Tuesday This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post about how Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness provides special insight into white terrorism. At one point I mentioned Conrad’s own racism and sexism, which leads to an interesting literary question: can we consider a work a literary masterpiece if it has one-dimensional depictions of women and Africans? […]
Tag Archives: Joseph Conrad
Conrad and White Male Panic
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Colonialism, Feminism, Heart of Darkness, Marxism, white terrorism Comments closed
The World’s White Heart of Darkness
Monday The rise of white terrorism around the world is leading liberals like me to question some of our basic assumptions. Are our democratic institutions, which we took for granted, strong enough to withstand the murderous resentment of entitled people who feel threatened? Amongst the entitled I include both those wealthy individuals who countenance violence […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged authoritarianism, Donald Trump, Heart of Darkness, white terrorism Comments closed
My “Last Lecture”
I share here my “last lecture” from my retirement ceremony. (But rest assured: I will not be retiring from this blog.)
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aristotle, Bertolt Brecht, Chinua Achebe, Divine Comedy, Goethe, Heart of Darkness, Horace, Huckleberry Finn, integration, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Martha Nussbaum Wayne Booth, Matthew Arnold, Percy Shelley, Plato, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Samuel Johnson, segregation, Sir Philip Sydney, Terry Eagleton, W. E. B. Du Bois, Wayne Booth Comments closed
What Would Lord Jim Do?
Trump and the NRA call for heroes with guns to save us from mass shootings. Conrad’s “Lord Jim” shows us what happens when fantasies encounter reality.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Donald Trump, Lord Jim, mass shooting, Parkland Florida shooting Comments closed
Trump in Chaucer, Shakespeare & Conrad
When compared to people called “dotard” in Chaucer and Shakespeare, Trump fits the insult hurled at him by Kim Jong-un. His statement to African leaders, meanwhile, makes him sound like a “Heart of Darkness” ivory trader.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Africa, Capitalism, Donald Trump, Geoffrey Chaucer, Heart of Darkness, Kim Jong-un, King Lear, Wife of Bath, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Reading Lit To Find the Meaning of Life
Paul Kalinithi moves between neuroscience and literature as he tries to understand the meaning of life and death, including his own terminal disease.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged meaning of life, Paul Kalinithi, T. S. Eliot, Vladimir Nabokov, Waste Land, When Breath Becomes Air Comments closed
Conrad: Terrorism Not as Clear as It Looks
We all think we know what went on with the killings in Charleston, Colorado Springs, and San Bernardino because they fit easy narratives. Joseph Conrad’s “The Secret Agent” should make us wary about jumping to conclusions.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Media, Planned Parenthood mass shooting, San Bernadino killings, Secret Agent, Terrorism Comments closed
Speaker Paul Ryan in Literature
I’ve written a lot about Paul Ryan and his aspiration to be a John Galt figure. Now that he is Speaker of the House, I review other literary parallels I’ve drawn over the years.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alice in Wonderland, Ayn Rand, Chinua Achebe, GOP, Hard Times, Heart of Darkness, Lewis Carroll, Oliver Twist, Paul Ryan, politics, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Things Fall Apart, Thomas Hardy Comments closed
A Guide’s Conradian Revenge Fantasy
Do tour guides ever dream of doling out to their chargers what the porters in “Heart of Darkness” do with one of the visiting English?
