August 16, 2026: Birthday Bests: 2025-2026

[On August 15^th, this AmericanStudier celebrated his 49^th birthday. So as I do each year, I’ve featured a series sharing some of my favorite posts from each year on the blog, leading up to this new post with 49 favorites from the last year. And as ever, you couldn’t give me a better present than to say hi and tell me a bit about what brings you to the blog, what you’ve found or enjoyed here, your own AmericanStudies thoughts, or anything else!]

Here they are, 49 favorite posts from my 16^th year (!) of AmericanStudying:

1. August 18: University of Michigan Studying: Founding Histories: Just as I dedicated last year’s post-birthday place-based series to Aidan’s new home city of Nashville, this year’s series focused on Kyle’s new home in Ann Arbor!
2. August 28: Alien Nation: Alien Autopsy: One of those subjects I likely never would have had the chance to explore without this blog, a post for the 30^th anniversary of the controversial pseudo-documentary film. 
3. September 8: Comic Strip Studying: The First American Comic: A fun post to kick off a very fun series, but also included here because it was the first post on this blog’s new home, our awesome Black & White & Read All Over public humanities website!
4. September 20-21: Challenging Censorship in 2025: I got a lot out of exploring the historical and conceptual topics throughout this series, but this was definitely one where the contemporary connection on the weekend was the most important part.
5. September 24: Recent Scholarly Reads: The Rediscovery of America: Ned Blackhawk’s magisterial 2024 book is one of the most important AmericanStudies texts I’ve ever read.
6. September 26: Forthcoming Scholarly Reads: Selling Out Santa: But it’s not my favorite—that title would have to go to my badass wife Vaughn Joy’s first book, now out for everyone to check out!
7. October 3: The Thrilla in Manilla: Part 3s: One of my favorite blogging things to do is to think about unexpected topics for posts in weeklong series—like this post on superlative part 3s of film trilogies inspired by the famous third boxing match between Ali & Frazier.
8. October 11-12: American Crime Fiction: Elmore Leonard: For Elmore Leonard’s 100^th birthday, my weeklong series on crime fiction concluded with this examination of just a handful of the countless adaptations of Leonard’s works.
9. October 17: Not Just (Video) Games: Video Game Studiers: My video game studying series concluded with two posts highlighting fellow scholars, this one on a handful of voices and publications…
10. October 18-19: Guest Post: Regina Mills on Carmen Sandiego & Latinx Representation Video Games: …and this one, my first Guest Post on the new site!
11. October 24: Erie Canal Studying: That Song: You know there was no way I was going to dedicate a series to the Erie Canal’s 100^th anniversary without a post on that musical tribute to a mule named Sal.
12. October 25-26: My Favorite Civil Engineer!: Nor without a concluding tribute to my favorite civil engineer, my older son Aidan!
13. October 27: AmericanStudying a Springsteen “Lost” Album: “Inyo” & Los Angeles: All seven of the albums on Bruce’s Tracks II are worth your time, but my favorite by far was the wonderful AmericanStudies cultural work Inyo, focus of this week’s blog series.
14. November 8-9: 15 Years (!) of AmericanStudying: My Dad: I can’t lie, continuing to write this blog without the possibility of responses from my most loyal, thoughtful, wonderful reader hasn’t been easy—but it was really nice to have the chance to share those sentiments as part of my bog anniversary series.
15. November 13: Veterans’ Stories: “Returning Soldiers” and WWI: Few stories over the last year have been more frustrating than the attacks on diverse American histories and communities, and I’ll take any chance to remind us how absolutely essential as well as inspiring those stories have been and remain.
16. November 20: AmericanStudying Rock (Hudson): WWII Service: Speaking of, check out the Saturday Evening Post Considering History column on LGBTQ+ Americans in the armed forces that I shared here as part of a series on Navy vet Rock Hudson.
17. November 24: Indigenous Voices: Joseph Lee’s Nothing More of This Land: And on a similar note, check out the powerful young Native American voice and book with which I started my Thanksgiving series.
18. November 29: Guest Post: Mia Moriarty & Dr. Michael Millner on Jack Kerouac: I love all Guest Posts (propose one of your own please!), but I love most the ones that feature student voices and work, as did my second for this site.
19. December 1: Urban Legends: The Bell Witch: Another example of something fascinating from American history that I 1000% learned about thanks to researching a weeklong blog series.
20. December 13-14: Kyle at Michigan!: I had a great Fall semester and featured it in my usual semester reflections blog series, but by far the most fun post to think about and write was this follow-up on Kyle’s first college semester.
21. December 20-21: Refugee Stories in 2025: But all is not well at Fitchburg State, no more than it is anywhere in the US right now and for exactly the same reasons, as I discussed in this weekend post on a very frustrating contemporary refugee story.
22. December 27-28: Wishes for My Wife’s Book: For my annual holiday wishlist for the AmericanStudies Elves, I wished for folks to check out my books—but by far my most important such wish is that everyone reads Vaughn’s amazing book!
23. January 2: Year in Review: Dad: 2025 was a very tough year for all of us, and for me the toughest part was the loss of the most inspiring man I’ve ever known.
24. January 3: Guest Post: Matt Dworkowitz on World War II’s Best Kept Secret: The Discovery of Chemotherapy in New Haven: My third Guest Post on this site came about in a way I’d love to replicate—someone reaching out to suggest a student whose work was a great fit for such a post. Everyone else, follow Kelly’s lead please!
