Spiritual Sunday As I teach Beowulf for the umpteenth time, I am struck once again by its beautiful rendition of the Genesis creation story. I’m also struck by how the invocation of that beauty calls forth human horror. Exploring the linkage provides some insight into the mass killings we have almost come to expect. The […]
When I wasn’t teaching class yesterday, I was continuing my marathon essay-grading session. I took a break to write today’s post, however, and used a well-known poem by Langston Hughes to reflect on what I was asking my students to do. In “Theme for English B,” the only black student in a college composition course […]
I’ve been talking a lot about rightwing anger this past year.Today I write about my own.It is an anger I try to keep hidden but that nevertheless washes over me from time to time, usually when I hear about some act of gross injustice where the perpetrator seems to escape scot-free. At such moments I […]
Jolie as Grendel’s Mother Film Friday I’m teaching Beowulf at the moment and of course my class wants to know what I think of the movie, by which they mean Robert Zemeckis’s animated 2007 version rather than the 2005 Swedish film Beowulf and Grendel. Neither is very good but it’s interesting to see what each […]
Sports Saturday Lebron James has been taking a lot of heat recently for joining the Miami basketball team. (Did you catch the pun?) This past trading season was termed “the Lebron Sweepstakes,” and teams from around the country trekked to Cleveland to play court to “King James.” James made the occasion particularly gaudy by persuading […]
David Copperfield (1935) “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show,” writes narrator David Copperfield at the beginning of the great Charles Dickens novel. But why the uncertainty? Can’t we just decide to be the hero of […]
I am still vibrating from the powerful student essays I received last week. I talked about one yesterday and will share another today. This is one from a student whose mother is dying of brain cancer. Erica Rutkai (she is letting me use her name) decided to move from California to the east coast when […]
In yesterday’s post, I talked about how current gridlock in the U. S. Senate reminds me of the intractable problems that confront King Hrothgar in Beowulf. Grendel, I said, is the spirit of fratricidal rage that sets colleagues against each other and brings activity in the great hall of Heorot to a halt. Upon further reflection, […]
McConnell, a modern-day Unferth? What are we to make of the gridlock in the United States Senate these days and the refusal of Republicans and Democrats to cooperate to address the nation’s ills? (In my partisan view, columnist Thomas Friedman is right when he accuses Republicans of never having been more irresponsible, but feel free to […]
