Obama drew powerfully from James Baldwin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Langston Hughes, and Walt Whitman in his Selma speech.
Monthly Archives: March 2015
Literature Fills Your Life with Color
Having literature always playing in the back of your mind causes the world to pulsate with meaning.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Aphra Behn, books on disk, Country Wife, Cyrano de Bergerac. William Wycherley, Edmond Rostand, Gravedigger's Daughter, Joyce Carol Oates, Rover, theater Comments closed
A Good Faith Is Hard To Find
Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is a profound meditation on doubt and faith.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Catholicism, Doubt, existential despair, Faith, Flannery O'Connor, Good Man Is Hard to Find, Grace, Lent, Sin Comments closed
Selma’s Bloody History
Gregory Orr’s poem recalls his arrests in Alabama in 1965.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "On a Highway East of Selma Alabama", Civil Rights Movement, Gregory Orr, Selma, voting rights Comments closed
Gaga Feminism & 12th Night
“Gaga feminism” is a playful challenge to conventional social definitions. Shakespeare can be seen as writing “Twelfth Night” in the spirit of gaga feminism.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Dadaism, deconstruction, gender identity, Lady Gaga, postmodernism, Surrealism, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Atwood and a Woman on Death Row
Kelly Gissender, the Georgia woman scheduled to be executed, brings to mind Margaret Atwood’s meditations in “Alias Grace” on what goes on in a woman’s mind.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Alias Grace, death penalty, Kelly Gissender, Margaret Atwood, murder Comments closed
King Looks to Children for Hope
Despite the horrors he describes, Stephen King’s vision is ultimately a hopeful one. The key, as he sees it, is plugging into childhood hopes and imagination.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Childhood, Intimations of Immortality, It, Stephen King, William Wordsworth Comments closed
Bigger Thomas, Clarence’s Shadow
“Native Son,” 75 years old, is Justice Clarence Thomas’ favorite novel. I theorize that Bigger Thomas is the justice’s destructive shadow.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged affirmative action, Clarence Thomas, Everybody's Protest Novel, James Baldwin, Native Son, Richard Wright, Supreme Court, voting rights Comments closed
