Tag Archives: Nathaniel Hawthorne

An April Fools’ Day Poem

For April Fools’ Day, check out Goldsmith’s “Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog,” which ends with a wonderful comic reversal. Also for today: war plans group chat from Mordor.

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A House Member’s Scarlet Letter

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) recently wore a scarlet letter to work. We explore why.

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The Great Books as Assimilation Manual

Phuc Tran’s “Sigh, Gone” describes how great literature helped him negotiate a difficult immigrant experience.

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Hawthorne Explains the Eternal Sin

Hawthorne explores what Jesus means by the “eternal sin” in a number of stories, including “Scarlet Letter.”

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Impeachment and the Scarlet Letter

“The Scarlet Letter” provides several lessons for Trump’s impeachment trial.

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Hawthorne Understood Mobs

Hawthorne writes about the kind of mob that invaded the U.S. Capitol in “My Kinsman, Major Molineux.”

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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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Will Trump Turn Us into Goodman Brown?

The disillusion of Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown may prove to be America’s in a post-Trump world.

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Gothics Speak Truth to Denial

Thursday Thursday morning I delivered the following talk to Sewanee’s Rotary Club. I entitled it “America’s Obsession with Gothic Fantasy, from Poe to Game of Thrones. When you hear someone mention gothic fantasy or gothic horror, what American stories, movies or television shows come to mind? Before I let you answer that question, let me […]

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