Between the years of 2012-2014, the book The Fault in Our Stars written by John Green was one of the most popular books and films for teenagers. The book was such a hit Hollywood decided to make it a film, and they did a great job sticking to the original novel. This novel is about … Continued
I was first introduced to David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water” in a Language and Composition class. Our textbook was full of examples of rhetoric, categorized by topic. “This is Water” was originally a Commencement speech given at Kenyon College in 2005. A shortened version was transcribed in my textbook which I had to analyze … Continued
First, above all else, I consider myself a student of literature. Perhaps I’ve chosen this phrase to generalize my pursuits, or maybe to conceal the small place in the world of literature to which I belong. I am a writer, albeit fairly new to the Creative Writing side of things. My first encounter with serious … Continued
I could go on and on regarding literature or art that has altered my perspective on life. I was tempted to write about watching beautiful sunsets that show that even the worst day can have a happy ending. However, I had to choose a passage from Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey which taught me that … Continued
James Hackett describes how his early encounters with some classics of American and British literature—including Moby-Dick—caused him to become more reflective about life. They also taught him the importance of written self-expression.
Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands was one of the assigned texts in my U.S. Mexico Border class this semester. In this book, Anzaldua writes about borders she encounters between herself and men, other cultures, and even her own culture as a homosexual Mexican-American woman from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. She expresses a deeply planted love … Continued
I was always an avid reader as a child. As a matter of fact, I read a majority of the Harry Potter books when I was in elementary school. These books meant so much to me, it explored my sense of wonder and magic that my young soul craved. As a matter of fact, after … Continued
I could do several Humanities Hours out of Humanities Moments – there are so many passages and ideas that have animated my imagination. I first find myself drawn to the heart-wrenching climax of Cervantes’s novel Don Quixote, but to describe that would be to reveal the ending, which I would feel queasy doing. So I’m … Continued
I was born and grew up in rural Southern Appalachia. Books and stories were my pathway out of the holler and into a world of hope and possibility. As a child and teen, I read and listened voraciously, and those stories found in books helped to save my life. Without them, I am not sure … Continued
Until this summer institute, I had never heard of the Vietnamese folk poetry known as ca dao. To be honest, I had never even thought of Vietnamese people having a poetic tradition at all. I, like so many other Americans, had relegated Vietnam to an inert location on a map or a tidy historical category. … Continued