Tag Archives: ethnicity

March 17, 2013 · 5:03 pm

Books Acquired Recently: Massachusetts Writers Edition

Espada, Martín. The Trouble Ball. 2011. New York: Norton, 2012.

Espada gave a reading at my college this past Thursday, and I also had the privilege of having him speak in one of my classes. He is everything a writer should be: passionate, activist, happy to talk about his work, non-elitist. His poems are fun to read because they are vivid and engaging. The reading was one of the best I’ve ever been to, so buying his latest collection was an obvious decision.

One thing that I did not know about Espada is that he is a huge baseball fan. The Trouble Ball‘s title poem is about his father’s first visit to Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, and he is also working on a collection of essays about baseball and Latinos for Bloomsbury Press. I asked him who he roots for, and he said that he grew up a Mets fan, but switched to the Red Sox in 1986 because he was living in Massachusetts. Bill Simmons explains here why sports bigamy is wrong; Espada was immediately punished for his when the Mets defeated the Red Sox that year in one of the greatest World Series ever. But he and I both hate the Yankees, so he’s alright in my book. He also mentioned enjoying minor league baseball, and was happy to hear that Salt Lake City has a AAA team. Espada said his favorite baseball moment was game seven of the 2004 American League Championship Series when the Red Sox defeated the Yankees (he also made mention of the ninth inning of game four when Boston’s comeback began), and his second favorite moment was when Puerto Rico beat the USA in the 2006 World Baseball Classic.

Stoner, Kay. Strange Bedfellows: A Cautionary Tale for Times of Global Change. Bolton: Kay Stoner, 2010.

I first encountered Stoner’s work in Mennonot (she has a poem on page 16 of issue 2 and an article beginning on page 10 of issue 3, both of which may be accessed here), and found her to be an exciting pro-LGBT voice. I wanted to read more of her work, and uncovered the self-published novel Strange Bedfellows after doing some googling. It looks fascinating: Stoner claims that she dreamt it (shades of Coleridge!), and it includes images of some of her artwork to supplement the narrative.

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March 13, 2013 · 10:23 pm

Books Acquired Recently

Everett, Percival. Percival Everett by Virgil Russell. Minneapolis: Graywolf, 2013.

I’ve only read one of Everett’s previous novels, Erasure, and loved it. I decided that acquiring his latest book would be a good way to begin reading the rest of his corpus. I am especially excited about its metafictional elements–any novel with a character named after the author is alright with me.

Bought on amazon.com.

Walker, Alice. Meridian. 1976. Orlando: Harcourt, 2003.

I received a desk copy of this book in the mail today. It’s one of the novels that I’m assigning in my African American Literature After 1960 course this May. I wrote a dissertation chapter on it, but have never taught it before. It’s an excellent fictionalization of the tension between the Civil Rights and Black Power strands of the 1960s black liberation movement.

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March 1, 2013 · 9:33 pm

Books Acquired Recently

Baym, Nina, ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature Volume A: Beginnings to 1820. 8th ed. New York: Norton, 2012.

—. The Norton Anthology of American Literature Volume B: 1820-1865. 8th ed. New York: Norton, 2012.

I requested these two exam copies from the publisher because I will be teaching an early American literature class in the fall. I generally dislike teaching with anthologies, but they are helpful reference tools when planning a course because they provide a ready-made list of the authors to consider including in a syllabus.

Cervantes, Lorna Dee. Ciento: 100 100-Word Love Poems. San Antonio: Wings, 2011.

I received a review copy of this collection from the Rocky Mountain Review (the journal of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association), for whom I will be writing a review. I’ve only read a few of Cervantes’s poems before, so I look forward to becoming more familiar with her work. The concept of the book sounds interesting, and it is printed in dark brown ink instead of black ink, so it is a fascinating object that I will be happy to have in my library even if I end up not liking it.

Kasdorf, Julia Spicher. The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life: Essays and Poems. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 2009.

I acquired this and Kauffman’s book from amazon.com as part of my research for an essay on Mennonite literature that I am currently working on. I have the 2001 Johns Hopkins first edition of The Body and the Book, which I read and loved as soon as it was published, but the 2009 edition has a new preface that I wanted to read, and I was able to find a used copy for only a few dollars, so I bought it instead of finding it in a library. As regular readers of this blog know, I am always happy for any excuse to buy a book!

Kauffman, Janet. Places in the World a Woman Could Walk. 1983. Saint Paul: Graywolf, 1996.

I enjoy Kauffman’s work, and read this book back in college, but do not remember it well. This is the only book of her fiction that I don’t already own (she has also published two collections of poetry), and I found a used, signed (!) copy at a very affordable price.

