Category: Literature

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How Can We Listen and Learn from Our Students After Charlottesville?

Last Friday, Marcia Chatelain’s “How Universities Embolden White Nationalists” in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Chatelain begins by talking about the white nationalists who descended upon Charlottesville and how some people see them and just say, “They’re just ignorant!” However, that is not the case. They are college educated, and as Chatelain notes, Richard Spencer went to UVa, Duke, and The University of Chicago. University … Read More How Can We Listen and Learn from Our Students After Charlottesville?

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Archive Project: Taking Students Out of the Classroom and Into History

Note: You can view the projects at engl2250.wordpress.com. Over the past year, I have constructed various projects for my literature survey courses. Last fall, I had students define a term related to Early American literature and present what they learned. In the spring, I had students read a novel or play by an author we were looking at in the course and present information … Read More Archive Project: Taking Students Out of the Classroom and Into History

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Everett K. Ross “Emperor of Useless White Boys” in Christopher Priest’s Black Panther

Over the past few weeks, I have been working my way through Christopher Priest’s Black Panther (1998-2003). There are numerous aspects of Priest’s run that could, and should, be discussed; however, I want to focus on one aspect that I have been looking at in other works as well, the narrative point-of-view (pov). For Black Panther, Priest chose to convey the story from the … Read More Everett K. Ross “Emperor of Useless White Boys” in Christopher Priest’s Black Panther

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Unheard Voices and “Truth: Red, White, and Black”

Put a dollar to your ear, you can hear the moaning of a slave America the great was built off the labor that they gave–Sho Baraka “Maybe Both, 1865” Over the past few weeks, I have been reading through various story arcs and volumes in the Marvel Universe. Specifically, I am reading Christopher Priest’s Black Panther (1998-2003), Mike Benson’s Luke Cage: Noir (2009), and … Read More Unheard Voices and “Truth: Red, White, and Black”

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William Melvin Kelley’s “The Servant Problem” and the Domestic Sphere

Last Thursday, I wrote about William Melvin Kelley’s “The Only Man on Liberty Street” from his 1964 short story collection Dancers on the Shore. Today, I want to take a moment to look at another story in that collection, “The Servant Problem,” exploring the ways that Kelley addresses the domestic space and sexual policing of black bodies, topics that occur in “The Only Man … Read More William Melvin Kelley’s “The Servant Problem” and the Domestic Sphere