Tag: books

  • Shakespeare and the Problem with Proto-Feminism

    Written Emily Ogden Earlier this month, one of our contributing general staff members, Eleni Theodoropoulos, wrote an inaugural post for our “The Female Odyssey” column, about women and magic in fairy tales. Today, Emily Ogden contributes to that column as she talks about women in Shakespeare. If you are a fan of A Midsummer Night’s…

  • Korean Thriller Novels on the Rise: Overturning the Scandinavian Reign

    Written by Kiran Gokal With the phenomenon of Oldboy and the recent popularity of Train to Busan, Korean cinema has established its position high in the crime thriller genre, creating a new generation of widely praised films. When I think of Korean thriller films, I think of action-packed films balanced with drama, comedy, and beautifully…

  • The Woman’s Decision between Artist and Muse

    Written by Angie Carrera The debate about whether a woman can serve to be both artist and muse first emerged during the world wars, and consequently thrives today as a theory that is constantly being put to the test. Regina Marler wrote about the many women in the surrealist movement (including Leonora Carrington, pictured above) that…

  • Tracking Witches from the Forest to the Home: Bewitched and the Fairy Tales Grimm

    Written by Carolina Eleni Theodoropoulos The realm of magic was always governed by women. Women are nymphs, they are jealous goddesses; they are lustful and vengeful monsters like Medusa, and dangerous women yielding destructive power like Pandora. In fairy tales they are witches, they are crones, they are evil stepmothers and hags. The norm in…

  • The Economics and Humanity of Instagram Poetry

    Written by Caitlin Smith Love her or hate, her, Rupi Kaur’s impact on the poetry world is undeniable. When first starting out, Kaur only posted to her Instagram account, but now has two published books under her belt: Milk and Honey (2015) and The Sun and Her Flowers (2017). Her poetry has sparked controversy among…

  • The Problem with Antigone: A Martyr’s Motivations

    Written by Emily Ogden For fairly obvious reasons (he committed both patricide and incest), I could have written this segment of our Problematic Literary Faves column on Oedipus. But instead I decided to focus on his kids, who have just as many problems. Oedipus and his mother bore two sons and two daughters: Polyneices, Eteocles,…

  • Shailja Patel’s Migritude: Poetry in Motion

    Written by Katelyn Connolly Migritude is a text obsessed with movement. The content of Shailja Patel’s striking work of poetic theatre, first staged in 2006 and published in book form in 2010, is a meditation on the history, politics, and emotion of migration. Her story moves across Africa, Europe. and North America. Its form is…

  • Why Writers Can’t Write Alike

    Written by Kevin LaTorre Without a doubt, one of the most mythologized aspects of celebrities today is the strangeness of their preparations. On the basketball court, Michael Jordan slipped into his Tar Heels shorts, and Bill Russell vomited into his toilet bowl. On the ice, Alex Ovechkin made sure to, well, properly relax before and…

  • Ranking Sexist Victorian Book Covers

    Written by Sara Leonard Popular Victorian books have the honor of being reborn through new editions almost every year. While some can be stunning, others are a little problematic. Listed are some of the most sexist covers of popular Victorian books, in order from least to most repulsive.

  • How Fiction Does Not Exist In A Vacuum

    By Morgan Southworth A couple of weeks ago, a LitHub article discussed the pros and cons of “Why It’s Ok to Reuse, Repurpose, and Recycle Fiction.” The article specifically focused on Sadia Shepard’s recently published short story “Foreign-Returned,” which plucks clear elements from Mavis Gallant’s 1963 short story “The Ice Wagon Going down the Street.”…

  • Sensitivity Reading Reinforces and Encourages a More Diverse and Aware Publishing Process

    Written by Kiran Gokal With the growing awareness of diversity in books, and more importantly, accurate representations, the need for sensitivity readers has grown substantially. A sensitivity reader is pretty much exactly what you hear: they are readers who read to minimize sensitivity. The practice is done on a manuscript to eradicate any internalized bias,…

  • Works By Gillian Flynn, Ranked In Order Of How Gross I Felt After Reading Them

    Written by Kylie Warkentin  The Grownup The Grownup only had me reaching for the nearest bottle of hand sanitizer after I finished reading, which is a big step up from most of Gillian Flynn’s works. The Grownup tells the tale of a sex-working palm reader and mousy divorced mother with a slightly-off child. There was…