Category Archives: Modernist poetry

Langston Hughes’s Children Literature

Posted on May 31, 2013 by wcd2

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 Arkansas, Bob Ericson, First Book of Africa, Franklin Watts, Langston Hughes, Sarah Robbins, University of Chicago Lab School | Leave a comment

Frederick Douglass, H.D.: Egypt Again

Posted on January 2, 2013 by wcd2

Janurary 2, 2013 She never mentioned him and probably never read him. Still, he anticipated her. Visiting Egypt in 1887, Douglass wrote: “I do not know of what color and features the ancient Egyptians were, but the great mass of … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, ancient Greece, Christianity, Classics, Comparative literature, Egypt, Gender, Global South, Islam, Modernist poetry, Poetry, Race, slavery, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Wars, world literature | Tagged Egypt, Frederick Douglass, Greeks, H.D., Islam, Malcolm X, Petition for franchise for women, Seneca Falls Convention, Stesichorus of Sicily, Trojans | Leave a comment

Sherman Alexie, Walt Whitman: Hoop Dreams

Posted on November 14, 2012 by wcd2

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 "Defending Walt Whitman", basketball, boxing, First Indian on the Moon, Native Americans, Sherman Alexie, Song of Myself, Stephen Colbert, Walt Whitman. Muhammed Ali | Leave a comment

Jack Kerouac: Mexico City Blues

Posted on October 3, 2012 by wcd2

October 3, 2012 “The immense triangular arc from New York to Mexico City to San Francisco”: Jack Kerouac writes in The Dharma Bums. After two publishers turned down On the Road in quick succession, Kerouac went to Mexico in a … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American music, Americas, Arts communities, Cities, Experimental poetry, Genre, Global South, jazz, Latin America, lyric, Media, mexico, Modernist poetry, Music, peripheral networks, Publishers, Spanish, Twentieth century literature, YouTube videos | Tagged Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac, Jazz poetry, mexico city, New York, Paris Review, San Francisco, Ted Berrigan, William Burroughs | Leave a comment

Pynchon on the Simpsons, Hughes on the Bootsie cartoons

Posted on August 29, 2012 by wcd2

August 29, 2012 I’m not absolutely sure it is his voice, but most people seem to think it is: “Diatribe of a Mad Housewife,” Season 15 of The Simpsons, aired on Jan 25, 2004. Marge is mad enough to write a … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, collaboration, Contemporary Art, Ethnicity, Graphic Novels, Interdisciplinarity, Media, Modern art, Modernist poetry, print medium, Race, Remediation, Television, twentieth century art, Twentieth century literature, Visual arts, YouTube videos | Tagged " Graphics Classics, "Danse Africaine", "Simple" stories, "The Negro, Afua Richards, All's Fair in Oven War, Bootsie cartoons, Chicago Defender, Daumier, Diatribe of a Mad Housewife, Hogarth, Langston Hughes, Moby-Dick, Ollie Harrington, Stan Shaw, The Simpsons, Thomas Pynchon | 2 Comments

Seamus Heaney: More Strange Fruit

Posted on August 8, 2012 by wcd2

August 8, 2012 This week I’ve been listening to many versions of “Strange Fruit”: Nina Simone, Jeff Buckley, Gil Evans and the Sting. I have to say: I still prefer Billie Holiday. But I had no idea Seamus Heaney also … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, collaboration, Comparative literature, contemporary poetry, Diaspora, Gender, globe, Irish literature, lyric, Modernist poetry, Music, Race, Racial violence, Remediation, Rock music, slavery, Translation, twentieth century art, Twentieth century literature, World history, world literature, YouTube videos | Tagged " Jutland, " Seamus Heaney, "Punishment, "Strange Fruit, Billie Holiday, Denmark, Gil Evans, Jeff Buckley, Nina Simone, North (1975), Northern Ireland, the Sting | 6 Comments

Street Scene: Langston Hughes, Kurt Weill, Elmer Rice

Posted on July 11, 2012 by wcd2

July 11, 2012 It started out as a play by Elmer Rice: a Broadway run of 601 shows, the Pulitzer Prize in 1929, the movie in 1931. Kurt Weill saw it in Berlin, both the play and the film, and … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, African-American literature, Arts communities, Broadway plays, Cities, collaboration, Dance, Ethnicity, film medium, Interdisciplinarity, jazz, lyric, Media, Modernist poetry, Music, Remediation, Theater, Twentieth century literature, world literature, YouTube videos | Tagged " Anna Sokolow, " Life Magazine, "Lonely House, "Moon-faced, Abbey Lincoln, Berlin, blues, Broadway, Elmer Rice, Harlem, jazz, Kurt Weill, Langston Hughes, Musical Digest, Pultizer Prize, Starry-Eyed, Street Scene | 9 Comments

Spanish Civil War: Hughes and Hemingway

Posted on July 4, 2012 by wcd2

July 4, 2012 The Beinecke Library doesn’t have a great Hemingway Collection (most of his material is at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston), but I did find a rare photo, taken in Madrid in 1937, Hemingway with Langston Hughes, … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, African-American literature, Arabic, Caribbean literature, collaboration, Cuba, Cuban poetry, Ethnicity, Global South, Islam, Latin America, Letters, Libraries, Modernist poetry, Newspapers, peripheral networks, Spanish, Translation, Twentieth century literature, world literature | Tagged Baltimore Afro-American, Beinecke Library, Cuba Libre, Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bells Tolls, General Franco's Moors, Gypsies, Havana, JFK Presidential Library, Langston Hughes, Michael Koltyov, Moors, Nicolas Guillen, Oklahoma, Spanish Civil War | 2 Comments

Wallace Stevens, amigo of Cuban writers

Posted on April 18, 2012 by wcd2

April 18, 2012 Wallace Stevens and Cristina García? Not the most obvious pairing. Yet it is Stevens’s poems that remained on García’s desk throughout the writing of Dreaming in Cuban, giving the novel its epigraph. And for Stevens, Havana is … Continue reading →

Posted in Caribbean literature, Comparative literature, Cuba, Global South, Latin America, Letters, Modernist poetry, peripheral networks, Spanish, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged " José Rodríguez Feo, "Academic Discourse in Havana", "Someone puts a Pineapple 'Together", Antillean, Cristina García, Dreaming in Cuban, El Sol, Hartford, Havana, Key West, Madrid, Secretaries of the Moon, Wallace Stevens | 2 Comments

Moving Modernisms: Oxford 2012

Posted on March 28, 2012 by wcd2

March 28, 2012 I missed a whole day of the conference (had to teach, there was no getting around it). What did Paul Saint Amour say about slowness; Maud Ellmann about bi-location; Enda Duffy about high energy modernism; Ato Quayson … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, collaboration, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, Educational institutions, film medium, globe, Media, Modernist poetry, print medium, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged Ato Quayson, cognitive science, emotional intelligence, Enda Duffy, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Julian Murphet, Maud Ellmann, modernism, Morocco, New College, Nigeria, Oxford University, Paul Saint-Amour, Route 66 TV series, Samuel Beckett, Tangerine Dream, Wole Soyinka | 6 Comments