The Goat Pen

We read some African American lit in school. We read Frederick Douglas, a lot of excerpts from slave narratives, maybe some Phyllis Wheatley poetry, and I remember Their Eyes Were Watching God. It always seemed like most of those things were taught to us in the context of history class rather than any kind of English class literary analysis though. I also have a book of slave narrative writing on my bookshelf from college which I also think was from an American history class at A&M and not lit. I remember the lit teacher I had at A&M was an associate prof who's special interest was violence in literature and so we were reading and writing about shit like Palahniuk.

The curriculum has changed dramatically over the past 10 years or so, probably much longer than that. Certainly at liberal arts universities (not sure about high schools, but I would suspect the same), where there is almost a fetish for including as wide a variety of "other" voices ("other" is a big word in college lit courses these days). In fact, there are many, many more courses offered on Indian, Palestinian, Caribbean, diaspora, etc, etc, lit than on, say, Shakespeare. In fact, Shakespeare is hardly offered in post-grad programs anymore. Very passe. But I guess the thinking is that after 400 years of nothing but Shakespeare, who admittedly has been analyzed to death, it's time for other voices to be heard. My gripe is that some of it outright sucked, while some other was unintelligible (at least to me). It was like they considered deliberate obfuscation a virtue. Here is a piece that was treated like the holy grail when I took some grad courses about 10 years ago at UNC. The author, Homi Bhabha, was likewise regarded with reverence. The whole paper deals with pretty much what we are talking about right now, but it's written in such a tangle of jargon, I couldn't even get thru the whole thing...

http://people.ufpr.br/~clarissa/pdfs/Si ... Bhabha.pdf

aTm wrote:We read some African American lit in school. We read Frederick Douglas, a lot of excerpts from slave narratives, maybe some Phyllis Wheatley poetry, and I remember Their Eyes Were Watching God. It always seemed like most of those things were taught to us in the context of history class rather than any kind of English class literary analysis though. I also have a book of slave narrative writing on my bookshelf from college which I also think was from an American history class at A&M and not lit. I

That's the thing. The pattern is all too common. Douglass? Wheatley? Slave narratives? Outside of Hurston (HU!), every one of them was tied to slavery...and it seems it was all in the context of history, not literature, and it tightens the scope our populace views the black experience through (although, we all know the black American narrative is inextricably tied to slavery...still, there is room for other surface points on the ball to be shown). There should be a wider appreciation of Ellison, Junot Diaz, Garcia Marquez, Lahiri and a whole host of other authors in the US curriculum. You just don't really see it.

EDIT: I just saw hedge's post after I sent this. I guess that's a good point, as I do not know how curriculums are today. I've been out of high school for over 20 years and almost 20 years away from undergrad. Maybe they have cast a wider net. My experience was a very narrow one. College was a different story, but I went to an HBCU, so one would expect I would be exposed to the diversity of voice that American lit has to offer.

It's almost like the black man is invisible in America...

Well done, sir. Well done.

(one of my favorite books, btw. My AP English never got around to covering it in my senior year of HS - although it was on the syllabus...but I read it at around 28 years old and I realized 17 years old me would not have fully "got" it)

Neat trick.....

[youtube]uENITui5_jU[/youtube]

I want to hear Cletus's take on Mickelson and Fowler letting McIlroy play up on the 18th yesterday...

i think mcilroy was dumb to do it--I know he wanted to finish but being in a hurry he almos put that ball in the water on 18. plus I think its an advantage for meciroy to let thm finish and know theri scores before he hits his second on 18.

and my name is not cletus

I think that letting them hit up with them off the tee was the right move since it then gave the decision about finishing the hole to the players. The rest, they probably should have let the group finish and then hit to the green. I can guarantee you that they would have been waiting if it was only a one shot difference. I'm sure Mickelson and Fowler thought McIroy got a small advantage by being able to hit before knowing how the hole played out. As it turned out, he probably would have done exactly the same thing and won the event but I can understand why they were a bit annoyed.

That was as good a finish to a major in some time.

Phils only bogey of the day was a bad luck shot - that could have been a hole out birdie - instead the ball hit the lip and accelerated past the hole.

Robin Williams....

AP) - Oscar-winner Robin Williams, whose free-form comedy and adept impressions dazzled audiences for decades, has died in an apparent suicide. He was 63.

http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/Come ... 22161.html

RIP

Stunned

http://games.usvsth3m.com/2048/ass-edition-24/

For hedge...2048, ass edition, possibly nsfw

Thanky...

AlabamAlum wrote:http://games.usvsth3m.com/2048/ass-edition-24/

For hedge...2048, ass edition, possibly nsfw

I hate you.

Thank you by the way.

It's a black 2 piece and it won't let u go forward

15' caught on the Alabama river

poor gator

I bet local fishermen are happy. 1000 IB gator eats a lot.

Biggest I ever got was 9. Small comrade to that one.