[In honor of May Day/International Workers’ Day, a series on some compelling cultural representations of communism in American history and identity. Leading up to a special weekend post on contemporary communist culture!] On two distinct but complementary postmodern historical novels. As I wrote in this post on American hypocrites, Tony Kushner’s play Angels in America (1991-1993) includes one of the most searing and tragic depictions of McCarthyism: Kushner’s portrayal of Roy Cohn, and most especially of Cohn’s literally and figuratively haunting conversations with the ghost of Ethel Rosenber ..read more

[In honor of May Day/International Workers’ Day, a series on some compelling cultural representations of communism in American history and identity. Leading up to a special weekend post on contemporary communist culture!] On two strikingly parallel yet also importantly distinct 1930s to ‘50s American arcs. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, despite our longstanding collective national antagonism toward communism there have been both moments and communities in which the political philosophy has had substantially broader and deeper appeal. In the 1930s, two such factors came together to help pr ..read more

[In honor of May Day/International Workers’ Day, a series on some compelling cultural representations of communism in American history and identity. Leading up to a special weekend post on contemporary communist culture!] On the masterpiece of a poem that destroys easy “us vs. them” narratives. I made the case for my favorite American poet, Sarah Piatt, in one of my first posts, and did so in large part through her best poem, “The Palace-Burner” (1873). There are a lot of factors that make “Palace-Burner” one of the great American poems, including its exemplification of Piatt’s frequent use of ..read more

[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.] April 1: Satire Studying: African American Satire: An April Fool’s series on satire starts with a link to my recent Saturday Evening Post Black History Month column. April 2: Satire Studying: Innocents Abroad: The series continues with the double-edged satire at the heart of Mark Twain’s first big hit. April 3: Satire Studying: The Interview: What’s problematic, and what’s important, about a hugely controversial cinematic comedy, as the series pokes on. April 4: Satire Studying: TV Satires: Four news and sketch comedy shows from which we can ..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 five examples of pop music perspectives on the climate crisis. 1)      Don Henley, “Goodbye to a River” (2000): As I highlighted in this post featuring Henley’s successful efforts to preserve Walden Woods, the former Eagle has become one of our most prominent and dedicated environmental activists. So it makes sense tha ..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 what’s specific and what’s universal in Karen Russell’s amazing story. I first encountered “The Ghost Birds” in the Best American Short Stories 2022 anthology (well worth getting your hands on as those collections always are), but it originally appeared in The New Yorker in October 2021. Whether you’re a subscriber or not you should be able to ..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 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