Welcome to my new blog! I’ve made several previous attempts at blogging that have been derailed for various reasons. The most recent, and most successful, which died due to technical difficulties, is here: http://www.anewyorkerinexile.blogspot.com/. But I’m paying for this one, and one would hope that this factor will give me extra motivation. This summer my goal is to write some every day, whether I am writing here, or writing literary criticism, or writing poetry, or fiction, whatever. The blog will focus primarily on literary topics, but may also address sports (especially now, with the Mets still contending in the National League East and the Rangers in the Eastern Conference Final of the Stanley Cup playoffs) and other topics.
“I celebrate myself, / And what I assume you shall assume, / For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
–Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself” (1855)
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Published by danielshankcruz
I grew up in New York City and lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Goshen, Indiana; DeKalb, Illinois; and Salt Lake City, Utah before coming to Utica, New York. My mother’s family is Swiss-German Mennonite (i.e., it’s an ethnicity, not necessarily a theological persuasion) and my father’s family is Puerto Rican. I have a Ph.D. in English and currently teach at Utica College. I have also taught at Northern Illinois University and Westminster College in Salt Lake City. My teaching and scholarship are motivated by a passion for social justice, which is why my research focuses on the literature of oppressed groups, especially LGBT persons and people of color. While I primarily read and write about fiction, I am also a devoted reader of poetry because, as William Carlos Williams writes, “It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet [people] die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there.” Thinkers who influence me include Marina Abramovic, Kathy Acker, Di Brandt, Ana Castillo, Samuel R. Delany, Percival Everett, Essex Hemphill, Jane Jacobs, Walt Whitman, and the New York School of poets. I am also fond of queer Mennonite writers such as Stephen Beachy, Jan Guenther Braun, Lynnette Dueck/D’anna, and Casey Plett. In my free time I’m either reading, writing the occasional poem, playing board games (especially Scrabble, backgammon, and chess), watching sports (Let’s Go, Mets!), or cooking (curries, stews, roasts…).
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