Confronting Our Environmental Apocalypse: Climate Change, a Secular Christian Story
The narrative surrounding climate change shares a number of surprising similarities to the Christian story. Developed in the shadow of an apocalypse, both present a set of ethical ideals that may be beyond human capacity to realize.
The Limits and Freedoms of Literary Regionalism: Edward P. Jones and the Other Side of Capitol Hill
Edward P. Jones does not represent the Washington D.C. of the mainstream—no national monuments perforating his setting, no overt commentary on policy, no presidential-brand elitism lacing his words. Instead, he simply writes the life of the local everyman and pushes anything beyond that into the background, making excess as
Gone Transparent: The Real-World Relevance of the Radical Transparency in Dave Eggers’ THE CIRCLE
It could be argued that The Circle, Dave Eggers’ 2013 techno-satire of an all-powerful Faceboogle-type company, goes after some easy targets. After all, it’s common to bemoan the exhaustingly hyperconnected state of a society dependent on social media.
Beyond Modernism: Eimear McBride and Embodiment
How does McBride employ and expand modernism? Is it her rendering of fragmented, burgeoning female subjectivities that defines her? Or is it her continuing to push form at the level of the sentence?
Somewhere Else: One Woman and Her Car
About two years ago, I arranged for a one-way ride to York, Maine, to buy a 2004 Toyota Matrix that I found on Craigslist. While the owner counted the cash, he gave me a brief history of my new car.
Threatened with budget cuts, literary programs fight on
Organizations engaged in the day-to-day work of running NEA-funded literary programs are continuing to serve their communities while facing potential budget cuts.
Weekly Round-Up: NEA Cuts, Man Booker Prize, and F. Scott Fitzgerald
From NEA budget cuts to a new F. Scott Fitzgerald story, here's the latest literary news.
She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not: the Love Poem and the Elegy
All of my attempted love poems sound like elegies, and so I’ve given up trying to write them for my beloved, lest I give the wrong impression. Occasionally, however, one will come to me like a windfall, a speck of gold in the pan.
“Without Any Agenda Except to Pay Close Attention”: An Interview with Marianne Boruch
Marianne Boruch’s poems delve into the quirks and oddities of our daily lives. We caught up at the end of a busy semester (or maybe it was the start of a new one) to talk about how poems happen, how books come together, and the quiet rituals of her
#TravelBan: The Literary World Pushes Back
Within the international literary community, the group most aggressively working toward refuting the underlying inhumanity of the Trump administration’s travel ban is an international journal of translation, Asymptote.