Monthly Archives: August 2016

Novels with Waterfalls and Secret Caves

By Robin Bates | Published: August 10, 2016

When I was growing up, the adventure books that I read influenced how I regarded and interacted with nature.

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Trollope & Trump’s Congressional Enablers

By Robin Bates | Published: August 9, 2016

By continuing their support for Donald Trump, GOP leaders Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are choosing their party and their careers over country. In doing so, they resemble Anthony Trollope’s Sir Timothy Beeswax, Conservative leader in the Palliser novels..

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On Trump’s Cheap Nuclear Bomb Talk

By Robin Bates | Published: August 8, 2016

With Donald Trump talking so casually about the use of nuclear bombs, it is important to remind ourselves how horrific they are. This power Carolyn Forché poem opens our eyes.

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Literature as a Public Event

By Robin Bates | Published: August 7, 2016

In my Theories of the Reader senior seminar, I will have my students study a literary work that became a public event. In today’s post I list a number of possibilities.

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Powerful Stories Change Lives

By Robin Bates | Published: August 6, 2016

The Bible is powerful in large part because of its gripping stories. Sir Philip in his “Defense of Poesy” uses the story of King David and the Prophet Nathan to argue for “poetical invention.” There is a truth that goes deeper than factual truth.

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Palestinian Poet Compared to Hitler

By Robin Bates | Published: August 4, 2016

Israel’s rightwing defense minister recently compared Palestine’s national poet to Hitler. A close look at a poem by Mahoud Darwish helps us understand why.

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And on Her Stomach Was a Scar!

By Robin Bates | Published: August 3, 2016

When my wife shows me her scars yesterday from a successful gall bladder operation, I was wafted by to one of my favorite childhood stories: Ludwig Bemelmans’s “Madeline.”

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Is Trump Running a Red Queen Race?

By Robin Bates | Published: August 2, 2016

Turning to Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass,” political scientist Jonathan Bernstein says that Donald Trump is in a “Red Queen Race,” forced to be ever more outrageous just to keep the spotlight on himself.

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Butler’s 1998 Sci-Fi Novel Predicted Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: August 1, 2016

Black sci-fi author Octavia Butler predicted Donald Trump through her depiction of a rightwing demagogue in her 1998 novel “Parable of the Talents.” Her figure even promises to “make America great again.”

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