Category Archives: Educational institutions

James Baldwin’s friends

July 31, 2013 Well, at least they went to high school together, that accounts for it: DeWitt Clinton High School, in the north Bronx.   By the time James Baldwin and Richard Avedon brought out Nothing Personal (1964), they’d known … 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

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

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Reflections on the Conference

It’s now just shy of three weeks past April 19 and I’m still lingering on the papers presented and conversations had at the first American Literature in the World graduate student conference. “Linger” seems appropriate to my mode of contemplation … Continue reading

Posted in Educational institutions, Europe, macro politics, museums, Native-American literature, Nineteenth-century literature, World history | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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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Shankar, Coltrane, Whitman: Within You, Without You

December 12, 2012 2012 is full of deaths at the year’s end.  Dave Brubeck last week; this week, Ravi Shankar. Shankar was half an American musician (the fractions don’t have to add up to a zero-sum game).  Since 1970 he … Continue reading

Posted in Afro-Asian alliances, Asia, Cities, collaboration, Diaspora, Educational institutions, Ethnicity, Global South, India, jazz, Music, Nineteenth-century literature, Poetry, public universities | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Toni Morrison, Slade Morrison: More Children’s Books

September 12, 2012 Toni Morrison also had trouble with publishers.   At least she managed to get it in print — The Big Box, the first of several coauthored with her son Slade, first appeared in Ms. Magazine in 1980 and, … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, Children's literature, collaboration, Contemporary novel, Educational institutions, Genre, literary magazaines, Newspapers, print medium, Publishers, Race, Twentieth century literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Atlantic Sound: Caryl Phillips, Thomas Pynchon, Richard and Mimi Fariña

August 22, 2012 At the end of  The Atlantic Sound, Caryl Phillips is in Israel, visiting a community of Black Hebrews, almost 2000 of them, African-Americans who emigrated from the United States. They have given up their U.S. citizenship, but … Continue reading

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Billie Holiday, Abel Meeropol: Black/Jewish Strange Fruit

July 25, 2012 Billie sang it, but the music and lyrics were Abel’s.   He had first written it as a poem, after seeing the photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Indiana on August 7, 1930.   … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, Black-Jewish alliances, Cities, collaboration, Educational institutions, Ethnicity, Jewish literature, lyric, Media, Music, Newspapers, print medium, Publishers, Race, Racial violence, slavery, Twentieth century literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

All Saints Bookstore, Beijing

June 13, 2012 We were in Hong Kong on June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.  A candlelight vigil had been held in Victoria Park for the past 23 years.  This year, 180,000 people showed up. There … Continue reading

Posted in Asia, Boostores, China, Cities, collaboration, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, Diaspora, Dissidents, Educational institutions, literary magazaines, macro politics, Media, Nobel Prize, print medium, public universities, Publishers, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments