Identity Politics and the English Language: Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times
Who “owns” the English language?
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Posts Tagged: katy waldman
Notable NYC: 3/2–3/8
Literary events in and around NYC this week!
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Notable NYC: 11/3–11/9
Literary events in and around NYC this week!
...moreKid’s Lit: Team Order or Team Nonsense?
Children’s literature as a genre has grown exponentially from early morality-racked lesson books to modern goofy masterpieces such as Captain Underpants—how did we switch from Order to Nonsense, and have we completely switched over? At Slate, Katy Waldman sits down with literary critic and professor Seth Lerer to discuss the evolution of children’s literature and the […]
...moreIn Favor of Reading the Literary Canon
The 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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Total Noise and Complete Saturation
For as long as I can remember I’ve been interested, in a clinical way, in silence.
...moreConsider the Ellipsis
In the latest installment of Lexicon Valley over at Slate, Katy Waldman considers how to use an ellipsis with the aid of F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and T.S. Eliot.
...moreRed Pen
At Slate, Katy Waldman gives us a montage of authors editing their work, decades after it’s been published: Fun fact: Three out of seven authors independently reference epic poetry. “What’s the first word” of the Iliad, asks Roth. “Rage. That is how the whole of European literature begins: singing the virile rage of Achilles.”
...moreStories That Care
Reflecting on 20 successful years of Chicken Soup for the [Insert Identity Here] Soul, Katy Waldman explains why the same clichés get us every time: Despite the growth of the self-help market, has the recession, or irony, destroyed Chicken Soup’s chances of regaining the mainstream? In fact, did we even like them to begin with? […]
...moreReading Incompetent
Are we right to be nostalgic for a time before the internet when we could just read? Katy Waldman, writing for Slate, wonders if we might be misremembering things. I also realize, typing this confession of pathological distractibility, that I may be pining for an Eden of immersive focus that never existed. Did I ever really […]
...moreEverything in Its Right Place
The rules come so naturally to us that we rarely learn about them in school, but over the past few decades language nerds have been monitoring modifiers, grouping them into categories, and straining to find logic in how people instinctively rank those categories. Ever wondered why we order our adjectives the way that we do? […]
...moreThink (and Think Some More) Before You Speak
Notably, there are a few verbal tics that we mistakenly think index insecurity, even though they don’t. These (mostly feminine) quirks—uptalk, vocal fry—are often subtle expressions of power, innovativeness, or upward mobility. In fact, Adam Gopnik recently wrote about how verbal fillers like “um” and “you know” underscore a speaker’s conscientiousness, her sensitivity to the […]
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