There was an interesting Lenten column in the New York Times Monday. Ross Douthat, a conservative in the best sense, draws on a Commonweal article by theologian Luke Timothy Johnson criticizing contemporary spiritual practice in this country. From the way Douthat quotes him, it sounds as though Johnson might take exception with my criticism of harsh […]
Monthly Archives: March 2010
Mix and Match: Mysticism American Style
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Boom!", Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, Howard Nemerov, Lent, Religion Comments closed
Sinning: A Tacky Floor Show
There’s a funny scene in the original Bedazzled (the 1967 film with Dudley Moore, not the one with Adam Sandler) where Moore, having sold his soul to the devil, is watching a particularly tawdry floor show in a seedy bar where he can’t get good service. As I recall the film, the seven deadly sins […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged 7 Deadly Sins, Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, Religion, Sin Comments closed
On Lent, Faustus, and the 7 Deadly Sins
Dr. Faustus, Rembrandt etching Here we are in the midst of Lent with less than a month to go until Easter. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight describes the season as follows: After Christmas there came the cold cheer of Lent, When with fish and plainer fare our flesh we reprove . . . The […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged 7 Deadly Sins, Christianity, Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, Lent, Religion, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Comments closed
Steve Sax Disease, a Ticket to Freedom
author Jerry Gabriel Sports Saturday Saturday posts are devoted to the intersection of literature and sports. To gain access to all the posts on sports, click “sports” in the tag cloud to your right. My creative writing colleague Jerry Gabriel has just published Drowned Boy (Sarabande Books, 2010), a collection of his short stories that won […]
Environmental Revenge Fantasy
Film Friday Henceforth I will devote my Friday posts to something I like almost as much as literature–which is to say, movies. Film is, after all, a narrative art form, and I teach film history and theory as well as literature at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Although I may, at times, look at intersections between […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Avatar, Environmentalism, James Cameron, James Fenimore Cooper, Jungle Books, Last of the Mohicans, Nature, Rudyard Kipling Comments closed
Seeking a Spiritual Connection with Nature
from Songs of Innocence and Experience My Introduction to Literature class (focus on Nature) has just moved from Robinson Crusoe to William Blake, and we are seeing in the 18th century a conflict similar to one we are witnessing today over the environment. Defoe’s protagonist is an advocate of the “drill, baby, drill” approach to nature although, […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Mock on, "The Garden of Love", Auguries of Innocence, Capitalism, Fundamentalism, Nature, Religion, Rousseau, Voltaire, William Blake Comments closed
Crusoe, A Parable for Our Time
I have been teaching Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in an Introduction to Literature class and am struck once more by how important a book it is. I say this even though it is not read or taught as much as it once was. Robinson Crusoe continues to be relevant because it goes right to the […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Capitalism, Daniel Defoe, Economics, Religion, Robinson Crusoe Comments closed
