I hesitate to read novels that are set in places and situations I know because I’ve been disappointed so often by inaccuracies. So, as a person who lives in the great midwest, has owned a Honda Accord, sometimes parks in the minister’s spot, and is upset when the Girl Scouts … Read More
Author: Kate Stover
“It was culture as class performance, literature fetishized for its ability to take educated people on false emotional journeys . . .”
“…so that they might afterwards feel superior to the uneducated people whose emotional journeys they like to read about.” This is how Sally Rooney describes a character’s reaction to a famous author who gives a reading from one of his books. Then, Rooney does something remarkable. On the next page, … Read More
“This fear of fraud reveals a presumption about disabled people. . .that disabled people are fakers and malingerers, or milking the system for handouts.”
Katie Rose Guest Pryal taught at the university level for twelve years without ever considering seeking disability accommodations. As a law professor, she knew her disability would have been legally recognized. And yet, she did not “out” herself as a person with a psychological disability until she left academia and … Read More
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…”
Charles Dickens’ famous opening sentence ends with the astonishing idea that the turbulent period leading up to the French Revolution was “like the present period.” The present period! Was he warning leaders against making the mistake of ignoring the horrible conditions of ordinary people? Perhaps. An exhibit in the Charles … Read More
“He wasn’t sure what version of her Dr. Fletcher was seeing – the charming, beautiful, confident woman . . . or the sleep-deprived, hormonally flimsy, unoccupied housewife who had the audacity to say things like ‘It’s the most fun I’ve ever had.’”
Don’t let the title of this novel fool you. It’s not a simple beach-book about people having fun. Instead, as Jane Smiley observed, it’s an “ambitious and brilliantly written” first novel that is sometimes amusing and sometimes shocking. It’s written from the perspective of seven characters. My feelings changed … Read More
“It was the rough edge of the world, where the trees came smack down to the stones.”
Reading about the majestic trees in the northwest corner of the country in The Overstory made me want to learn more about the history of the relationship between the ancient trees and the new settlers who lived and died by the forests. Annie Dillard focuses on the years between 1855 … Read More
“A good answer must be reinvented many times, from scratch.”
At the heart of this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Overstory, is the question “How important are trees?” What I love about this book is the way it gives eight answers to that question by telling the stories of eight people who have only one thing in common: a … Read More
“A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing.”
Margaret Atwood continues, “The wastebasket has evolved for a reason.” This morning, a student described how difficult writing was for her. She’s not alone. One thing that hasn’t changed over the decades I’ve worked with students is the expectation that writing should be easier than it is. They’re surprised to … Read More
“But what is the truth of our social existence?”
Why would anyone invest a large percentage of their reading time in Knausgaard’s 3600-page novel? Is it worth it? I started reading it because I was curious about this Norwegian writer’s experiment with a new form of writing, which emphasizes frankness, speed, quantity, and courage. I continued reading because … Read More
“The daily achievement of micro-goals here is key.”
How do you succeed in an environment that rewards intellectual achievement? Get great ideas? Adequate funding? Collaborative colleagues? The answer, according to Donald Hall, is not what you might think. He argues that success in academia depends on thinking strategically about how you spend every hour of your day. Hall … Read More
“We must learn to hold the tension between the reality of the moment and the possibility that something better might emerge.”
Sometimes, it looks like we have two choices: up or down, agree or disagree, fight or flight. There is a third way, though, Parker Palmer reminds us. Instead of trying to resolve every tension quickly, consider “allowing opposing ideas to enrich and enlarge each other until a new vision emerges” … Read More
“The room seemed suddenly very hot and I saw Mrs. Gray’s face rather too close to mine, her eyes wide open and penetrating, her teeth very small and pointed, her skin a smooth apricot colour.”
Why do some novels draw me back year after year, while others – perhaps even more worthy – do not? Maybe, as the NPR commentator noted, returning to books read multiple times is like having a drink with an old friend: a mixture of welcome familiarity and suspicion that … Read More
“The power of poetry is, by a single word perhaps, to instill that energy into the mind which compels the imagination to produce the picture.”
The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge gave a series of lectures on Shakespeare in 1811-1812. In this particular lecture, Coleridge says that he considers The Tempest to be “among the ideal” plays because it “appeals to the imagination.” Coleridge believes that Shakespeare does this by inserting “some touch or other which … Read More
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
It’s been a long winter for many of us; we’re weighed down by boots, shovels, and ice scrapers. If you are looking for words of encouragement, consider Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance.” It is (among other things) a pep talk for creative people who are wondering if they can … Read More
“Is there just one more way that you can help keep learners on task, just one more way that you could give them information, just one more way that they could demonstrate their skills?”
It’s easy to think of “accessibility issues” from a deficiency-based perspective. For example, sometimes faculty members are asked to do extra things for students with audio-processing limitations. This new book by Thomas Tobin and Kirsten Behling takes a much different approach. They encourage us to think of creating “just one … Read More