I started Interminable Rambling in August 2015. On this site, I provide reflections on African American, American, and Southern Literature, American popular culture and politics, and pedagogy. Interminable Rambling arose out of the blog I maintained for the Ernest J Gaines Center. There, I wrote about items in the center’s archives, Gaines’ works, and texts that related to Gaines and Louisiana. When I moved on from the center, I started Interminable Rambling as a way to maintain a writing schedule.

Latest Posts

“Everything Burns”: Facades and Identity in S.A. Cosby’s “King of Ashes”

Last year, I read three of S.A. Cosby’s novels (I still need to read Blacktop Wasteland), and I was instantly hooked. When I heard about his latest book, King of Ashes, I knew I had to pick up a copy and read it right away. Like My Darkest Prayer, Razorblade Tears, and All the Sinners Bleed, King of Ashes didn’t disappoint. As…

The Stealing of One’s Voice in R.F. Kuang’s “Yellowface”

Is it literary theft when Harriett Beecher Stowe takes Josiah Henson’s real-life story of escaping enslavement and crafts Uncle Tom’s Cabin? Or, is it literary theft when she does this and does not acknowledge Henson’s inspiration? Is it artistic theft when The Chariot have a riff on “The Deaf Policeman” that directly takes uses the same riff found…

Is It Literary Theft?: Looking at Writing in R.F. Kuang’s “Yellowface”

I read R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface over the summer, with the intention of adding it to my “Lost Voices in American Literature” course. After reading it, I was very interested in the discussion that would arise when we finally discussed the book in class. I thought, on the first couple of days, that students wouldn’t say much and…

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