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Feb 1 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Happy Langston Hughes Day! One of my favorite Memory Day Calendar details is that #blackhistorymonth2023 begins with not just one of our greatest poets, but a vital voice on Black & American histories. #twitterstorians

memorydaycalendar.blogspot.com/p/february-nom…
He offered that vital voice through poems like "American Heartbreak" that reflect on the gap between our national ideals & the histories of enslavement, racism, & white supremacy.

acylme.com/2014/02/26/ame…
He did it through poems like "I, Too" that express a collective, impassioned & inspiring African American response & alternative to those histories.
poetryfoundation.org/poems/47558/i-…
He did it through poems like "Theme for English B" (one section of his magisterial book-length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred) that consider the limits & possibilities of American community.
poetryfoundation.org/poems/47880/th…
& he did it through poems like "Let America Be America Again," to me the single most exemplary critical patriotic literary work in American history.
poets.org/poem/let-ameri…
In all those & so, so many other ways, there's no voice more worth hearing, reading, sharing--on the first day of #blackhistorymonth2023 & every other day--than that of Langston Hughes.

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More from @AmericanStudier

Ben Railton Profile picture
Feb 3
The main reason I wanted to do short stories in my adult learning courses this semester was that it's been a long time since I've really just sat in a classroom & talked about literary works with a community of fellow readers (that's part of undergrad teaching, but just part).
That's what it felt like the other times I taught lit-focused adult learning classes, but I didn't want to do so over Zoom so it's been about 4 years since I had the chance. I knew it would feel good to be back in that space, & at last week's 1st class it most definitely did.
But what I wasn't really expecting was how good it would feel even just to read the stories this way--not simply reading for pleasure, but also not reading with all the hats we have to wear to teach classes that involve assignments, grading, skills. Just reading to talk together.
Read 7 tweets
Ben Railton Profile picture
Feb 1
There are no shortage of horrific & fascistic elements to the attacks on education from the De Santis administration & around the country. But when it comes to Black history, there's also a stunning irony: we still collectively teach, learn, & know so frustratingly little of it.
A telling example is Boston's Black Heritage Trail, which begins at the same spot as the Freedom Trail, winds past a number of amazing historic sites & spaces in Beacon Hill, & features a great museum (@MAAHMuseum) yet receives far fewer annual visitors than the Freedom Trail.
So for my #BlackHistoryMonth @SatEvePost Considering History column, on all that we have to learn from the Black Heritage Trail--& all the Black history we still desperately, collectively need. #twitterstorians
saturdayeveningpost.com/2023/02/consid…
Read 5 tweets
Ben Railton Profile picture
Jan 30
150 years ago today, the English-language edition of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days was published. While Verne's book is a work of fiction, it both inspired a great deal of travel writing & helps us think about complex questions of how authors depict travel stories.
Starting today with three American travelers who were connected to and/or created their own versions of Verne's travel story:

William Perry Fogg, the Ohio businessman & adventurer whose travels & book helped inspire Verne;
Nellie Bly, the investigative journalist who beat Verne's record in her own Around the World in Seventy-Two Days;

& James Willis Sayre, the theatre critic who circled the globe in a mere 54 days in 1903! #twitterstorians

americanstudier.blogspot.com/2023/01/januar…
Read 10 tweets
Ben Railton Profile picture
Jan 8
Here it is, my 109th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes & conversations, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below & enjoy, all! #twitterstorians
Starting with a few favorite pieces from the week, including two for the 100th anniversary of the Rosewood massacre. Here’s @gonzaleztennant for @JSTOR_Daily (h/t @KeishaBlain):
daily.jstor.org/remembering-ro…
& here’s @craigtimes for @SmithsonianMag on how the histories of that massacre were recovered:
smithsonianmag.com/history/how-hi…
Read 44 tweets
Ben Railton Profile picture
Jan 7
Happy Zora Neale Hurston Day! #Literature @PedagogyAmLitSt @BlkPerspectives

memorydaycalendar.blogspot.com/p/january-nomi…
I love Their Eyes a lot (and it teaches really well), but it's far from the whole story of Hurston's multi-genre, interdisciplinary career. "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" (1928) is one of the great American personal essay:

wheelersburg.net/Downloads/Hurs…
The posthumously published Barracoon is a really important historical novel:
smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/z…
Read 4 tweets
Ben Railton Profile picture
Jan 6
When I've given my book talks for Of Thee I Sing, I start with a quote from @AndrewMcCormck's vital 1/7/21 @thenation article.+
thenation.com/article/politi…
When the police begin firing tear gas at the insurrectionists, McCormick reports: “This is not America,” a woman said to a small group, her voice shaking. She was crying, hysterical. “They’re shooting at us. They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.”
Just two days after #January6th, I gave the first such book talk, for Chicago's @GCELabSchool. That meant I immediately had to grapple with whether & how to think about those insurrectionists through the lens of patriotism.
gcelabschool.org/2021/01/the-pa…
Read 11 tweets

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