Month: August 2023

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+ african american literature, american literature, banned books, the bluest eye, toni morrison

Seeds and Growth in Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”

by Unknown's avatar

On her first novel, The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison states that she wanted to explore the “tragic and disabling consequences of accepting rejection as legitimate, as self-evident.” While some become dangerous and violent, “reproducing the enemy who has humiliated them over and over,” others become invisible, melting away as they “collapse, silently, anonymously, with no voice to express or acknowledge” the impact of rejection. Through … Read More Seeds and Growth in Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”

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+ american history, civil rights, history, lillian e smith, paula snelling, screamer mountain

The Presence of the Past on Screamer Mountain

by Unknown's avatar

“Darling, phone call for you.” “I’m so tired. Can you take a message?” “It’s Martin. He wants to know if you got the card he sent last week.” “I’ll be right there. . . . Martin, it’s so good to hear your voice. How are Coretta and the kids? . . .” Every time I go up to the Lillian E. Smith Center, I think … Read More The Presence of the Past on Screamer Mountain

+ bruce mcculloch, elegy, grunge, kids in the hall, music, nirvana, vigil

Kurt Cobain and Bruce McCulloch’s “Vigil”

by Unknown's avatar

My musical awakening came in 1994. A friend’s brother gave me a cassette tape on Nirvana’s In Utero, and I put the tape in my Walkman and rode my bike around the neighborhood, blaring “Scentless Apprentice” and “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” as I careened down the road. I started listening to them a few weeks before Kurt Cobain died on April 5, 1994. As with … Read More Kurt Cobain and Bruce McCulloch’s “Vigil”

+ 1990s, grunge, music, stone temple pilots

The Lasting Legacy of Stone Temple Pilot’s “Purple” in My Life

by Unknown's avatar

What is it about Stone Temple Pilots’ 1994 sophomore album Purple that keeps bringing me back? I didn’t really follow STP after Purple; in fact, I rarely even go back to their debut album Core, a record I listened to extensively when it came out. Yet, over the past year, I’ve been returning to Purple, again and again. Last fall, I drove back to my childhood home, a ten … Read More The Lasting Legacy of Stone Temple Pilot’s “Purple” in My Life

+ adolf eichmann, eichmann in jerusalem, hannah arendt, ida b wells, jim crow, world war ii

Accountability and the Banality of Evil

by Unknown's avatar

Ida B. Wells begins Southern Horrors: Lynch law in All Its Phases (1892) by quoting a piece she wrote in the May 21, 1892, edition of the Free Speech, a Black newspaper in Memphis. In the piece, she lists recent acts of racial violence across the United States. She writes, “Eight negroes lynched since last issue of the ‘Free Speech’ one at Little Rock, … Read More Accountability and the Banality of Evil

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