“Tess of the d’Urbervilles” is a prescient account of how sexual predators operate. It is no less relevant today in the age of Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein than it was in 1892.
Monthly Archives: November 2017
Hardy Understood Sexual Predators Well
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Bill Cosby, Bill O'Reilly, Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Rape, Roger Ailes, sexual assault, Tess of the d'Ubervilles, Thomas Hardy Comments closed
Murakami on Ideology’s Hollowness
Murakami’s diatribe against rigid ideologues in “Kafka on the Shore” applies only too well to figures on the American right.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged GOP, Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore, politics, rightwing ideologues Comments closed
Lit Encourages World Citizenship
Political identity arguments that demographic groups should stay in their own lanes fail to acknowledge the power of literature to “cross group boundaries,” according to philosopher Martha Nussbaum.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Humanities, identity politics, Invisible Man, Martha Nussbaum, Ralph Ellison Comments closed
The Blue Guitar vs. Facebook
Wallace Stevens asserts that art changes “things as they are.” So does Facebook. We need the first to counteract the second when it is taken over by hostile forces.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Blue Guitar, Donald Trump, Facebook, Martha Nussbaum, social media, Wallace Stevens Comments closed
How Can I Focus My Flickering Mind?
If you have ever found your mind wandering as you knelt to pray, Denise Levertov knows how you feel.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Flickering Mind" monkey mind, Denise Levertov, Prayer Comments closed
Bone-Crushing Prince of Dark Days
Trump regards Special Counsel Robert Mueller as the crows view the owl in Mary Oliver’s “In the Pine Woods: Crows and Owl.”
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "In the Pine Woods Crows and Owl", Donald Trump, Mary Oliver, Robert Mueller, Russian election intervention, Trump investigation Comments closed
Guinevere over the Centuries
In her senior project, my student is applying feminist political theory to understand why depictions of Guinevere evolved as they did, from Chrétien de Troyes to Tennyson to modern Arthurian novels.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Alice Borchadt, Arthurian tradition, Carole Pateman, feminist theory, Guinevere, Gwenhwyfar, Idylls of the King, Judith Butler, Knight of the Cart, Mercedes Lackey, Simone de Beauvoir, Tales of Guinevere, Wendy Brown. Linda Zerilli Comments closed
