I survey my intellectual history, especially the evolution of my thinking about literature’s impact on human behavior.
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Tag Archives: To Kill a Mockingbird
Why I Think the Way I Think
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
Why We Fear the Outsider
Spiritual Sunday My friend Sue Schmidt recently alerted me to a homily, by associate rector the Rev. David Henson at Trinity Episcopal Church in Asheville, North Carolina, that highlights a curious moment following one of Jesus’s exorcisms. Rev. Henson draws on To Kill a Mockingbird, Home Alone, and unspecified Harry Potter characters to explain the […]
Read to Resist: An Introduction
Thursday I share today the introduction to my upcoming book, which is still in draft form and whose title I keep changing. Latest title: Read to Resist: Classic Lit Provides Tools for Battling Trump and Trumpism. I’m still not entirely satisfied with that and so will keep tinkering. In any event, here’s my first attempt […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alexander Pope, Beowulf, Donald Trump, Dunciad, Go Set a Watchman, H. G. Wells, Harper Lee, Invisible Man, John Milton, Leo Tolstoy, Othello, Paradise Lost, Trump resistance, War and Peace, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Mockingbird Discomfits the Wrong People
If teachers should teach controversial lit to discomfit their students, is “To Kill a Mockingbird” a good choice? There’s a problem if those most discomfited are black students.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Book banning, Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee, racism Comments closed
Foes of Mockingbird Have a Point
I’m somewhat sympathetic with the Biloxi parents who want to ban “To Kill a Mockingbird” in an 8th grade classroom. At the very least, I want it supplemented with works by writers of color.