25. January 8: 2026 Anniversaries: Heard in 1926: My favorite examples of my annual historic anniversaries posts are usually pop culture related, and this one was no exception.
26. January 16: Guest Post: Walter Greason & Tim Fielder’s New Comic Dearly Beloved: The latest Guest Post I’ve had the chance to share (so remedy that, y’all!) was a powerful new comic from my friend Walter (AKA SAGE GRAY) and his collaborator Tim.
27. January 17-18: Crowd-Sourced 60s & 70s TVStudying: This was the first crowd-sourced post on the new site, and I’m sure glad to be keeping that longstanding blog tradition going!
28. January 24-25: Occasional Poems: Mine!: But I’m equally glad to start new traditions over here, like the first piece of my own creative writing I’ve had the chance to share on the blog.
29. January 27: The Challenger Disaster: Christa McAuliffe: Whatever you think you know about the inspiring amateur astronaut who lost her life 40 years ago, I promise there’s even more impressiveness to her life and legacy.
30. February 7-8: Fenimore Cooper Studying: Dad’s Book: But I didn’t research nor write a more inspiring and moving post than this tribute to my Dad’s first book and some of its most thoughtful and personal details.
31. February 14-15: A Scholar and Scholarly Book I Love: Y’all know my Valentine’s Day series on scholarly books I’ve loved couldn’t conclude anywhere else than with Vaughn Joy & her book Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy.
32. February 26: Hawaiian Stories: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”: One of those posts where the more I researched and learned, the more I loved a subject of which I was already a big fan when I began the process.
33. March 7-8: Incorporating America: Our 21^st Century Moment: Incorporation isn’t a new part of American history and identity, as this series inspired by U.S. Steel’s 125^th anniversary illustrates—but it’s more crucial than ever to analyze it in 2026.
34. March 9: James Wong Howe in Context: Chinese Americans at the Turn of the Century: No blog series this year was more fun than this weeklong tribute to an influential cinematographer and all the layers of America that he opens up.
35. March 19: Nautical Novels: The Caine Mutiny: On the 75^th anniversary of its publication, how Herman Wouk’s excellent novel illuminates over nautical stories, from Melville to James Jones to Denzel on a submarine.
36. March 26: Historic Baseball Teams: The House of David: This whole series (inspired by my podcast’s second season) was fun to research and write, but I’d highlight in particular this post on a fascinating early 20C barnstorming team.
37. March 30: Selling Out Santa in the World: Edgartown Public Library: This is an example of one post standing in for an entire series, as I’d ask you to read all the posts on Vaughn’s book and ongoing book tour!
38. April 11-12: Why NeMLA Matters More than Ever in 2026: I love NeMLA more than ever in 2026, not least because Vaughn is now connected to it as well. But also because of how much such organizations can do and mean in our moment.
39. April 17: General Studying: Westmoreland and Vietnam: An unnecessary, tragic war built on and sustained by lies, you say?
40. April 25-26: Earth Day Inheritors: Aidan and Kyle Railton: You know I have to include my latest tribute post to my sons and all that (well, some of what) they’re working on these days.
41. April 27: Columbo Villains: Martin Hollister: Another example of a whole series I’d ask you to check out—and it’s on AmericanStudies contexts for Columbo murderers, so do I really need to say more?
42. May 11: Sabbatical Reads: The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration: Every book and author I highlighted in this series is worth checking out, but I would single out this vital new anthology from editos Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung.
43. May 22: Fast Cars in American Culture: Springsteen, Natch: We ended up seeing Bruce in concert the same week this post was part of a series inspired by America’s first speed-limit law, and that’s the kind of synchronicity that demands attention.
44. June 13-14: Supreme Court Superlatives: Miranda v. Arizona: Revisiting better moments in Supreme Court history was a nice alternative to our current court’s catastrophic decisions—but this weekend follow-up, on pop culture depictions of a particularly multilayered such moment, was even more fun.
45. June 26: AmericanStudying “Indian Wars”: The Battle of Bear Valley (1918): If you already knew that the last armed conflict between U.S. troops and indigenous folks was fought at the same time that WWI was raging in Europe—well, that makes one of us.
46. June 29: AmericanStudying the 250^th: State Constitutions: Speaking of fascinating things I didn’t know before researching a blog series—the New Jersey state constitution, passed in the same month as the Declaration of Independence, gave women the right to vote!
47. July 9: American Saints: John Neumann: I learned a ton from every post in this series inspired by the 80^th anniversary of the first such canonization (of Mother Cabrini), but none was more compelling than this Bohemian immigrant who became Philadelphia’s Bishop and later saved a Black congregation in Baltimore that had been founded by Haitian refugees.
48. July 15: Early Childhood Advocates: Dorothy Waring Howard: I really enjoyed paying tribute to every member of this too-often-overlooked community, right up to a weekend post on my favorite early childhood educator. But no figure stood out more than the founder of the Garden of Children nursery school.
49. July 28: The Coast Guard Sesquicentennial: The School: Did you know that for more than 30 years trainees in the U.S. Revenue Cutter School of Instruction (now known as the Coast Guard) went to school on board a ship sailing around the world? You learn something new every day at AmericanStudier!

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. You know what to do!