Canetti employs tactics of melodramatic feeling, abstraction, and binaries in Crowds and Power to emulate elements of Dickens’ crowds in A Tale of Two Cities. The employment of abstraction is most powerful, as it allows readers to rationalize binaries and better connect with feelings evoked by melodrama. Canetti’s use of melodramatic language sensationalizes ordinary constructs […]

Epitaph on a Sailor. (Published in the Dartmouth, Volume 2, 1840-1841)   HERE rest in death a mariner’s remains— That other urn a farmer’s dust contains:          Thus Pluto’s dark dominions be          Alike beneath the land and sea.   Lycidas (lines 165 – 177) or 10th stanza     Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep […]

In lines 1-3 of “Ozymandias,” Shelley employs multifaceted language and intentional concealing of facts to appeal to the reader’s sense of curiosity with regards to tragedy. As Burke proposes in Section XV, appeal to tragedy arises from an urge to find the cause – “from our not distinguishing between what is indeed a necessary condition […]

One definition of “wanton” in Lovelace’s “To Althea, From Prison” is “to pass one’s time carelessly.” It’s plausible that Lovelace used this definition, which would convey that even “The Gods that wanton in the Air,” – the Gods who are idling and living carelessly – “know no liberty,” because they aren’t in love. There is, […]

As we explore the role of aquatics in works this week, which represent the sea as a source of black tragedy as well as hope, I’ve become interested in the difference, if any, that might present itself in symbolism of the river versus the sea. There is a persistent theme of aquatics in relation to […]

Does Jimmie Fails have his own Afrolantica Awakening? The interactions between Jimmie and Mont with realtor Clayton portray the master-slave dynamic outlined by Joy James in “The New Abolition.” The house, which Jimmie and his ancestors have been fighting to own for generations, falls easily into the lap of a white realtor who believes it […]

The George Jackson interview had me thinking hard about the barriers to communication from a prison to its surroundings, and the potential role this may plays in the carceral system. Inmates usually have limited time on the phone or limited time speaking to a loved one through a literal plexiglass barrier. For a visitor to […]

Our readings and discussions this week made me ponder the difference between hunting and killing. Lucille Clifton’s “The Beginning of the End of the World” made me think deeply about what effect consistently killing roaches can have on an individual’s psyche. If we think of these roaches as martyred saints, as beings with religious or […]

After reading parts of The Mis-Education of The Negro by Woodson and the piece from Jarvis Givens, I was left with an overwhelming sense of disillusionment in regards to my own education. Where should the U.S. education system should go from here? How do we make the education system available to black students? These pieces illuminated a […]

I want to focus my discussion this week on Jesse McCarthy’s “Notes on Trap” because it opened my eyes to my long-time under-appreciation of trap, and its articulation of our generation’s America. My personal taste centers around music of the seventies and sixties, and I think that’s partly because I appreciate the historical periods from […]