Rowell, Charles Henry, ed. Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry. New York: Norton, 2013.

This is another exam copy from the publisher. I will be assigning it for my May Term African American Literature After 1960 class. I do find poetry anthologies useful, and am rather excited about this one because it is reasonably priced and has a strong selection of poets (though it omits Essex Hemphill, which is unexcusable).

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February 13, 2013 · 4:56 pm

Books Acquired Recently

Gass, William. Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife. 1968. Normal: Dalkey, 1989.

I recently read about this novel, which includes a number of photographs, figures, and elements of typographical play. I am quite fond of these postmodern elements because I appreciate it when a book is fascinating as a physical object (as an artwork, even) as well as intellectually.

hooks, bell. Writing Beyond Race: Living Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge, 2013.

I love bell hooks and purchased this book for a discount at the Modern Language Association conference last month. I must say that I am not impressed with Routledge’s shipping department, as the book took over a month to arrive from the time I ordered it.

Kauffman, Janet. Obscene Gestures for Women. 1989. New York: Vintage, 1990.

I read this short story collection in college about a dozen years ago, but don’t really remember it. However, several of Kauffman’s other books (Collaborators, The Body in Four Parts, and Characters on the Loose) are texts that I have enjoyed repeatedly, and since I am writing about her in an essay on Mennonite literature which I am working on, I thought I would give this book another go.

The Gass and Kauffman books were bought on amazon.com.

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February 5, 2013 · 8:08 pm

Books Acquired Recently

Cohen, Samuel, and Lee Konstantinou, eds. The Legacy of David Foster Wallace. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 2012.

I ordered this book at a discounted price at the Modern Language Association bookfair last month, and it finally arrived this week. As I’ve mentioned numerous times here, I am a big fan of Wallace’s work, especially Infinite Jest. I am happy to see that scholars are actively writing about him, as his work certainly deserves canonization. I would love to teach Infinite Jest sometime, but it is so large that one would really need to devote an entire course to it. His first short story collection, Girl With Curious Hair, will have to suffice.

Jackson, Lawrence P. The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934-1960. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2011.

I bought this volume at a discount from Labyrinth Books, which is the premier independent seller of scholarly books in the United States. The book covers the period of twentieth century African American literature that I know the least about even though several of my favorite authors, including James Baldwin and Gwendolyn Brooks, were active during it, so I am excited to read the text in order to remedy this gap.

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January 11, 2013 · 4:46 pm

Fifty Shades of Grey

I just finished reading E L James’s bestselling romance novel Fifty Shades of Grey because one of my students is writing his senior thesis on it. It isn’t horrible, and is worth reading as sociological research. I had heard that the writing was atrocious, but aside from James’s overuse of the words “jeez” and “crap” and the frequent misstep of having her American characters use English idioms, it’s no worse than any other romance novel.

Fifty Shades has gained notoriety in part because of its depiction of BDSM. While its general description of the BDSM scene (especially the Dom/sub contract) is accurate, I would not classify it as a BDSM novel in the way that Molly Weatherfield’s, Claire Thompson’s, or Pauline Réage’s books are. Rather, BDSM is used to titillate the reader, but the novel’s ultimate view of it is a conventional, close-minded one, as Christian is portrayed as both an ineffective Dom and a demented freak, and the protagonist Anastasia is unable to accept her submissive side. She is a strong character–I don’t see much merit in the criticism of her or the novel as sexist (I think this criticism comes from a misunderstanding of the Dom/sub dynamic, in which it is actually the sub who has all the power, as the novel states. As third-wave feminism teaches us, if a woman gets pleasure from being a sub, there is nothing wrong with or degrading about it. However, this critique is valid in that I don’t think the book would be as successful if it involved a female Dom and a male sub, but this is a problem with sexist readers, not with Fifty Shades itself)–but she isn’t ever able to accept herself; she is too worried about societal conventions. I had hoped that Fifty Shades‘s popularity might be a signal of increasingly liberal attitudes toward sexuality in the general reading public, but there’s nothing that questions the status quo in it.

Aside from being sexually milquetoastish, Fifty Shades is also plagued by homophobic and racist elements. Christian’s reaction to Anastasia’s question of whether he is gay or not and the subsequent references to this exchange clearly imply that there is something that is somehow lesser about being gay. But the treatment of the character José is the most offensive aspect of the book. He is first portrayed as the stereotypical Latino comic relief, and then as a Don Juan-esque sexual predator. The stock nature of the novel’s secondary characters is mostly benign, but in this instance is cringe-worthy.

