Monthly Archives: January 2018

Shafak: Storyland Is the Taste of Freedom

By Robin Bates | Published: January 22, 2018

Turkish novelist Elif Shafak says that we must cultivate emotional intelligence to live in an increasingly diverse world while battling authoritarians’ reductive desires. Lit is vital in this endeavor.

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The Always Overflowing Sea

By Robin Bates | Published: January 21, 2018

Neruda’s “Ode to the Sea” can also be an exploration of our relationship to God.

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Frodo as Newly Minted PhD

By Robin Bates | Published: January 19, 2018

How is writing a PhD like Frodo’s journey to Mordor? Check it out.

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Pope Anticipated the Ansari Affair

By Robin Bates | Published: January 18, 2018

Celebrity culture contributed to the Aziz Ansari scandal and the commotion it has caused. Alexander Pope sets forth the dynamics in “Rape of the Lock.”

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Atwood and the Aziz Ansari Affair

By Robin Bates | Published: January 17, 2018

Margaret Atwood is under fire for her cautions about #MeToo movement. Her novels are useful, however, in the Aziz Ansari affair.

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Patmore’s “Angel,” a Dangerous Poem

By Robin Bates | Published: January 16, 2018

Patmore’s “Angel in the House” is no longer read but it defined the domestic ideal for much of the 19th century.

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America, Racist and Revolutionary Both

By Robin Bates | Published: January 15, 2018

In America, Jamaican immigrant Claude McKay reminds America what makes it great, even as he exposes its dark side.

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I Have Heard You Calling in the Night

By Robin Bates | Published: January 14, 2018

I share two poems, by Rita Hawkins and Catherine Ann Lombard, inspired by the passage where God awakens the infant Samuel.

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Is Bannon a Thomas Cromwell?

By Robin Bates | Published: January 12, 2018

Steve Bannon may see himself as the protagonist of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy, but there’s one lesson from Henry VIII’s advisor that he ignored.

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