Penelope’s Choice
By: Michael Grenke The Odyssey’s Penelope is a Thinker, a person who is effective in facing her world and its
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08, 2017
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08, 2017
Trump’s Banality of Evil
By: Jared Marcel Pollen What does fascism smell like? It’s a question the late Christopher Hitchens used to ask, and
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01, 2017
Life is More Binary than Fiction: A Writer Reflects on Political Polarization
We are living in the Fruit Loops vs. Cheerios Political System. Each Fruit Loop represents a position on an issue, and each Cheerio its “opposite.” If you are on Team Fruit Loop, you MUST accept and agree and support all Fruit Loops, likewise with Team Cheerio. This is a binary system. This is bullshit. We would never allow such simple sorting for fictional characters, so why is it being pushed in reality?
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05, 2016
Silence as Speech: Reading Sor Juana’s Primero Sueño in the Light of her Final Silence
Sor Juana’s silence is difficult to “read,” but it is easy to hear. What can it show us about the way the absence of speech can itself be a mode of participation in public discourse?
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03, 2016
Varys – His Riddle
Varys is key to both the political action of A Song of Ice and Fire and its political wisdom. The core of his political philosophy is encapsulated in a riddle: "In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two...
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03, 2016
Discussion is Coming!
Over the next few months, we are going to examine the political insights of A Song of Ice and Fire
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02, 2016
Medieval Heart, Postmodern Mind – Umberto Eco (1932-2016)
There is a riddle at the center of Eco's existence: In his theoretical work, he usually had the look of a post-modern man. And yet, in his art, he could look almost medieval.