An Atlanta article attacks utilitarian arguments for reading. I push back.
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Tag Archives: Martha Nussbaum
Why Aren’t More Kids Reading?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Adam Kirsch, Ars Poetica, Cervantes, Don Quixote, Goethe, Gustave Flaubert, Horace, Huckleberry Finn, John Stuart Mill, Judy Blume, Madame Bovary, Mark Twain, Paul and Virginia, Perks of Being a Wall Flower, Samuel Johnson, Sorrows of Young Werther, Tom Jones Comments closed
Liberal Arts vs. Authoritarians: Who Wins?
Can the liberal arts counter authoritarianism? I consider an optimistic argument that they can.
Getting to Know Henry James
I’m on a Henry James kick and am enthralled with “Daisy Miller” and “Washington Square.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Daisy Miller, Henry James, Terry Eagleton, Washington Square Comments closed
Greek Tragedy & the Fragility of Goodness
Martha Nussbaum contents that Aristotle’s use of Greek tragedy gave him a particularly rich vision of how to lead a good life.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aristotle, Euripides, goodness, Greek tragedy, Hecuba, Plato, Poetics, Republic Comments closed
Hope for a Great Sea-Change
The Seamus Heaney poem that Biden quotes in a new ad is itself taken from Heaney’s verse translation of Sophocles’s “Philoctetes.” It’s perfect for the current moment.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Cure of Troy", 2020 election, Joe Biden, Philoctetes, Seamus Heaney, Sophocles Comments closed
Robinson: Love, Sympathy, Identification
Marilynne Robinson’s fiction is, as she puts it, “an exercise in the capacity for imaginative love, or sympathy, or identification.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged common humanity, Gilead, Jack, Marilynne Robinson Comments closed
Theories about Lit’s Impact
A transcript of a talk given at the University of Ljubljana on “how literature changes lives.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aristotle, Bertolt Brecht, Chinua Achebe, Frederick Engel, Horace, Karl Marx, Matthew Arnold, Percy Shelley, Plato, Rachel Blau du Plessis, Samuel Johnson, Sir Philip Sidney, Wayne Booth Comments closed
Lit Encourages World Citizenship
Political identity arguments that demographic groups should stay in their own lanes fail to acknowledge the power of literature to “cross group boundaries,” according to philosopher Martha Nussbaum.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Humanities, identity politics, Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison Comments closed