Happy 60th to #DrNo & the James Bond film franchise! We all have those pop culture things for which we mostly turn off our brain, & for me the Bond films are definitely atop that list. I'm able to analyze & criticize them for sure, but I also get great pleasure from the series.
But I also greatly value those folks & works helping contextualize & analyze the films & character, including @DrLisaFunnell, YouTube channels like @calvindyson's, books like James Chapman's License to Thrill, & much more.
google.com/books/edition/…
I've blogged about Bond twice so far, both in relationship to AmericanStudies topics:

This one on the most thoroughly (& at times frustratingly) American & Western Hemispheric film, Live & Let Die:

americanstudier.blogspot.com/2011/11/novemb…
& this 2021 year in review post on a striking moment involving @jfreewright's Felix Leiter (SPOILERS if you haven't seen No Time to Die):

americanstudier.blogspot.com/2021/12/decemb…
I love me some Jason Bourne films (well, the original trilogy; ie, the Only Bourne Films in This Household), & I think there's a place for very different spy & action films. But I'll always have a soft spot for 007, & I'm excited to see where the films & franchise go post-Craig.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Ben Railton

Ben Railton Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @AmericanStudier

Oct 6
Happy Fannie Lou Hamer Day! One of the most impressive & inspiring figures on the Memory Day list to be sure. #CivilRights #twitterstorians

memorydaycalendar.blogspot.com/p/october-nomi…
No better way to celebrate Hamer's birthday than ordering @KeishaBlain's vital book if you haven't already:

google.com/books/edition/…
& I'll share 'em all in the Sunday thread, but make sure to read all the pieces in the ongoing, great @BlkPerspectives Forum on Hamer:
aaihs.org/black-perspect…
Read 4 tweets
Oct 3
Taught my favorite poet, Sarah Piatt, last week in online Am Lit II & this week in Honors Lit Seminar on the Gilded Age, & have been thinking a lot in the process about two layers to why we should all read & talk about poetry. (Cf. this @AWMuseum post.)
americanwritersmuseum.org/why-we-should-…
First & foremost, like all our greatest poets, Piatt uses the form & genre to open up familiar questions & themes in profoundly new & illuminating ways. Take "A Pique at Parting," for example, which we're talking about this week in Honors Lit:

poetrynook.com/poem/pique-par…
Courtship & relationship dynamics in the late 19C, women's perspectives on their own identities & possibilities/limits as well as on men & the world, domesticity & work, religion--it's all there, & so much more, in a stanza & rhyme structure that moves us through Piatt's ideas.
Read 9 tweets
Oct 3
One of the central ideas underlying my new project is the question of historical inevitability, & more exactly challenging our understandable sense that things had to play out how they did. Every moment was contingent, & changeable based on individual & collective actions alike.
Some of the most influential such actors in American history specifically, of course, have been our presidents. & those influences have often been, well, pretty bad. So this week, in honor of Rutherford B. Hayes' 200th birthday, I'm blogging about a handful of Bad Presidents.
Starting today with James Buchanan, & how his badness helps us challenge the idea that the #CivilWar was inevitable by the 1850s. #twitterstorians

americanstudier.blogspot.com/2022/10/octobe…
Read 7 tweets
Sep 18
Here it is, my 93rd #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast eps & convos, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Share more below & enjoy, all! #twitterstorians
Starting with two thoughtful pieces for #September11, including @lutzfernandez for @Medium on teaching (on) such days:
medium.com/@lutzfernandez…
& here’s @TenuredRadical for her newsletter on collective memories & forgettings:
clairepotter.substack.com/p/will-it-alwa…
Read 48 tweets
Sep 17
On this #ConstitutionDay, it's certainly worth remembering some of the truly radical ideas in that complicated & flawed document, with the separation of church & state at the top of the list for me.
saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/10/consid…
& of course it's vital to remember the flaws & failures, as well as the foundational battles to make the Constitution truly work for all Americans. See for example Gordon Barker's masterful book:
google.com/books/edition/…
If, as Eric Foner & others have so convincingly argued, Reconstruction was a Second Founding, I'd say that this is a moment we could consider a Third. A moment to either extend our ideals to all Americans or give in further to white supremacist exclusion.
google.com/books/edition/…
Read 5 tweets
Sep 16
Getting set to teach (virtually) the first week of my next 5-week @WISEinWorcester adult ed class, my most controversial yet as the course title alone makes clear: "Our boasted civilization is but a thin veneer": How White Supremacy Erodes the American Ideals It Claims to Love.
That title is quoting my favorite single line in American literature, from Charles Chesnutt's Marrow of Tradition:
werehistory.org/tulsa-riots/
& the provocative topic of today's first class will be how white supremacy has consistently undermined the American ideal of religious freedom, as I argued in this column:
saturdayeveningpost.com/2022/08/consid…
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(