Play buttonToni Morrison Toni Morrison Deconstructs White Supremacy in Americaopenculture.com - by Josh Jones Toni Morrison wrote against forgetting, against the institutionalization of denial necessary for racial hierarchies in the United States. But denial …
Microsoft Ebooks Purchased From Microsoft Will Be Deleted This Month Because You Don't Really Own Anything AnymoreGizmodo - Matt Novak Anyone who bought ebooks through the Microsoft Store is in for a rude shock in the coming days. The good news? You can get a refund. The bad news? …
Shakespeare Was Not a WomanThe Atlantic - James ShapiroTo speculate about the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays is to pursue conspiracy theories—and in this case, to obscure a sea change in how directors, actors, and audiences understand his depiction of Editor's
Who Was Shakespeare? Could the Author Have Been a Woman?The Atlantic - Elizabeth WinklerThe authorship controversy, almost as old as the works themselves, has yet to surface a compelling alternative to the man buried in Stratford. Perhaps that’s because, until recently, no one was looking
2019 Pulitzer winner Fairview is the most productively uncomfortable play I’ve ever seenVox - Constance GradyThe recipient of the 2019 Pulitzer for Drama has been announced, and the winner is both odd and terrific. Fairview, written by Jackie Sibblies Drury, is now a Pulitzer Prize winner, and it is also the
Native Son Gets the James Baldwin EditThe Atlantic - A.T. McWilliamsSuzan-Lori Parks’s adaptation of Richard Wright’s famed 1940 novel reframes some of the book’s most controversial details through a critical lens. Selling more than 215,000 copies in the three weeks following
Play buttonLawrence Ferlinghetti Turns 100: Hear the Great San Francisco Poet Read “Trump’s Trojan Horse,” “Pity the Nation” & Manyopenculture.com - by Josh Jones It has been a season of mourning for literature: first the death of Mary Oliver and now W.S. Merwin, two writers who left a considerable imprint on …
W. S. Merwin’s Poems of Ethical CareThe Atlantic - Walt HunterThe Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, who died last week at 91, found an enduring language to express his anguish at what human exploitation has done to the world. W. S. Merwin, who died last week at age 91,
Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” is one of the greatest speeches in American rhetoricVox - Constance GradyGoogle is kicking off Black History Month this year by celebrating the legacy of Sojourner Truth, the subject of today’s Google Doodle. Which means that it’s time to reread one of the great works of American
On Langston Hughes’s 115th birthday, read his ambivalent ode to AmericaVox - Constance GradyFriday is Langston Hughes’s 115th birthday. That means it is a perfect time to remember that in 1936, Hughes wrote what is still the most eloquent rejoinder to cries of “make America great again” that
Is Marie Kondo Wrong About Books?Lifehacker - Nick Douglas There’s been a lot of backlash to Marie Kondo’s attitude toward books, thanks to her new Netflix show. In her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying …
The eternal adolescent voice of The Catcher in the Rye, in one passageVox - Constance GradyIt’s become a truism that if you read A Catcher in the Rye at 14, you love Holden Caulfield, and if you read it at 20, you hate him. But when I reread it recently as an adult — 100 years after J.D. Salinger’s
These 1923 Copyrighted Works Enter the Public Domain in 2019Lifehacker - Nick Douglas For the first time in twenty years, as the Atlantic points out, a whole year’s worth of copyrighted works will enter the public domain in the U.S. on …
Public Domain Day Is Finally Here!: Copyrighted Works Have Entered the Public Domain Today for the First Time in 21 Yearsopenculture.com - by Josh Jones Earlier this year we informed readers that thousands of works of art and entertainment would soon enter the public domain—to be followed every year …
Play button The Alice Walker anti-Semitism controversy, explainedVox - Constance GradyAlice Walker, the beloved activist and author of The Color Purple, is under fire for promoting an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. Walker has flirted with anti-Semitism for years, but the public at large
Growing Up Surrounded by Books Has a Lasting Positive Effect on the Brain, Says a New Scientific Studyopenculture.com - by Ted Mills Somewhere in the annals of the internet--if this sprawling, near-sentient thing we call the internet actually has annals--there is a fine, fine quote …
You can unzip this tiny image on Twitter to reveal the complete works of ShakespeareThe Verge - Dami LeeShakespeare was a prolific playwright, penning more than 37 plays and 154 sonnets throughout his entire career. Now, his life’s work has been compiled into a tiny image on Twitter by computer science David
Rupi Kaur and the Rise of the Instagram Poet-EntrepreneurThe Atlantic - Faith HillSocial media is turning an art form into an industry. Tom spent his days as a clerk, two floors below ground level in the cellars of Lloyds Bank. He worked in the foreign-transactions department from a.m.
Can an AI Write a Novel?The Atlantic - Brian MerchantA computer has written a “novel” narrating its own cross-country road trip. On March 25, 2017, a black Cadillac with a white-domed surveillance camera attached to its trunk departed Brooklyn for New Orleans.
Zora Neale Hurston Highlights Unpopular Narratives in 'Barracoon'The Atlantic - Torry ThreadcraftIn Barracoon, Zora Neale Hurston challenges the American public’s narrow view of the African continent, the transatlantic slave trade, and the diasporic cultures that came as a result of it. Precolonial
Why Girls Are Better at Reading Than BoysThe Atlantic - Alia WongGirls read more than boys in just about every developed country, and it's a big reason they have better educational outcomes. Developed countries like the United States have seen a remarkable transformation
How The Great Gatsby Explains TrumpThe Atlantic - Rosa Inocencio SmithF. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel is a surprisingly apt primer on the president of the United States. There’s an eerie symmetry between Donald Trump and The Great Gatsby’s Tom Buchanan, as if the villain
Worry Less About Crumbling Roads, More About Crumbling LibrariesThe Atlantic - Eric KlinenbergAmerica’s social infrastructure is falling apart, and it’s hurting democracy. Every four years, the American Society for Civil Engineers issues grades for the nation’s infrastructure. In the most recent
Play buttonHear Langston Hughes Read His Poetry Over Original Compositions by Charles Mingus & Leonard Feather: A Classic Collaborationopenculture.com - by Josh Jones Have you looked up Charles Mingus lately? You should. Mingus, who died in 1979, has a “lost” album coming out—live recordings made in ‘73, aired on …
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Call to Save AmericaThe Atlantic - Ralph Waldo EmersonA year into the Civil War, The Atlantic’s co-founder entreated President Lincoln and the Republican-majority Congress to bring slavery to an immediate and permanent end. The Civil War was still young April
A neuroscientist explains what tech does to the reading brainThe Verge - Angela ChenFor anyone who has ever been a reader, there’s much to sympathize with in Maryanne Wolf’s Reader, Come Home. The UCLA neuroscientist, a great lover of literature, tries to read Hermann Hesse’s Glass Bead
Play button The New York Public Library is using Instagram Stories to bring classic novels to your smartphoneThe Verge - Dani DeahlThe New York Public Library is taking classic novels and transforming them into animated Instagram Stories, as reported by Engadget. Through a partnership with New York ad agency Mother, it’s created Novels,”
The Israeli and German Archive Battled Over KafkaThe Atlantic - Adam KirschA court battle between German and Israeli archives over his manuscripts raised literary, not just legal, questions. An admirer of Franz Kafka’s once presented him with a specially bound volume of three
How Lolita Seduces Us AllThe Atlantic - Caitlin FlanaganA new book about a terrible crime sheds light on the novel’s enduring allure. Let us now reread the old texts, examining them with a cold eye to determine what they reveal about the #MeToo transgressions
