Tag Archives: William Faulkner

We Need Disturbing Lit If We Are to Grow

By Robin Bates | Published: June 26, 2023

If we want literature to improve our lives, often we must read–and teach–works that unsettle.

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Pretending that Slavery Wasn’t a Big Deal

By Robin Bates | Published: June 5, 2023

Unlike Faulkner, the Southern Agrarians claimed that African Americans weren’t an integral part of Southern culture.

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Faulkner Understood How Racism Works

By Robin Bates | Published: May 31, 2023

Faulkner helps me understand my past growing up in the racist south. Sadly, he’s still relevant.

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Faulkner: Racist in Life, Not in Fiction

By Robin Bates | Published: March 27, 2023

In life, Faulkner was a racist. In his fiction, he deconstructed racism brilliantly.

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Faulkner’s Sanctuary, Trump’s Charges

By Robin Bates | Published: March 22, 2023

Reading Sanctuary while awaiting a Trump indictment is a good counterweight to facile optimism. In Faulkner’s world, the courts can’t save us.

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Lit that Features the N-Word: What to Do

By Robin Bates | Published: March 6, 2023

Now to teach White literature that employs the n-word? Balance with Black literature.

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Faulkner on Racism: Sadly, Still Relevant

By Robin Bates | Published: March 1, 2023

Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom!” understands White America’s race hatred in a deep way that is still revelant.

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Proust on Why the Poor Support the Rich

By Robin Bates | Published: February 27, 2023

Why do White working-class GOP supporters support programs helping the rich? Proust and Faulkner have possible answers.

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Holding on to Our Imperiled Humanity

By Robin Bates | Published: November 2, 2021

In arguing for the humanities, this “American Scholar” article makes good points but dismisses some powerful arguments.

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