Tag: Profiles in Literature

Greetings, literature-loving Dharmiacs.  Last time we discussed gay Harlem Renaissance author Richard Bruce Nugent, who tapped into the experimental cadences of black modernist literature to spin fantasies on queer life long before it became acceptable to do so.  This week we’re going to talk about another American experimental writer, albeit one who achieved enormous popularity both at home and abroad.

With torture and extraordinary rendition so much in the news, it may come as something as a surprise that today’s subject experienced the agony of unjust political imprisonment first hand.  But in 1917, this recent Harvard graduate and volunteer in a World War I ambulance corps found himself thrown in prison for “espionage” without recourse to any legal defense.    Fortunately for history (and for us) the experience did nothing to crush his puckish personality, and he went on to become one of America’s most warmly loved artists.

Follow me below for a jaunt with this 20th century master:

Greetings, literature-loving Dharmenians!  Last time we met over the wreckage of the Civil War and acid humor of one of its most famous veterans.  This week we’ll stay in the United States, but jump ahead a few generations to an almost-forgotten writer who merits a closer look.

After World War I, black soldiers returning from the front were disgusted by the treatment they received from countrymen they’d fought and died defending.  At the same time, black intellectuals like W.E.B DuBois and Alain Locke began to envision a cultural project that would elevate the African American experience in the eyes of its otherwise cultural oppressors, while political activists like Marcus Garvey brought pan-Africanism to the streets of New York.  Throw in a sudden burst of artistic imagination and some seriously talented writers, and you’ve got all the ingredients for the Harlem Renaissance.  

Today we’re going to talk about one of its most fascinating personalities.  

Greetings, literature-loving dharmaniacs!  I apologize for my two-week hiatus from the series, but the demands of real life took me away from the computer longer than I expected.  And what better way to celebrate a re-start than by picking up with a writer whose work is so recent, the ink is practically still drying on the page…

How do we form our identities?  Do we rely on our parents, our neighborhoods, or our religion?  What happens when those sources are compounded by immigration, or by mixed families, or by social circumstances that don’t align in ways that suggest convenient ways of defining ourselves? 

At least one author is diving headlong into this mess… And she’s doing it with style.  Join me below for a conversation with one of England’s most talked-about young authors.

Greetings, literature-loving dharmiacs!  Last week we discussed the bizarre and wonderful Oulipo, who helped free us from notions of rules and rule-breaking by refocusing our attentions on structure and organization.  This week we’re going to take a step back and throw ourselves into one of the largest debates around literature: the canon.

What is the canon?  It’s that generally accepted corpus of books that we consider “great”, even if there’s a bit of variation about the specifics.  It’s why our high school reading lists are similar without being identical – Homer, Shakespeare, Twain – and why certain books get the deluxe leather-bound treatment centuries after they’ve been written.  But the canon is also a  problematic concept, and today we’re going to talk about why.

Greetings, literature-loving dharma bums!  Last week we traveled to contemporary Japan to rub elbows with bestselling pseudo-surrealist author Haruki Murakami.  This week I’m taking a slightly different tack than usual and profiling a group rather than an individual author.

Did you ever wish you could break free from the constraints of language and literature and simply express yourself purely?  Well, one group of mid-20th century writers would tell you that’s nonsense, and we’re bound by more constraints than we even realize.  In fact, why not pile on more!

Sound crazy?  Then let me introduce you to the wickedly funny, darkly screwball, surprisingly warm group of radical theorists who started meeting in France in the 1960s: the Oulipo.

Greetings, literature-loving dharmosets!  Last week the series had a guest poster who tackled a close reading of one of Edith Wharton’s best known works, The House of Mirth.  This week we’re going to crawl into the WayWayback machine to address one of history’s most baffling short stories.

Why do people suffer?  If there is a God, and he does have a ‘plan’, why do people who believe in him find themselves suffering the same indignities as people who don’t?

I have no interest in the religious side of this question (I’m an atheist), but the it makes for fascinating art. If you think religious texts aren’t appropriate fodder for literary analysis… well, then this ain’t the essay for you!

Otherwise, join me below for a trip through ancient Edom.

Greetings, literature-loving DocuDharmists (do we have a name for readers yet?), and welcome to the latest installment of my series on writers great and small, ancient and modern, popular and obscure.  Last week we spent time with the grand dean of Czech literature, Karel Capek, and watched him weave his humanistic philosophy through a dizzying mix of comedy, science fiction, and drama.  This week’s subject stuck mainly to one genre – lyric poetry – but she used her deceptively simple lines to open a world of equally dizzying complexity.

If you think you know everyone’s favorite New England agoraphobe, think again!  Let’s jump back to 19th century Amherst for tea and sympathy with one of America’s leading poetic voices.