“Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Dogs of War”: Julius Caesar and the Power of Rhetoric
Last year, while writing for Broadly Textual about the political implications of staging Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar under the Trump administration, I off-handedly suggested that the play could be read as one in “which a demagogue exploits a mob of Roman citizens and preys upon their anger and resentment to compel them to destructive violence.” Later
Will No One Rid Me of This Turbulent Media?
In 1170, Henry II, King of England, is alleged to have complained to a group of knights within his household, “will no one rid me of this turbulent priest.” Speaking of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Beckett, this statement was alleged to have been interpreted as an order, and a group of knights travelled to
Final Conclusions: #MeToo Poetry
Click to read Ray’s previous installments. Human Value It is the right to crystallize people you find lacking worth. You gum your faculties. I am not as sharp as a diamond and will not let you shape me or carve some eternal chant into my soul. My soul is a piece
Revisiting Asexual Awareness Week
This week is 2018’s Asexual Awareness Week (October 21-28), so I want to revisit a post that I wrote four years ago. (Ray Osborn will return with a final installment of poetry next week.) This article below was the first time that I would publicly write about asexuality. I was not out when I wrote
Conclusions #3
This week, Ray’s poems meditate on God, religion, and race, and the ways in which God and religion are leveraged as weapons against particular races. Nativity William Carlos Williams tried to write an accurate history of the Americas. It began with acclimation of Christ but soon lagged from the inured inhabitants. The
Conclusions #2: #MeToo Poetry
Miss last week’s post? Catch up at this link. Fascist Conclusions At the beginning of the war there were waves that dipped below the surface of my body and trapped panic in scores of gilt fish. The illuminated manuscript of my body was rapt to those watching in delayed
Conclusions — #MeToo Poetry
CONTENT WARNING: The following poems concern themselves with themes and topics of sexual assault, sexual harassment, abuse, and sexism. Please continue reading with this in mind. Editor’s Introduction: For the past two weeks, survivors of sexual assault have been under siege by coverage and discussions surrounding the Supreme Court appointment hearings for Brett Kavanaugh. These
Looking for Purloined Letters
Last week, I explored the benefits of mastery when approaching a text — namely the meanings that are made possible to those who know what to look for. While I mentioned that those who didn’t know what to look for are likely to “miss out,” this week I am interested in the ways in which
Recognizing Heroic Domesticity
An article in the most recent issue of The Atlantic draws attention to the varied ways in which Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is read. The main suggestion is that knowledge of Alcott’s biography can drastically change a reader’s interpretation of the text. This knowledge about the author’s biography, one of many types of topic
The Joy of Recognition; or, The Occasional Dangers of Mastery
A bit of an open secret exists in academia for graduate students. We sometimes experience frustrations with teaching. While most of us view teaching as perhaps the most rewarding thing that we do, we love to complain about our students (it is usually good-natured, I promise). After spending the past year without any teaching responsibilities,