Serene of the Oakland Serenes

This is a project for my lit class, but I like it enough that I plan to actually make it a feature of this blog. I am going to post reviews and essays about American lit, but not new books -- old stuff, as far back as the earliest American works, viewed through a modern lens. I plan to discuss issues of feminism, race, gender, sexuality, and intersectionality. Hope you'll add to the discussion by posting links to your own reviews, and/or comments on mine. Thanks for reading!

"Who's Chinese?" (Gish Jen's short story "Who's Irish?")
( Read more... )

This story passes the Bechdel test, proving that even a short work can manage to be not-about-men without being dull or passive.

Today, I will be posting some essays I've written recently about American literature. Later this week, I will try to post at least one book or story review a day. I hope you'll read and comment on at least one this week if you have the time; it will help me get a better grade. :-)

Here's an essay I wrote about James Baldwin and the concept that rather than being an unalloyed good, innocence is a way to further evil in the world:

( Something Left to Lose: The High Cost of Losing Innocence )

And here's the PDF of a photoessay I did for the same course, "James Baldwin in his own words."

The way I think this will work is I'll post each of my essays, lit reviews, or link lists under a cut, and tag the living daylights out of each, so that the collection can grow organically. I'm pondering how to best use tags (compound author:name tags, maybe?), so if you have suggestions, please pipe up. I want this to be pretty awesome in just ten weeks, so I'm open to tutelage.

First up is an essay I wrote for a Black Lit class about Harriet Jacobs, drawing on four articles about her work.

( Harriet Jacobs on the Authority of Black Women )