Monthly Archives: May 2014

Facing Our Inner Black Cat

By Robin Bates | Published: May 13, 2014

Poe’s “Black Cat” has a special attraction for college students–and for good reason.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Anger, Black Cat, Edgar Allan Poe, Repression, unconscious | Comments closed

Melville and Climate Change Denial

By Robin Bates | Published: May 12, 2014

Melville’s “Benito Cereno” perfectly captures Rightwing denial of climate change.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Barack Obama, Benito Cereno, climate change, climate change denialism, Environment, GOP, Herman Melville, politics | Comments closed

Our Mothers, Our Teachers

By Robin Bates | Published: May 11, 2014

Michael Psello’s famous encomium on his mother in the 12th century inspires this talk about mothers and teaching.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Encomium of His Mother, Michael Psellos | Comments closed

The End of Every Fan’s Desire

By Robin Bates | Published: May 10, 2014

Orioles manager Buck Showalter lived his childhood in “To Kill a Mockingbird” and brings to mind an old Franklin Adams baseball poem.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Ballad of Baseball Burdens", Baltimore Orioles, Baseball, Buck Showalter, Franklin Adams Pierce, Sports | Comments closed

Blossoms Storm out of the Darkness

By Robin Bates | Published: May 9, 2014

A perfect May poem from Mary Oliver.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "May", Mary Oliver, Nature, Seasons | Comments closed

Art Is the Path to Liberation

By Robin Bates | Published: May 8, 2014

Nick Brown, a very bright philosophy and English double major, reflects on how to live a worthwhile life. An aesthetic approach to life is at the core of his argument.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Ode on a Grecian Urn", Albert Camus, Art, As You Like It, Dogen, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, existentialism, Fear and Trembling, John Keats, Karl Marx, liberation, Macbeth, Myth of Sisyphus, Soren Kierkegaard, Zen Buddhism | Comments closed

Eating and Drinking the Precious Words

By Robin Bates | Published: May 7, 2014

An Emily Dickinson poem that will remind my graduating seniors to keep reading.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "He ate and drank the precious words", Emily Dickinson, reading | Comments closed

Vonnegut’s Sci Fi Says the Unsayable

By Robin Bates | Published: May 6, 2014

Yesterday I spent all day—from 9 am to 6 pm with occasional breaks—listening to our English majors present their senior projects. That I was energized rather than drained by the experience testifies to the strength of the talks. In today’s post I report on my student Chris Hammond’s essay on Kurt Vonnegut’s use of science […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Cat's Cradle, Dresden firebombing, Kurt Vonnegut, PTSD, science fiction, Sirens of Titan, Slaughterhouse Five, World War II | Comments closed

Awaiting Godot in the Age of Cable News

By Robin Bates | Published: May 5, 2014

Stephen Colbert realizes that only Beckett’s theater of the absurd will do justice to breathless media coverage of the latest crisis (whatever it is).

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged CNN, Malaysian Flight 370, Samuel Beckett, Stephen Colbert, theater of the absurd, Waiting for Godot | Comments closed