodies the worst of mythic patriotism. In a brief post as part of last year’s July 4th series, I highlighted the Trump administration’s now-defunct but still influential 1776 Project ..read more

[This coming weekend marks the 60th anniversary of Sidney Poitier becoming the first Black actor to win a Best Actor Oscar. So this week I’ve AmericanStudied a handful of Poitier performances, leading up to this special weekend post on a handful of 21C actors carrying his legacy forward!] On five noteworthy performances from five of our best contemporary Black actors (not including Denzel or Morgan, who to my mind are Poitier’s genuine equals as screen legends and could each get their own full post very easily). 1)      Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda (2004): Cheadle has bee ..read more

[This coming weekend marks the 60th anniversary of Sidney Poitier becoming the first Black actor to win a Best Actor Oscar. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of Poitier performances, leading up to a special post on a handful of 21C actors carrying his legacy forward!] On what was unquestionably historic about Poitier’s Oscar, what wasn’t quite, and what’s importantly outside of that framing. I started this week’s series by highlighting the work of my favorite FilmStudier, Vaughn Joy, so it’s only appropriate that I end the series by doing the same: for a delightful and engaging but als ..read more

[This coming weekend marks the 60th anniversary of Sidney Poitier becoming the first Black actor to win a Best Actor Oscar. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of Poitier performances, leading up to a special post on a handful of 21C actors carrying his legacy forward!] On standout speeches and sweet sendoffs in Poitier’s pair of 1967 releases. By 1967 Sidney Poitier had starred in 24 films, including the 1963 release that won him the Academy Award 60 years ago this week (and on which I’ll focus in tomorrow’s post); in early 1967 he would star in another, the English educational drama To ..read more