Monthly Archives: September 2014

Imagine Austen vs. War on Women

Rightwing attacks on reproductive rights have their antecedents in the moralistic judgments of Mr. Collins and Mary Bennet in “Pride and Prejudice.”

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Sir Gawain & the ISIS Beheadings

“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” helps us understand the horror we feel at the ISIS beheadings.

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Children Wrestling with Faith & Doubt

Alice Munro’s “Age of Faith” is a powerful portrait of how children turn to God–and also why they turn away.

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Longing for Grace in the Face of Chaos

Howard Nemerov’s 1975 ambivalence about televised football anticipates our own mixed feelings today.

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Test Your Knowledge of Jane Austen

A quiz to test your knowledge of Jane Austen novels.

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Happy Birthday, Phoebe Strehlow Bates

My mother’s birthday is today–and because 89 is the new 75, here’s a Robert Service poem on his 75th birthday.

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Marc Antony for the Prosecution

Federal court judge Thomas Thrash, Jr., drawing on years of experience as a trial lawyer, explains why Marc Antony makes a better case than Brutus does.

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The Violins of Autumn

I still remember memorizing, as a child in a French school, Paul Verlaine’s deliciously sad “Chanson d’automne.”

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Gillibrand & Montagu vs. Senate Sexism

How should Kirsten Gillibrand have responded to sexual harassment by fellow senators? Lady Mary Wortley Montagu provides a good model.

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