Tag Archives: Birthmark

To Understand America, Read Gothics

In a course on American supernatural gothic fiction, I argue that Poe pushed back against the Enlightenment and Hawthorne against Puritanism.

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Purity Tests Kill the Patient

This is following up on an idea I inferred yesterday, that our delight in white cherry tree blossoms indicates a deep longing for innocence.  I suggested that we have more of a problem than do the Japanese (or at least certain Japanese connoisseurs) over the fact that this innocence will fade.  Wanting to grab on to innocence […]

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