Category: a different drummer

+ "The Only Man on Liberty Street", a different drummer, african american literature, alice walker, american literature, dancers on the shore, Eli Rosenblatt, ernest j gaines, frank yerby, Literature, southern literature, william melvin kelley

William Melvin Kelley’s “The Only Man on Liberty Street” and Children

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I’ve read William Melvin Kelley’s Dem (1967) and A Different Drummer (1962). After reading Eli Rosenblatt’s piece on Kelley in May at Public Books, I decided to dig further into Kelley’s work, beginning with his short story collection Dancers on the Shore (1964). Immediately, two stories stuck out to me from the collection, “The Only Man on Liberty Street” and “The Servant Problem.” Over … Read More William Melvin Kelley’s “The Only Man on Liberty Street” and Children

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+ a different drummer, african american literature, american literature, children of strangers, frank yerby, neh summer institute, southern literature, Uncategorized

Choosing Which Texts to Teach or Not to Teach

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Talking about Lyle Saxon’s Children of Strangers (1937) recently during the NEH Summer Institute, two questions arose: Why should we even read this novel? Should we even consider teaching it? Both of these questions are very important to consider when thinking about whether or not one should “expose” students to certain texts. In this post, I do not want to justify whether or not … Read More Choosing Which Texts to Teach or Not to Teach

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+ a different drummer, absalom, african american literature, american literature, ernest j gaines, Uncategorized, william faulkner, william melvin kelley

Point of View in William Melvin Kelley’s “A Different Drummer”

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William Melvin Kelley’s A Different Drummer (1962) is a fascinating book, not just for the story it tells but for the way Kelley presents that story. The novel’s plot is pretty straight forward, on the surface. An African American, Tucker Caliban, buys some land from the white family that him and has ancestors have worked for since the Civil War. After he buys the … Read More Point of View in William Melvin Kelley’s “A Different Drummer”

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