This book I have just started work on is 21st century version of the dissertation I wanted to write. It is technically out of field, which is why I did not get to write it then and had not done so until now. Looking at my vita so that I could apply for sabbatical leave … More D’un destin heureux
Mychal Bell is back in jail, and I have just read for the first time Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, which is brilliant. The rationalizations of Bell’s new incarceration quite resemble nineteenth century rationalizations of slavery generally and of slaveholders’ behavior specifically. I do not point this out for tendentious … More Harriet Jacobs
Here, in French and in English, are the lyrics to Parlez-nous à boire, for it is the weekend and we must sing. Speak to us of drinking, not of marriage. Axé.
Columbus Day, 2007 1. A pastor has come forward to blow the whistle on a nationwide FEMA program which is training pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to “obey the government” in preparation for a declaration of martial law, property and firearm seizures, and forced relocation. 2. … More The Coming Storm
I I dreamed last night that I was drowning a baby in a rushing gutter. I was very sorry to do it but I had been given my instructions – the baby or myself – and I had made my choice. It was a compliant, yet resilient baby. It understood it was to be drowned … More Nightmare
People often complain about this novel that they do not understand it because the characters suffer and express pain. Then the music rises and the mountains come into view; they feel exalted and feel the world to be pure and beautiful. The deep rivers to which the title alludes represent and lead toward the non-Western, … More Deep Rivers
I I am glad about these things and glad I am going away this weekend to write because teaching is so painful – for reasons Jennifer Cascadia has discussed in relation to her high school teaching experience in several comments threads on this blog. Today I spent over an hour explaining to a colleague at … More Parlez-nous à boire
Today we are reading about Jack Kerouac, and seeing him read on television in 1959. Our host is Comment, Critique and Criticism. Winter is upon us. I know because I have seen a man a felt hat. Straw hats are for summer. I put up the neighbors’ canning pears in wine. I picked key limes … More Jack Kerouac
I So at lunch it was revealed that people did not know what sexual harassment was – they thought, as I once did, that it involved being approached baldly out of the blue, and threatened with reprisals if one did not comply, or the sort of clearly unwelcome innuendo Clarence Thomas advanced upon Anita Hill. … More On Sexual Harassment
I was tagged yet again for the “eight random facts about yourself” meme and I am of course flattered and honored – although I will also admit that if I get tagged yet again, I will be tempted to fight back by revealing things some people would probably prefer I did not. I have done … More Eight AND A HALF Mo’ Thangs
coldhearted scientist وداد 