Novels have an inherently liberal dimension in that they get us to identify with people very different from us.
Sign up for my weekly newsletter
Tag Archives: Lolita
Novels: Training Ground for Citizenship
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged conservatism, liberalism, reading, Same Sex Marriage, Vladimir Nabokov Comments closed
Paterno’s Rapist Associate and Mr. Hyde
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” warns us that we are in danger of becoming monsters ourselves if we don’t hold on to our humanity when responding to monsters like alleged child molester Jerry Sandusky, close associate of Coach Joe Paterno.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Child Abuse, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, monstrosity, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Robert Louis Stevenson, Vladimir Nabokov Comments closed
Kiki Ostrenga as Sister Carrie
Columnist David Brooks recently turned to Theodore Dreiser’s 1900 novel “Sister Carrie” in an attempt to make sense of the strange and disturbing case of 13-year-old internet celebrity Kiki Ostrenga.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged adolescence, Daniel Defoe, Internet, Kiki Ostrenga, Moll Flanders, Sister Carrie, Theodor Dreiser, Vladimir Nabakov Comments closed
Sotomayor and Latina “Bias”
I’m going to take a break from one political topic—the disillusion that some who voted for Barack Obama are experiencing or will experience (and the ability of Gulliver’s Travels to help idealists of all stripes to understand and work through disillusion)—to take on another. There is a (predictable) furor over President Obama’s choice of Sonia […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Crime and Punishment, fictional identification, Justice, Paule Marshall, politics, Sonia Sotomayer Comments closed