Wallace Stevens asserts that art changes “things as they are.” So does Facebook. We need the first to counteract the second when it is taken over by hostile forces.
Tag Archives: Martha Nussbaum
The Blue Guitar vs. Facebook
Lit, An Antidote to Authoritarianism
Literature’s universalism functions as an antidote to the exclusionary politics of figures like Donald Trump and Marine LePen.
Not a Reader (and Proud of It)
What do a president’s reading habits say about his/her vision of America? Obama’s celebration of a diverse America is the vision of a voracious reader. Trump’s shallow narrative is the vision of one who doesn’t read.
Lit Produces Good Voters
Philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues that reading literature, and reading it critically, prepares one to be a good citizen who can vote responsibly.
Lit Opens Minds to Suffering of the Other
Philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues that literature is essential for creating good citizens in a diverse society, turning to Sophocles’s “Philoctetes” and Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” to make her point.
Turn Life into a Great Jamesian Novel
Philosopher Nancy Nussbaum, drawing on Henry James, shows how the creative imagination is also a moral imagination.

