Category: american literature

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Celebrating Three Years! Top Five Posts and Most Viewed!

Somehow, I failed to recognise that last Thursday’s post on David F. Walker’s Luke Cage was my 300th post on Interminable Rambling. That means that this site has been live, in one form or another, for three years. A lot has happened in those three years, and I have written about a lot of subjects. Typically, I try to keep my posts around 1,000 … Read More Celebrating Three Years! Top Five Posts and Most Viewed!

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Introductory Lecture for American Literature Course

Tomorrow, my ENG122 course, American Literature and Culture, will being at the University of Bergen. The course is set up with lectures (about 150 students) and seminars (about 30 students). There are four instructors, and each instructor delivers about 3-4 lectures each throughout the course of the semester. As well, each instructor has two of the seminar sessions. I will be presenting the four … Read More Introductory Lecture for American Literature Course

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Uncle Percy and Frank Yerby in Thomas Mullen’s”Darktown”

Occasionally, I do a Twitter search on authors or topics I am researching. When I did a search for “Frank Yerby,” I came across a one of Stephen King’s tweets from January 2017: “Re DARKTOWN, by Thomas Mullen: Can’t help wondering if Lucius Boggs’s Uncle Percy was based on black historical novelist Frank Yerby.” Mullen replied to King and stated that Uncle Percy is … Read More Uncle Percy and Frank Yerby in Thomas Mullen’s”Darktown”

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“The Prince of Pulpsters” or “Debunker of Myths”: Frank Yerby Syllabus

When reading Frank Yerby’s work, I keep asking one question over and over again: “Why isn’t anyone teaching these texts?” I know that some scholars teach Yerby; however, compared to other authors, his appearance in the classroom is minuscule. I had heard the name, in passing, during my graduate work; however, I never saw him in any anthologies or read any of his books … Read More “The Prince of Pulpsters” or “Debunker of Myths”: Frank Yerby Syllabus

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The Canary in Davis’ “Life in the Iron Mills”

When I taught Rebecca Harding Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills (1861) this semester, I asked students to think about the opening paragraphs where the narrator describes the scene and implores the reader to come right down with her “into the thickest of the fog and mud and foul effluvia.” The opening images bring to mind Gothic texts as the narrator describes the trash … Read More The Canary in Davis’ “Life in the Iron Mills”