Category Archives: mixed races

Robert Pinsky, Ginza Samba

July 24, 2013 For years I hadn’t gone much beyond his translation of the Inferno.  I’d noticed a couple of things I didn’t like (might even have gone looking for them), and just stopped there, his own poetry getting all … Continue reading

Posted in African-American music, Black-Jewish alliances, collaboration, contemporary poetry, digital humanities, Ethnicity, jazz, mixed races, Music, Race, slavery | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Louise Erdrich, Kurt Vonnegut: Germany’s Wars

November 21, 2012 There is a longer title to Kurt Vonnegut’s famous novel: “Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, a Fourth-Generation German-American Now Living in Easy Circumstances on Cape Cod [and Smoking Too … Continue reading

Posted in Atlantic, Cities, Contemporary novel, Ethnicity, French language, German language, mixed races, Native American language, Native-American literature, Race, Vernacular dialects, Wars, World history | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sherman Alexie, Walt Whitman: Hoop Dreams

November 14, 2012 When Stephen Colbert pointed out with incredulity that he had come out with yet another book, Sherman Alexie said, “That’s what happens when you’re literate.” Yes, from reading to writing: it’s as easy as that, as inevitable. … Continue reading

Posted in Autobiography, collaboration, contemporary poetry, Ethnicity, Genre, Media, mixed races, Modernist poetry, Native-American literature, Nineteenth-century literature, peripheral networks, print medium, Remediation, Remix, Sports, Television, Twentieth century literature, YouTube videos | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Two Toledos

April 25, 2012 I’m on my way to Toledo, I told people.  Ohio, not Spain, I added.  Then I found out that the two are in fact sister cities. The association began in the 1920s when University of Toledo President, … Continue reading

Posted in Arabic, architecture, Classics, Educational institutions, epic, Islam, Midwest, mixed races, Spanish, Translation, Universities, world literature, World religions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 20 Comments

Cristina Garcia’s Cuba

April 11, 2012 We had to move the book up from the initial lineup — several people wanted to write about it in their final papers.  How did they hear about it? But I should have guessed something like this … Continue reading

Posted in Caribbean literature, Contemporary novel, Creole, Ethnicity, Gender, Global South, Latin America, macro politics, Mayan mythology, mixed races, peripheral networks, Spanglish, Translation, Twentieth century literature, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Edwidge Danticat: French, English, Creole

March 14, 2012 Her first languages were Creole and French. At 12, she spoke almost no English. At 26, her collection of short stories, Krik? Krak!, was nominated for the National Book Award. It’s mind-boggling to think of that trajectory … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, Caribbean literature, collaboration, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, Creole, Gender, Global South, Igbo, Latin America, Media, mixed races, peripheral networks, print medium, Radio, Remediation, Translation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 82 Comments

African-Native-American: Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison

February 15, 2012 Langston Hughes. African-American, of course. Yet a not insignificant fact about his biography is that his both his maternal grandparents, Mary Patterson and Charles Henry Langston, were of mixed races: African-American, Native American, and European. Hughes did … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, contemporary poetry, mixed races, Native-American literature, slavery, Twentieth century literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 65 Comments