Some memoirists see themselves as products of their times. Others see themselves in terms of the obstacles they surmounted or movements they created. Samantha Ellis measures herself against the strongest women who live between the covers of novels. Her approach – which the Guardian calls “biblio-autobiography” – is … Read More
Author: Kate Stover
So what about Dylan’s song “Blowin’ in the Wind”?
Tony Beck, who wrote his dissertation for Cambridge University on Bob Dylan, notes that Dylan “borrowed extensively” from the English poets Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and Bryon, who also used the “wind” as a central image in their poems. For them, the wind often symbolized change and freedom. It probably … Read More
“While most children are proof of their parents’ love, I was the proof of their criminality.”
Trevor Noah’s mother was black and his father was white, which was a problem in South Africa in 1984. The Immorality Act of 1927 prohibited “illicit carnal intercourse between Europeans and natives” and said that such acts could result in imprisonment. Until the laws changed when Noah was six, … Read More
“It tells the stories of two revolutions.”
Revolutions, indeed. This book is about Revolutionary War era hero Alexander Hamilton, whose picture is on our ten-dollar bill. It’s also about the revolutionary way his story is told by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who uses hip-hop, harpsichords, and a largely non-Caucasian cast in his Broadway production of Hamilton. Unlike any … Read More
“Until recently, we simply didn’t know how immense this problem was, or how serious the consequences, unless we had suffered them ourselves.”
When Matthew Desmond was growing up, money was tight. Sometimes the gas got shut off, and his parents eventually lost their home to foreclosure. This week, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his nonfiction book Evicted, which is about eight families in Milwaukee and their evictions. Vivid and unsettling: … Read More
“It comes over him in a wave: He’s been wrong about his Tempest, wrong for twelve years.”
Anyone can retell as classic story, but changing a play by Shakespeare while remaining true to the themes and lessons of the original requires skill. Changes were needed, Margaret Atwood told a standing-room-only crowd in Madison, Wisconsin this week, to make Miranda (the daughter who grows up on a deserted … Read More
The students felt that a few could carry the discussion for the rest of the class . . .
. . . while the majority of students adhered to a ‘norm of silence’ – not perceiving themselves as obligated to participate in the conversation (50). Jay R. Howard, a sociologist, calls this the norm of “the consolidation of responsibility,” which tends to be the default setting in the college … Read More
“What’s past is prologue”
At first glance, this line from Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest” suggests that history repeats itself. This view is written in stone – literally – on the base of the National Archives’ sculpture. The Harvard Gazette and the University of Chicago Magazine use this quote in articles about the ways … Read More
“Always do what you are afraid to do.”
This famous assertion from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Heroism,” published in 1841, floated to the top of my mind while – of all things! – attending a technology conference. The keynote speaker, author of the upcoming book Strive: How Doing the Things Most Uncomfortable Leads to Success, made … Read More
“My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion.”
That the poet Walt Whitman was a rebel who celebrated democracy, nature, love and friendship is well known. What isn’t well known is that Gavrilo Princip, the Bosnian Serb who assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, felt inspired by Whitman. Let’s think about that. Could it be that poetry played a … Read More
“It was impossibly large and full of beauty and danger in equal parts – and we wanted it all.”
Paula McLain’s novel The Paris Wife describes Hemingway’s earliest years as a novelist writing in Paris after WWI from the perspective of his wife, Hadley. It’s a wonderful novel, set in one of the most dynamic literary periods, where James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and Hemingway … Read More
“By and large, art both instructs and entertains us.”
“The world is too much with us.”
Two-hundred years ago, when William Wordsworth published the poem that begins with the line quoted above, critics were not impressed. In fact, they ridiculed him for using the words “of the common man” instead of using a scholar’s proper poetic diction. Wordsworth sparked a revolution. It took many years, … Read More
“Many modern books on ‘style’ have suggested that there are only two styles: good and bad.”
This book, Clear and Simple as the Truth, takes a much different view. The authors argue that there are many styles for writers to choose from – including contemplative, classic, romantic, plain, oratorical, practical, and diplomatic. This book focuses primarily on the classic style – its history, conventions, philosophy, … Read More
“Researchers found that students who wrote prolifically before high-stakes performances, like examinations and final papers, significantly improved their performance on their final work” (69).
Interestingly, in this study by Ramirez and Beilock (2011), as summarized by Gary R. Hafer in Embracing Writing, it didn’t matter whether students wrote about the subject matter or about their emotions and anxiety – what mattered was how frequently they wrote. Hafer makes a case for encouraging students … Read More