Tag Literary Studies
By guest contributor Jacob Romanow When people call a book “melodramatic,” they usually mean it as an insult. Melodrama is histrionic, implausible, and (therefore) artistically subpar—a reviewer might use the term to suggest that serious readers look elsewhere. Victorian novels,… Continue Reading →
by Eric Brandom Le congrès des ecrivains et artistes noirs took place in late September 1956, in Paris. Among the speakers was Aimé Césaire, and it is his intervention, “Culture and Colonization,” that is my focus here. This text has been the… Continue Reading →
by guest contributor Emelyn Lih The work of Swiss literary critic, hermeneut, and historian of ideas Jean Starobinski can be characterized by its dedication to depth and diversity: diversity of periods explored (from Montaigne to Baudelaire to Claude Simon, to… Continue Reading →
by guest contributor Michael C. Behrent Few living thinkers have been as prolific as the dead Michel Foucault. In the thirty-two years since his death, he has published thirteen book-length lecture courses, four volumes of interviews and papers (totaling over… Continue Reading →
by contributing editor Daniel London
by guest contributor Rob Koehler Like a lot of college students today, Daniel Tompkins (1774-1825) spent much of his four years at the newly named Columbia College [now University] writing essays. Foreshadowing his later political commitments as New York Governor… Continue Reading →
by guest contributor Spencer J. Weinreich Act III, scene iii of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (c.1596) sees the imprisoned Antonio following his creditor, Shylock, through the streets, in hopes of mercy. Unmoved, Shylock expostulates, “I do wonder, /… Continue Reading →
by guest contributor Jonathan Kearns in collaboration with Brooke Palmieri Nor is the empire of the imagination less bounded in its own proper creations, than in those which were bestowed on it by the poor blind eyes of our ancestors…. Continue Reading →
