Dear poolside readers, Believe it or not, before this lazy scholar came to know the pleasures of American Studies, he was a full-fledged Anglicist (or is it Britishist?). Wordsworth, Eliot, Woolf, Forster—I would surely have carried a card if there were one. Don’t worry, I’m not crossing the pond just yet, though I am feeling [...]
Archive for the ‘books’ Category
Victorian Pleasure Reading
Posted in books, circus, disability studies, leisure, pulp fiction on June 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Q & A: Michael Robertson, Transatlantic Culture Scholar
Posted in books, Lazy Scholar Interview, poetry, religion on May 27, 2010 | 2 Comments »
In his eloquent introduction to Worshipping Walt: The Whitman Disciples, Michael Robertson remembers searching for spiritual guidance in the late 1970s: others turned to Buddhism and the Bhagavad Gita; he turned to Leaves of Grass. As his captivating and beautifully composed 2008 study reveals, he was hardly the first. Almost immediately after Whitman began publishing, [...]
The Yearbook in Review
Posted in books, cartoons, education, Jews on May 25, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Dear sunscreen appliers, The Lazy Scholar is happy to return to these webpages after a protracted journey through the land of end-of-semester labor—paper grading and dissertation prospecting, to be precise. There are still some seniors milling (and drinking) around campus, biding their time until commencement. But so far, I haven’t spotted any yearbooks—that tried and [...]
Battle of the Textbooks
Posted in books, education, tagged textbooks on March 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Apparently while I was on vacation, the Texas Board of Education moved to add a dose of conservative (and evangelical) historiography into the state social studies curriculum—Milton Friedman! Phyllis Schlafly! Jesus! As Sam Tanenhaus noted last Sunday in the New York Times, some of their revisions are more controversial than others. What matters more is [...]
Q & A: Tania Modleski, Feminist Film Critic
Posted in books, feminist theory, film, Lazy Scholar Interview, television, visual culture on March 24, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Dear diligent-ish followers, Today marks the premiere of a semi-regular feature in these pages: the Lazy Scholar Interview. Each entry asks scholars of American culture a series of questions about the books, resources, and trends that inspire, excite, distract, or vex them—often at the same time. With that flourish, I’m pleased to introduce the first [...]
Lesbian Love Between the Covers
Posted in books, LGBT, pulp fiction, visual culture on March 22, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Dear spring break scholars gone wild, I’ve just returned to Cambridge after a joyous ride through the Southwest, from Los Angeles to Santa Fe and back—so expect some Divided States posts in the coming weeks. For now though, I’m suffering from spring break hangover, making it somewhat hard to keep my eyes and mind focused. [...]
Yale Radicals, Juvenile Offenders, and Henry Miller’s Bathroom
Posted in books, college, film, politics, technology, television, video, tagged henry miller, sixties on February 19, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Dear viewers like you, The website Snagfilms usually gets pegged as “Hulu for documentaries”—a pretty generous comparison when I think about how many episodes of 30 Rock I’ve watched on our Mac. But while Hulu gives a chance for major TV networks to distribute shows both popular and flagging, Snagfilms shines its spotlight on filmmakers with [...]
Better Living Through Canned Meats and Custard
Posted in books, commerce, food on February 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
To the seasonally-affective disordered, The spring semester is officially under way, and I’ve started TFing a new class: Joyce Chaplin’s wonderful lecture on American food history. We’re still strolling around the colonial period, though for today’s post, I’m going to fast-forward to the twentieth century to point you towards the rewarding Szathmary Recipe Pamphlet Collection [...]
Covers to Judge Books By
Posted in books, pulp fiction, science fiction, visual culture, tagged paperbacks, pulp fiction on February 1, 2010 | 1 Comment »
My distractable friends, I must admit, proverbs be damned, that I’m often lured to a book by a well-designed dust jacket, even a carefully chosen font. So for today’s entry, why not spotlight some resources on the artistry of book covers? For starters, take a look at the University of Colorado’s Publishers’ Binding Collection, featuring [...]
The Divided States #1: Pennsylvania Mania!
Posted in books, Divided States, fashion, music, poetry, shopping, visual culture, tagged Pennsylvania on December 14, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Dear searchers of lost time, Some of you might know that I have an odd fascination with the state guide project commissioned by the WPA during the Great Depression—a series of guidebooks detailing the history, customs, and sights of each and every corner of the nation. The guidebooks vary widely in quality, yet they remain [...]
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