Books are unsettling, which is why they are often banned. But we need to be unsettled to get a handle on the chaos that confronts us.
Tag Archives: To Kill a Mockingbird
Thoughts on Book Bans
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Hill We Climb", Allison Bechdel, Amanda Gorman, Beloved, Better Living through Literature, Book banning, Circle, David Eggers, Forever, Fun Home, Judy Blume, Lord of the Flies, Robin Bates, Romeo and Juliet, Stephen Chbosky, Toni Morrison, William Golding, William Shakespeare Comments closed
They Shoot Puppies, Don’t They?
Gov. Kristi Noem boasting of shooting her puppy brings to mind the tragic dog killing by Gabriel Oak in Hardy’s “Far from the Madding Crowd.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Adam Serwer, animal cruelty, Charlotte's Web, E. B. White, Far from the Madding Crowd, Fred Gipson, George Orwell, Harper Lee, Kristi Noem, Old Yeller, Shooting an Elephant, Thomas Hardy Comments closed
Soliloquies Changed Us Fundamentally
Hamlet’s soliloquies changed the way we see ourselves and others and led the way to the novel.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Angus Fletcher, Charlotte Bronte, Hamlet, Harold Bloom, Harper Lee, Huckleberry Finn, humanism, Jane Eyre, Le Cid, Pierre Corneille, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare, soliloquies, Sorrows of Young Werther, transcendentalism, Wonderworks Comments closed
Lit that Features the N-Word: What to Do
Now to teach White literature that employs the n-word? Balance with Black literature.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Absalom Absalom!, Beloved, Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, n-word, racism, Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner Comments closed
Atticus: Future Racist or NeverTrumper?
To see how gun violence and white supremacy are linked, look at “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged banned books, Go Set a Watchman, gun violence, Harper Lee Comments closed
Pushing Back against the Purity Police
While not as bad as fascists for censoring reading materials, leftwing purists present their own problems.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged cancel culture, censorship, Harper Lee, Kate Clanchy, Robert Hayden, virtue police Comments closed
Are Liberal, Conservative Bans Equal?
Are liberal and conservative banning practices equal. Despite some similarities, no.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Book banning, censorship, Flannery O'Connor, Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee, Toni Morrison Comments closed
Why I Think the Way I Think
I survey my intellectual history, especially the evolution of my thinking about literature’s impact on human behavior.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Antonio Gramsci, Beowulf, Carl Jung, Carleton College, Hans Robert Jauss, Harper Lee, Huckleberry Finn, intellectual history, J. Paul Hunter, J. R. R. Tolkien, Jerome Beaty, Karl Marx, Literary Theory, Madame Bovary, Mark Twain, New Criticism, Norman Holland, Percy Bysshe Shelley, racism, Reader Response Theory, reception theory, Sigmund Freud, Terry Eagleton, Tobias Smollett Comments closed
When the Court Itself Is on Trial
The GOP may be preparing an impeachment trial that has a predetermined ending–just as the one that appears in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Donald Trump, Harper Lee, Impeachment trial, Mitch McConnell Comments closed
