The Coast Guard recently attempted to soften rules against swastikas and nooses before retreating. These lynching poems remind us what is at stake.
Tag Archives: Beloved
Normalizing Nooses and Swastikas
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Strange Fruit", Abel Meeropol, Claude McKay, Holocaust, lynching, lynchings, MAGA, racism Comments closed
History That Refuses to Die
Until we face up to America’s dark history, it will be like the corpse in Poe’s “Premature Burial,” scratching to get out.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Premature Burial", American history, Edgar Allan Poe, Light in August, return of the repressed, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner Comments closed
Morrison’s Healthy Response to Trauma
Stephen King (IT) and Toni Morrison (Beloved) show how we can live in thrall to our fears but also how we can move past them.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged buried trauma, It, racism, Stephen King, Toni Morrison, uncanny Comments closed
MAGA Seeks to Erase Scourged Backs
Trump and MAGA want to erase America’s slave past, including the image “Scourged Back.” Morrison’s “Beloved,” another art work featuring a scourged back, is also under attack.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged MAGA history, racism, Scourged Back, slavery, Toni Morrison Comments closed
Lit Packs a Powerful Punch
My book “Better Living through Lit” this past year was only one of several making the case that literature can be social dynamite.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Ben Jonson, Better Living through Literature, book bans, Christopher Marlowe, Dangerous Fictions, Harold Bloom, Hesiod, Homer, Iliad, Lyta Gold, Odyssey, Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray, Plato, Toni Morrison, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Why Books Banned? They Change Lives
Good lit can function like social dynamite, but it’s dynamite that’s needed for growth. Parents against growth therefore attempt to ban them.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged banned books week, book bans, censorship, Homer, Odyssey, Plato, Toni Morrison, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Thoughts on Book Bans
Books are unsettling, which is why they are often banned. But we need to be unsettled to get a handle on the chaos that confronts us.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Hill We Climb", Allison Bechdel, Amanda Gorman, Better Living through Literature, Book banning, Circle, David Eggers, Forever, Fun Home, Judy Blume, Lord of the Flies, Robin Bates, Romeo and Juliet, Stephen Chbosky, To Kill a Mockingbird, Toni Morrison, William Golding, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Why Fiction Terrifies People
I announce my forthcoming book and contrast it with a similar book–“Dangerous Fictions”–coming out soon.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Ben Jonson, Better Living through Literature, book bans, Christopher Marlowe, Dangerous Fictions, Harold Bloom, Hesiod, Homer, Iliad, Lyta Gold, Odyssey, Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray, Plato, Toni Morrison, William Shakespeare Comments closed
On Defending Books against Bullies
On book banning and how to respond to the banners.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Smut", Antonia Scatton, Book banning, censorship, Tom Lehrer, Toni Morrison Comments closed