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January 4, 2013 · 12:35 pm

Books Acquired Recently: MLA Edition

Today I made my long-anticipated visit to the MLA Convention book fair. I acquired five books and ordered several more that will be shipped to me, which I will write about once I receive them. All of the books interest me, but the fact that I got several of them at a discount made them irresistable. I noticed that the majority of the publisher representatives at the fair were women, and especially younger women who looked to be in their twenties. This trend was especially pronounced in representatives from commercial publishers. My perhaps cynical thought upon making this observation was “this is where excess English majors end up.” But that’s not quite fair. I suppose that the job would be a fascinating and even enjoyable one. On the one hand it’s just being a cashier, but on the other, it involves travel and the opportunity to meet lots of people.

The books that I acquired at MLA with the view of downtown Boston from my hotel room window in the background.

The books that I acquired at MLA with the view of downtown Boston from my hotel room window in the background.

Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending. 2011. New York: Vintage, 2012.

I’ve heard good things about Barnes’s work and read a laudatory review of this novel when it was published in hardcover, thus I was happy to buy the paperback for only $3.00.

Holland, Sharon Patricia. The Erotic Life of Racism. Durham: Duke UP, 2012.

This book’s blurb begins “A major intervention in the fields of critical race theory, black feminism, and queer theory….” Boom. I was sold right there. (Yes, I realize that I am a total nerd.) Duke University Press publishes so many yummy books about queerness and about race that it was very difficult to restrain myself from buying many more of their books. There was a history of the concept of the orgasm that was especially tempting to me, but I was able to resist.

Iversen, Kristen. Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats. New York: Crown, 2012.

The publisher was giving hardcover copies away for free, and Iversen was there to sign them, so I picked one up. It looks somewhat interesting–it is about her childhood growing up in one of the classified towns the U.S. government set up in the 1940s and 1950s for nuclear weapons research and development. I’m not sure how I as an author would feel about my publisher giving my books away for free while making me sit there and watch. Does the publisher think no one will buy them, and so this is a PR-friendly way of getting rid of them? Do they think the book is so good that they can give it away to professors because we’ll all want to assign it in our classes? I admit to being confused by this promotion.

Olds, Sharon. Stag’s Leap. New York: Knopf, 2012.

I love Olds’s poetry and was able to buy her latest collection for only $3.00. This price makes me happy, but it is also a shame to pay so little for something so valuable as poetry.

Scott-Heron, Gil. The Last Holiday: A Memoir. New York: Grove, 2012.

I’ve been fascinated by Scott-Heron since I heard his two most famous songs/poems, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and “Whitey on the Moon” back in high school. His art is so wise, and yet he struggled with an addiction to heroin up until the time of his death. Getting the opportunity to learn more about this paradox alone makes the book worth the $5.00 I paid for it.

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December 8, 2012 · 4:40 pm

Books Acquired Recently: Queerness and Race

Reid-Pharr, Robert. Once You Go Black: Choice, Desire, and the Black American Intellectual. New York: New York UP, 2007.

Somerville, Siobhan B. Queering the Color Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture. Durham: Duke UP, 2000.

Stockton, Kathryn Bond. Beautiful Bottom, Beautiful Shame: Where “Black” Meets “Queer.“ Durham: Duke UP, 2006.

I bought these three books for my research on Samuel R. Delany, who is both one of my favorite authors and one of my favorite research subjects because of the way sexuality and ethnicity converge in his work. I am interested in the books because they will help me to understand this intersection better. I am especially excited about Reid-Pharr’s book because he has also written about Delany, but all three look enjoyable and thought-provoking.

They were all bought on amazon.com.

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December 4, 2012 · 10:35 am

Writing About Black Sexuality

A friend passed along this article by Stacey Patton from The Chronicle on Higher Education. It provides a helpful summary of the ever-growing history of the intersection between Black Studies and queer theory. This dialogue is a crucial one for my work on Samuel R. Delany, thus it is pleasing that others outside of the (very small) field are beginning to notice it.

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November 24, 2012 · 6:11 pm

Books Acquired Recently

Baker, Houston A., Jr. Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1984.

This is a classic in the field of African American literary studies which keeps popping up in my reading, so I figured it was time to finally break down and read it.

Bought from Better World Books via amazon.com.

Duvall, John N., ed. The Cambridge Companion to American Fiction After 1945. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2012.

This is another book that I ordered at Rocky Mountain MLA last month. I have enjoyed other volumes in the Cambridge Companion series, and American literature after 1945 is my academic specialty, thus I did not need any extra persuasion when I had the opportunity to buy the book at a discount. I am especially excited to read the “Fiction and 9/11″ chapter, though the entire collection looks enjoyable.

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