Bronwyn Averett

  • globalization and marriage

      They arrived on her parents’ front porch one crisp autumn day. They were parched and sad. Little surprise, as they had travelled all the way from Holland to an unforgivingly suburban spot in the polluted metropolitan Atlanta-scape. They were trimmed and placed in filtered water for a couple of days, which made them come Read more

  • drinking game with Balzac

    Do you ever find yourself going through a text, doing the close reading and, in particular, “tracing” one element throughout, and feel like you are playing a drinking game with yourself? I’m reading La Duchesse de Langeais for the second time, having noticed that in addition to several interesting portrayals of slavery (both conceptual and Read more

  • tragically missed pun of the day…

    Roger Célestin’s book From Cannibals to Radicals (University of Minnesota, 1996) focuses on the structure of exoticism as a trajectory from Home to Periphery (and back) as negotiated by the traveler/writer/philosopher. Rather than sticking to nineteenth century French texts (from which the term issues) he goes as far back in time as Montaigne and all Read more

  • so…should prosper mérimée be considered an abolitionist writer or not?

    You’ve probably read Christopher L. Miller’s The French Atlantic Triangle, yes? (No, you are NOT a francophone African/Caribbean literature scholar, you say? You stumbled onto this blog because you heard there’d be cake? There is cake too. There is definitely cake.) The book is taking me all summer to read. But not in the bad Read more

  • the local is not the national; the national is not the local

    I’ve been reading quite a smart book lately that engages a question running through African literary theory, which could essentially be summed up as “How useful is the nation as the principle structuring concept of the African imaginary?” The nation was the most important structuring concept during the period of independence from colonial powers and Read more

  • I should really consult my gastroenterologist about Flaubert…

    I wish someone had told me that playing Liszt, reading poetry, indulging in melancholic loves and drinking water could give you stomach problems… Do you ever have one of those days when you’re reading, taking painfully detailed notes (because you don’t have money for books and incessantly move around and are forced to borrow everything Read more