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Trump as a Haruki Murakami Villain
This fall for the first time I will be teaching a first year seminar on “The Existential Fantasies of Haruki Murakami.” I find Murakami to be a mesmerizing writer, as do a number of my students, and...
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In Others, Trump Sees Garbage and Rocks
Wednesday Continuing with my comparison of Donald Trump to the villain of Maruki Hurakami’s Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (see yesterday’s post), here’s a passage that describes Noboru Wataya’s contempt for...
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Was T. S. Eliot a Key to Hillary’s Success?
Hillary Clinton at 1969 Wellesley commencement Thursday Hillary Clinton’s victory speech Tuesday night moved me far more than I expected. Since then I have been reading articles about her extraordinary...
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Workers of the World, Read! (Then Unite)
German Social Democrat poster: “Young Workers, Knowledge Is Power” Thursday Leon Wieseltier of the Brookings Institute made a strong case for arts education yesterday in a Washington Post column. The...
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Trollope’s Melmotte Anticipates Trump
Augustus Melmotte from “The Way We Live Now” Thursday I have been an Anthony Trollope fan for some years now, but he surpassed even my expectations with The Way We Live Now (1875), which I’ve just...
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Politically Incorrect Okay for Hemingway?
Still from “The Sun Also Rises” Thursday I share today a thoughtful essay on political correctness by Carl Rosin, a wonderful high school teacher who has appeared previously on this blog. Carl uses The...
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Satanic Trump Unleashing Dark Forces
Gustave Doré, Milton’s Satan rousing the devils of hell Friday To the delight of white nationalist David Duke, rightwing provocateur Ann Coulter, and many other members of the alt-right, Donald Trump’s...
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All Must Love the Human Form
Sunday For those still feeling bruised by the election results and by the elevation to high positions of an anti-Semite (Steve Bannon), a racist (Jeff Sessions), and an Islamophobe (Michael Flynn),...
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Thanksgiving in the Age of Trump
Norman Rockwell, “Freedom from Want” Thursday-Thanksgiving For Thanksgiving, I’m posting a passage from James Joyce that I hope does not describe your family feast. Although Thanksgiving is meant to...
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If Swift Had Known Donald Trump…
Monday Kudos to Mark Charney of Salon for setting Jonathan Swift loose on Donald Trump. Swift, maybe the greatest satirist of all time, would have had a field day with our politics. Charney’s excuse...
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McConnell as Moriarty, Trump as Figaro
Sidney Paget, “Moriarty” Monday Should we consider Mitch McConnell the Moriarty of American politics? So far, all of his intricate maneuvers are working to perfection. First he decided, way back in...
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Trump as Lear, Howling in the Storm
Johann Ramberg, “King Lear” Tuesday Maureen Dowd of The New York Times recently made a comparison that has also come to my mind: Donald Trump as King Lear. The comparison has the virtue of providing...
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Masters of Spite: Satan and Trump
Gustave Doré, Satan observing Adam and Eve Tuesday Is it just me or does much of Donald Trump’s presidency seem driven by spite against the former occupant of the White House? There are theories that...
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Milton’s Jesus vs. Trump’s Bombs
William Blake, “The Second Temptation from ‘Paradise Regained'” Wednesday I have been disheartened by the accolades that Donald Trump has received from centrists and even liberals for dropping bombs,...
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Swift’s Popularity with Today’s Students
Wednesday Recently Scott Dickers, publisher of The Onion, visited St. Mary’s as part of our annual Mark Twain series, run by my colleague Ben Click. Not surprisingly, he talked about fake news,...
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Using Doublethink To Sell Trumpcare
Still from “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (1984) Tuesday How do you sell a healthcare bill that has a 17% approval rating and may throw as many as 24 million people off their healthcare plans? According to New...
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Maybe Ryan Sees Trump as John Galt
Donald Trump, Paul Ryan Tuesday As Donald Trump’s transgressions continue to mount—the latest is sharing intelligence secrets with visiting Russian diplomats—we look to the two men who have the ability...
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Will Trump, Like Lear, Take Us All Down?
Benjamin West, “King Lear” Tuesday For years I’ve been applying King Lear to American politics, and yesterday The Washington Post followed suit. Forget dystopian novels like 1984 and Handmaid’s Tale,...
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Sly Marc Antony Resembles McConnell
Sir John Soanes, “Marc Antony Reading the Will of Julius Caesar” Wednesday In the controversy about New York’s Shakespeare-in-the-Park production of Julius Caesar, I think the two sides are missing one...
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GOP “Moderates,” the Hollow Men
Anne Lyman Powers, “The Hollow Men” Friday The Washington Post’s Alexandra Petri has a scathing takedown of GOP moderates in a recent column, dramatizing how, though they may sometimes talk a good...
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