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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…
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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…
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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…
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why studying literature will break your heart, rot your brain, and destroy all your chances of happiness
Why do we always know who the bad guy is? Let me specify…we’re not talking complicated, Dostoyevskian, “which one of the three brothers is the most irrevocably effed?” kind of bad guy. We’re talking two guys walk into a novel, and one of them you’re really going to hate. So, I guess we’re talking Tolstoy..…
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Dispatches from the classroom
Oh the illusive “ne…que” Why is it a negative when it’s stating a positive fact? Why??? This is something that can only really be taught by example. (And by “only really” I mean only really if you teach somewhere whose reputation for immersion learning must be kept intact…at all costs…don’t speak any English…EVER…do you hear…
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shocking statistics of 19th century literature
I sort of already knew that incarceration was more of an industry than a public service in this country. Which means I was none too surprised to learn that, while the United States has only 5% of the world’s population, we have almost 25% of the world’s prisoners.* Here’s a coincidence. Did you know that,…
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keita, the canon, and what the hell does “interdisciplinary” mean anyway?
[Disclaimer: this post is not “finished” in any sense. I wanted to publish it, because I think that it deals with some of the underlying threads we should consider as the battle between the legitimacy of the humanities and the bottom lines of the administration continues to wage throughout the country. But I really, really,…
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what to do with a pesky sense of entitlement…
The day before yesterday (oh, gruesome day…) she sat in the office, amid vain attempts to plan a grammar lesson. (The location is important – it is the sort of location where hard work and an open door are often at odds.) She and a colleague were chatting, a conversation in the genre of, “Wait,…
Indirect Libre
books etc., emphasis on the etc.
Indirect Libre 