literature

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/5/2021
  

  The Muslims Who Inspired Spinoza, Locke and Defoe

  by Mustafa Akyol

  "In this age of anxiety, anger and contestations between the West and the Islamic world, many epoch-shaping stories of intellectual exchanges between our cultures are often forgotten."

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  4/8/2012
  

  A Poem That Shows How to Remember the Holocaust

  by James Loeffler and Leora Bilsky

  "Lemkin’s anguished text also explains why the world had already begun to forget the Holocaust. Genocide represents more than a large-scale physical assault on human bodies, he suggests; it is also an attack on the very existence of minority cultures. In a genocide, books are burned and memories are extinguished."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/30/2021
  

  Philip Roth Was His Own Favorite Subject. What’s Left for a Biographer?

  Blake Bailey's new biography of the novelist Philip Roth represented a challenge not least because of Roth's notorious resistance to getting the biographical treatment, but also because of the weakness of the literary biographical tradition in American letters. 

• 
• SOURCE: Oprah Daily
  3/25/2021
  

  Editors Refused to Publish Richard Wright's Most Important Novel—Until Now

  "Though Wright himself considered The Man Who Lived Underground his finest work, its depiction of police brutality was so graphic, his publishers believed that it shouldn't see the light of day. When Wright submitted the work to his editor, it was turned down."

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  3/26/2021
  

  Beverly Cleary, Legendary Children's Author Who Quietly Revolutionized Kid Lit, Dies at 104

  "She often credited one young library patron for launching her literary career after the boy stubbornly lamented––as she once did––that he couldn’t find any books about kids 'like us'."

• 
• SOURCE: Public Books
  3/16/2021
  

  The Poetics of Abolition

  by Manu Samriti Chander

  Two new books on Black literary culture in the nineteenth century cast new light on how writers imagined freedom outside of the definition created by the European enlightenment. 

• 
• SOURCE: Paris Review
  3/11/2021
  

  The Trouble with Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  by Halle Butler

  The resurrection of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's literary stature in the 1970s ran counter to the author's own self-understanding, summed up in her statement "I abominate being called a feminist." It also obscured her racist nativism. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  3/9/2021
  

  Dr. Philip Nel on the Legacy of Dr. Seuss

  "A lot of people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the idea that an artist and a writer can be both a genius and a racist, can do brilliant work and be profoundly damaging. Those are not mutually exclusive categories."

• 
• SOURCE: Slate
  3/3/2021
  

  How Dr. Seuss Responded to Critics Who Called Out His Racism

  by Rebecca Onion

  If anyone wants to examine the particulars of Dr. Seuss Enterprises' decision to discontinue the publication of six of the late author's books before jumping in to culture war combat, writer Rebecca Onion's interview with children's literature scholar Philip Nel is a good place to start. 

• 
• 3/7/2021
  

  Four Things You (Probably) Don't Know about the Werewolves of the Ancient World

  by Daniel Ogden

  Movie werewolves come mostly from the pulp fiction of the early 1900s. But werewolf stories date back to the literature of the 12th century, which most likely drew from even older stories preserved in folklore since the times of ancient Greece and Rome. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/28/2021
  

  The Lie at the Heart of the Western

  New novels disrupt the stories of white heroism at the heart of the Western genre and grapple with the multiethnic, violent, and exploitative history of the continent. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  2/23/2021
  

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti Obituary

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti's influence lasted long past the Beat Generation (of which he was perhaps the last survivor) through his ownership of the landmark independent City Lights bookstore in San Francisco.

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  2/18/2021
  

  How a Mass Suicide by Slaves Caused the Legend of the Flying African to Take Off

  by Thomas Hallock

  A major trope of African American folklore converted an ill-fated effort at escape into a tale of freedom. Though the "flying Africans" story has been told and recorded throughout the African diaspora in the Americas, St. Simons Island, Georgia, is the home of the myth. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/6/2020
  

  Roald Dahl’s Family Apologizes for His Anti-Semitism

  The late author's family has issued an apology for the impact of Roald Dahl's public antisemitic comments, suggesting that for good and ill Dahl's life shows the need to be aware of the power of words. 

• 
• SOURCE: War on The Rocks
  11/30/2020
  

  Musing on Gender Integration in the Military with Simone de Beauvoir

  by Bill Bray

  For those engaged in the military gender integration debate today, de Beauvoir’s writing offers an additional reminder — those arguing against more integration may be no less intelligent and sincere than those championing change. But they still may be wrong.

• 
• 11/22/2020
  

  A Surprise Encounter with Zora Neale Hurston

  by Fred Zilian

  The genius of Zora Neale Hurston has fascinated recent scholars, but one reader found traces of her legacy in an unexpected place. 

• 
• 11/22/2020
  

  Take a Lesson from the Persistence of the Founder of Modern Thanksgiving

  by William Lambers

  Sarah Josepha Hale pushed Abraham Lincoln to declare a national Thanksgiving holiday as a day to seek healing and unity. Fighting to end hunger is a way to recommit to the spirit of the holiday.

• 
• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  11/17/2020
  

  A Bold Anthology Shows How R-I-G-H-T and W-R-I-T-E Come Together in Black Poetry

  The incoming director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture has published an anthology of Black American poetry that speaks to the ways that the arts and poets in particular have articulated and spread the cause of liberation. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/27/2020
  

  Shifting the Focus From Sylvia Plath’s Tragic Death to Her Brilliant Life

  Heather Clark's new biography of the poet returns focus to her life and work rather than her afterlife.

• 
• 10/25/2020
  

  Reading Pope Francis's "Fratelli Tutti" through Carl Sandburg

  by Walter G. Moss

  The latest encyclical by Pope Francis, calling for recognition of the unity of humanity, echoes the egalitarian humanism of the poet and writer Carl Sandburg.