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For VICE, Lindsay King-Miller examines the literary tradition of retelling and reworking classic stories and the importance of bringing queer arcs in particular to our old standbys: Revisiting a story gives us an opportunity to explore universal experiences from the perspective of those who weren’t represented in the original, and nowhere is this more apparent […]
...moreThe canon is what it is, and anyone who wishes to understand how it continues to flow forward needs to learn to swim around in it. Responding to Yale students’ protesting the English department’s course requirements, Slate’s Katy Waldman argues that English majors should still have to read the “sexist, racist, colonialist, and totally gross” […]
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Survival is not always cute, politically responsible, mature, or sober. Survival is ramshackle, as is tolerance.
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Sometimes we bypass the classic novels on the way to the rich offering of current literary fiction. Fair enough; there is so much to love in today’s fiction. But once in a while, dust off a classic gem and consider the language, the depth, the metaphorical heft these books carry—along with being engrossing, powerful reads. Reading […]
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Do you really want to have to listen from the grave as students discuss your themes and scholars analyze your syntax and trace your influence?
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Erasing women writers like Woolson carries immense implications. It creates an environment ripe for the continued marginalization and silencing of women’s voices today.
...moreThe rapid rise of “trigger warnings” is starting to impact literature curriculums. For instance, Columbia University students lobbied to include warnings on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a core text in Western Literature syllabi. Columbia refused to include warnings, but essentially capitulated by expunging the text from its curriculum entirely. Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita were […]
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