Category Archives: African-American literature

Amiri Baraka: jazz side of the brain

July 18, 2013 I’ve always loved this account of jazz from Amiri Baraka: “Jazz enabled separate and valid emotional expressions to be made that were based on older traditions of Afro-American music that were clearly not not a part of … Continue reading

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Children’s literature as World Literature

July 10, 2013 Is there a special connection between children’s literature and world literature?  I’ve always wondered about this. Langston Hughes, Gertrude Stein, and Toni Morrison are just individual examples, and maybe they’re all flukes.   Still, there they are: … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, ancient Greece, Children's literature, Educational institutions, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Turkish Munich

July 3, 2013 Last time I came by train.   What struck me immediately, getting out of the station, was the city’s Turkish population, out in force, women wearing head scarves and not looking conspicuous, walking comfortably up and down … Continue reading

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Natasha Trethewey, Emily Dickinson: Partners in Crime

June 12, 2013 In her interview in the LA Review of Books (just out), Natasha Trethewey mentions only Derek Walcott and Robert Penn Warren as poets who touch her at moments of mass fatalities.  But I’d like to think that … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, contemporary poetry, Crime Fiction, Nineteenth-century literature, print medium, Universities | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Langston Hughes’s Children Literature

May 31, 2013 My class, “Regional, National, Global,” has no special focus on children’s literature, but it does seem to come up a lot. I think it’s because of Langston Hughes — the uncertain borders of his poetry, holding a … Continue reading

Posted in Africa, African-American literature, African-American music, Children's literature, Cities, collaboration, Educational institutions, Ethnicity, Experimental poetry, jazz, Modernist poetry, Music, print medium, Twentieth century literature, World history | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Adrienne Rich, June Jordan: bracketing war

March 27,  2013 Adrienne Rich wrote the intro to the collected poems, June Jordan’s, talking mostly about meter, sound patterns, vernacular riffs. Of “March Song,” she writes: “Here she breaks what is actually a dactylic metrical line so that the … Continue reading

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Samuel Delany, Marilyn Hacker?

March 20,  2013 He met her on the first day, Bronx High School of Science, September 1956.   They got married five years later (in Detroit — Michigan was one of the two states where interracial marriage was not illegal). … Continue reading

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Junot Diaz, Octavia Butler: Other People’s Books

March 13, 2013 It was 1957 and she was ten.    She had managed to save five dollars, mostly in change,  but still a lot of money.   The public library had been fine up to this point;  now she was … Continue reading

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Philip K. Dick, Octavia Butler: Kindred

March 6, 2013 His middle name is Kindred.   Philip Kindred Dick. I find that hard to believe.   How could anyone’s middle name be a capsule summary of a large body of work still to be written? Do Androids … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, Canada, Contemporary literature, Ethnicity, Science fiction, slavery, Twentieth century literature | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood: Martians and Others

February 27, 2013 ‘Moby-Dick’ is about the oil industry, and the Ship of American State…  The mates are the middle management. The harpooners, who are from races colonized by America one way or another, are supplying the expert tech labor. … Continue reading

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