I fixed the NY Mag’s clickbaity title, “This is what happens to your brain when you read poetry.” In fact the original study was about what happens when you listen to a recitation, not what happens when you read. While people “get chills” when they listen to music or watch movies, their brains seem to…
Show is July 28 at the O’Reilly Theater. (This Spidey selfie for “super hero day” is the pic she wanted me to post.) Similar:The Big Boy GraveyardThis 1960s teenager knew the neighborhood that inspired August Wilson’s playsHad a great time with AmLit students at the August Wilson block partyShakespeare did not leave his wife Anne…
I’m not sure what I think of this yet. My daughter, who played Hodel in a student production last fall, has lately been expressing more interest in writing. I’ll watch for the reveiws. In the musical, and second eldest daughter, Hodel, makes the bold decision to leave her family and everything she knows to find…
A literary work is a powerful tool for simulating what it’s like to inhabit someone else’s life. Not just tolerating difference, or grudgingly giving “the other side” equal time; but generating real empathy for the diversity of humanity. There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away Nor any Coursers like a…
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Similar:Microsoft Publishes Garbled AI Article Calling Tragically Deceased NBA Player "Useless"The Big Boy GraveyardStop sharing those unsourced memes about "be woke" and "God doesn't need soldiers" — here…This 1960s teenager knew the neighborhood that inspired August Wilson’s playsWashington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins Pulitzer PrizeA.I. Is Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations…
While Pittsburgh has become more metropolitan in the last generation, the culture here one county to the east still bears witness to its rust belt past. This may sound dull as ditch water to those who believe that the “flyover” states are inhabited largely by clodhoppers, fundamentalist zealots and loudmouthed Babbitts. In fact, Lauck’s aim…
I wrote the following in 2004, when my son was 6 and my daughter was 2. The time is waning that my son will want nothing more than to play Battleship and The Magnificent Race with me all afternoon. Some day I’ll make a silly joke, and my daughter won’t giggle with glee, she will…
Not a day goes by without The Girl reminding us that everyone else her age has a phone — but she also compares her desire for a phone to Gollum’s desire for The Ring. Many adults have told her she’s lucky not to carry around the burden of social media updates, though part of her…
Hum de dum. Not paying any attention to current events at all, just thinking about possibly teaching Richard III in my Shakespeare class this fall. Oh, look, Dwight Goodyear posted commentary on Agnes Heller’s book The Time is Out of Joint: Shakespeare as Philosopher of History. How interesting. You know, to those of us who care about…
Adolescence took a long time to be invented at all, and it took an even longer time to become a somewhat stable archetype. It’s only in recent human history that people a) live long enough for adolescence to be a different physical experience than adulthood; and b) live in a society that indulges an extended…
Similar:The Big Boy GraveyardStop sharing those unsourced memes about "be woke" and "God doesn't need soldiers" — here…This 1960s teenager knew the neighborhood that inspired August Wilson’s playsWashington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins Pulitzer PrizeHad a great time with AmLit students at the August Wilson block partyShakespeare did not leave his wife…
Similar:Microsoft Publishes Garbled AI Article Calling Tragically Deceased NBA Player "Useless"Stop sharing those unsourced memes about "be woke" and "God doesn't need soldiers" — here…This 1960s teenager knew the neighborhood that inspired August Wilson’s playsWashington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins Pulitzer PrizeA.I. Is Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations Are Getting WorseDoctor…
Similar:Microsoft Publishes Garbled AI Article Calling Tragically Deceased NBA Player "Useless"Stop sharing those unsourced memes about "be woke" and "God doesn't need soldiers" — here…This 1960s teenager knew the neighborhood that inspired August Wilson’s playsWashington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins Pulitzer PrizeHad a great time with AmLit students at the August Wilson…
I swore I would wield my powers only for good. Witness my latest faculty service project. Similar:The Big Boy GraveyardThis 1960s teenager knew the neighborhood that inspired August Wilson’s playsHad a great time with AmLit students at the August Wilson block partyShakespeare did not leave his wife Anne in Stratford, letter fragment suggestsPater Noster Passenger…
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When committee work is fun… making memes to support the English program. Similar:The Big Boy GraveyardStop sharing those unsourced memes about "be woke" and "God doesn't need soldiers" — here…This 1960s teenager knew the neighborhood that inspired August Wilson’s playsWashington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins Pulitzer PrizeHad a great time with AmLit…
I’m very happy that several students in my “World Drama” class chose to write about The Merchant of Venice in their latest paper. Almost as many also write about Nine. And several chose to write about both. The assignment asked students to make an intertextual argument — that is, I asked them to write an…
Fairy tales are transmitted through language, and the shoots and branches of the Indo-European language tree are well-defined, so the scientists could trace a tale’s history back up the tree—and thus back in time. If both Slavic languages and Celtic languages had a version of Jack and the Beanstalk (and the analysis revealed they might),…
Leigh, Peter, Carolyn and I had fun recording “The Nightmare of Prince Prezelsky” for WAOB Audio Theatre’s “All for One Stories.” (Peter plays the prince, Carolyn narrates, and my wife and I are among the servants. The full 9-minute story is online.) Prince Prezelsky needs to fight a dragon to keep his kingdom safe. But…