William Cowper invokes St. Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus to capture his sense of God in nature.
Monthly Archives: April 2016
Beauty Breaks Like a Flash from Heaven
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Task", Nature, spirituality in nature, William Cowper Comments closed
Immigrants Touched by Grace
Philip Levine gives us a poem which serves as a reproof to those in the GOP who bash immigrants. We see much needed moments of humanity, important to remember in this election season.
Lit for Handling a College’s Race Problems
After a series of arson fires and racist incidents, I turned to works in each of my courses to address the situation. In Intro to Lit, Lucille Clifton’s poetry; in Early British Literature survey, Aphra Behn’s “Oroonoko”; in British Fantasy, “Perdido Street Station.”
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "wishes for sons", Aphra Behn, China Miéville, college life, Lucille Clifton, Oroonoko, Perdido Street Station, race tension, racism, St. Mary's College of Maryland Comments closed
Our Children Will Reproach Us
If we fail to take adequate measures to stave off catastrophic climate change, our children and grandchildren will see sea levels rise by three meters by the century’s end. Lucille Clifton has a poem that describes how they would regard us.
Shelley Predicted Microsoft’s AI Problems
Monday My son Tobias Wilson-Bates, currently a Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgia Tech, recently published a short essay about robotics and literature in a school newsletter. Sign me up immediately for the Proud Fathers Club. The relationship between machines and literature has long fascinated Tobias, which makes Georgia Tech a good place for him […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged artificial intelligence, Mary Shelley, monsters, robots Comments closed
A Debate about Sex, Pullman vs. Milton
This is the 20th anniversary of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” series, which gives me an excuse for once again tilting with the fantasy author and figuring out my own thoughts on our vexed relationship with sexuality and our bodies. Once again I conclude that Milton goes far deeper into these issues than Pullman does.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Boom!", Christianity, Everyman, His Dark Materials, Howard Nemerov, John Milton, Philip Pullman, Sin Comments closed
