The Path of Sympathy in a Time of Plague
Tarrou was swinging his leg, tapping he terrace lightly with his heel, as he concluded. After a short silence the doctor raised himself a little in his chair and asked if Tarrou had an idea…
Category: World Literature
Real Butchers
Leo Tolstoy, Hadji Murat Translators, Pevear and Volokhonsky I should read this short novel every year, in January. This time I read it thinking of Vietnam, the American occupiers (Russians), the indigenous resistance (Chechens), and…
There and Then, Here and Now
A lady: Yes, that’s just like what goes on nowadays, and it’s because anyone that is struggling for the liberation of the oppressed, he himself is a Christ, and then here’s a Herod, and what…
Cultivating Attention and Animating Conscience: Reading Thoreau in Desperate Times
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I…
Share the Wealth with Jack Renard: Reflections on a Life in Islamic Studies
This sharing will revolve around questions I get frequently: Whatever led you to choose this as an academic specialization? Why does Islamic religious studies matter? What do Islamic religious studies specialists actually study, and what…
The Russians
It should come as no surprise that black folks would immerse themselves in this Russian literary tradition that is so profound in its willingness to raise unsettling questions. They say when you go into James…
“Action Needed, Goethean Action”
Allen Ginsberg, Journals: Mid-Fifties 1954-1958, edited by Gordon Ball During winter and spring of 1996 I went on a binge of poet Allen Ginsberg’s books: poems, letters, photos, journals (I was taking a break from…
Exciting Curiosity
Robert D. Richardson Jr., Emerson: The Mind on Fire University of California Peress, 1995 In the summer of 2017 I had the immense pleasure of reading Richardson’s stunning biography of the U.S. sage, and noted…
Share the Wealth with Jenny Lowe: An Appreciation of Leonard Woolf
Most educated people have read or at least heard of Virginia Woolf, the brilliant modernist writer and member of the Bloomsbury Group whose works include To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando, and A Room of…
Anne Waldman on The Art of Writing, Reading, and Sharing—Winter Class/Arco-Online 2020
Imagine you are not alone. Consort with other writers. You are in a League of Writing. You are part of a conspiracy to lift the discourse and practice of writing higher. Think of your writing…