Tag Archives: Ralph Ellison

Entering a Brave New Trumpist World

By Robin Bates | Published: November 10, 2016

In which I reflect upon my students’ shock upon Donald Trump’s victory. Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” and Flannery O’Connor’s “All That Rises Must Converge” figure into the discussion.

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Lit Produces Good Voters

By Robin Bates | Published: November 7, 2016

Philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues that reading literature, and reading it critically, prepares one to be a good citizen who can vote responsibly.

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Lit Opens Minds to Suffering of the Other

By Robin Bates | Published: October 23, 2016

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.

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Clifton, Ellison Help Explain Whitesplaining

By Robin Bates | Published: February 22, 2016

White politicians, if they want the Black vote, must be cautious about “whitesplaining.” Lucille Clifton gives us insight into the insensitivity in “note to self.” Brother Jack in “Invisible Man” is racially insensitive in this way and may have lessons for certain Bernie Sanders supporters.

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Ellison’s Elegy for Innocent Police Victims

By Robin Bates | Published: October 12, 2015

The Invisible Man’s eloquent funeral elegy for his friend Tod Clifton, shot by a policeman, could be delivered over any of the unarmed black men who have been shot by police and vigilantes in recent years. It is relevant again as the city of Cleveland seeks to blame 12-year-old Tamir Rice for his death.

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Boehner’s Monkey and Ellison’s Sambo

By Robin Bates | Published: October 11, 2015

Speaker John Boehner may keep a wind-up monkey to express how he feels jerked around by the rightwing Freedom Caucus, which prompted him to resign. There is a similar puppet in Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” also signifying emasculation and humiliation.

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Bernie, Black Lives Matter, & Invisible Man

By Robin Bates | Published: October 5, 2015

Bernie Sanders’s early missteps with Black Lives Matter, which bewildered him and his followers, is explained in Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man.”

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Invisible Men (and Women) No Longer

By Robin Bates | Published: November 24, 2014

Immigrants coming out of the shadows recall Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, who also emerges from darkness.

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Making the Invisible Visible

By Robin Bates | Published: October 20, 2014

Tuajuanda Jordan, our college’s newest president, turned to Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” to articulate her vision for the future.

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