The Sociopolitical Impact of A Passage to India
E. M. Forster’s novel captured not only the tensions between colonizers and colonized but also the fraught internal politics that shaped India’s fight for independence.
An Age of Fantasy Politics
Tropes from science fiction and fantasy have become fodder for political rhetoric and action on all sides in the twenty-first century.
The Post-Millennial Poe, or, Edgar Allan Holmes?
In life, Edgar Allan Poe was best known as a literary critic. Today, he’s best remembered for his disquieting tales...but that may be changing.
Pulp Woman: Leslie F. Stone
Cloaked in an ambiguous pseudonym, Stone was one of the first women to write science fiction for the pulps.
Man of Science, Man of God
In The Water-Babies, Charles Kingsley parodied the dogmatic belief held by many in Victorian England that faith and reason are incompatible.
The Legacy and Power of Performance Poetry: A Reading List
MTV might take credit for getting spoken word on the pop cultural radar, but it’s a tradition that spans millennia and continents.
Arthur Miller, Comedian
Yep. The author of Death of a Salesman and The Crucible wrote comedies as well. Funny ones.
The Hybrid Heroines of “Bollywood Chick Lit”
Material consumption and marriage have different meanings for South Asian American women, and those meanings should shape the way we read Desi “chick lit.”
The Editor Who Drove Hemingway Away
Harry C. Hindmarsh, assistant managing editor of the Toronto Daily Star, knew how to get under Ernest Hemingway’s skin.
Fear and Fertility in Elif Shafak’s Black Milk
Shafak exposes her terror over motherhood’s potential to devour creativity—a panic she imagines sharing with a parade of literary forebears.