Category: lillian e smith

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Hate, the Oldest Commodity, in “Superman Smashes the Klan”

Hate sells, and it’s profitable as hell. This isn’t anything new or revelatory, I know. Lillian Smith pointed it out in Killers of the Dream when she talked about wealthy whites, in order to maintain their power, enlisted poor whites in hate against African Americans and others following Reconstruction and into the Jim Crow era and beyond, flattening whiteness. Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed … Read More Hate, the Oldest Commodity, in “Superman Smashes the Klan”

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Spring 2022 LES Studies Course

I always enjoy teaching the Lillian E. Smith Studies Course. This semester will be my third time teaching it, and each time I try and connect Smith’s work with the present moment. Typically, I try to work in connection with student interests, since the class is relatively small, when choosing texts. Last year, we did Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and NPR’s podcast … Read More Spring 2022 LES Studies Course

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Rereading Lillian Smith’s “Strange Fruit” :Part II

Last post, I started looking at my thoughts after I reread Lillian Smith’s Strange Fruit for a virtual book club. I discussed the issues that i still have with the novel, but I also pointed out that, after reading more of Smith’s work, my thoughts about the novel have shifted some, and I see what Smith wanted to accomplish with it. I see the … Read More Rereading Lillian Smith’s “Strange Fruit” :Part II

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Rereading Lillian Smith’s “Strange Fruit” :Part I

Sometimes, a book, for whatever reason, does not grab you on the first read through. This was definitely the case with Lillian Smith’s Strange Fruit (1944). The first time I read Smith’s bestselling novel, I found it lacking, for a myriad of reasons. I think part of this feeling stemmed from all of the novels I have read, by Black authors, about interracial intimacy, … Read More Rereading Lillian Smith’s “Strange Fruit” :Part I

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Why Would I Want to do a Study Travel in Poland?

This upcoming May, if all goes well with the world, I’ll be co-leading a travel study trip to Poland with students. Over the past few months, I have been starting to read and study, as any educator does and in much more detail than I ever have before, Poland during World War II. I gave a talk in Warsaw back in December 2018, and … Read More Why Would I Want to do a Study Travel in Poland?