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Recent Posts
- Could these 2 L. Frank Baum stories from 1910 be witty allegories about race, colonialism, and immigration?
- Seems a good time to read some C. P. Cavafy
- Henry Louis Gates, Jr., on the values of literature
- Donald Rumsfeld Tries to Enter Into Heaven
- 16 postcard-length meditations on the Game of Thrones ending
Recent Comments
- Peter Schmidt on Donald Rumsfeld Tries to Enter Into Heaven
- John Corner on Thoughts on Orsino’s opening speech in Twelfth Night, and on the ending of the play—as occasioned by re-reading the play to attend Pig Iron’s performance in the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, September 2011
- May on What Should I Do With the Dead Turk in the Bedroom? Class, Sex, and Otherness in Downton Abbey
- Elite Edge ME on Word Cloud of Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” section 1
- Dan bloom on On Contradictions in Nathaniel Rich’s “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change.”
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- About Me
- Akwete Weave poetry chapbook
- Digital Humanities Projects
- Ecotone // poems by Peter Schmidt // wondering through the natural world …
- Engl 009H “Portraits of the Artist” — an introduction to literary and cultural studies for first-year students.
- English 116 American Literature Honors Seminar, Fall 2014: the Literature of the U.S. South
- English 52A (U.S. Fiction, 1900-1950)
- English 52B, U.S. Fiction 1945 to the Present. Swarthmore College, Fall 2017.
- English 53: Modern American Poetry
- English 53R: Advanced Research Topics in U.S. Literature
- English 71B: The Lyric Poem in English (Fall 2013)
- English 71D: The Short Story in the U.S. (Fall 2018)
- Online Essays
- Pocketa Pocketas (pulses & pips of poems)
- Publications
- “Truth so mazed”: Faulkner and U.S. Plantation Fiction
- A review-essay on William Carlos Williams’ _By Word of Mouth: Poems from the Spanish, 1916-1959_
- A selection of older print and digital scholarly work
- On Eros Crossing the Color-Line in William Faulkner and Margaret Mitchell
- On Optimists’ Sons and Daughters: Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter and Peter Taylor’s A Summons to Memphis
- Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus
- The “Raftsmen’s Passage,” Huck’s Crisis of Whiteness, and _Huckleberry Finn_ in U.S. Literary History
- Selected Courses
- SPLEEN poetry chapbook: pissed-off poems for a pissant age.
- Very Large Array // a poetry collage project by Peter Schmidt (1990-2000)
- Very Large Array project
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Author Archives: Peter Schmidt
Could these 2 L. Frank Baum stories from 1910 be witty allegories about race, colonialism, and immigration?
These two chapters involving Dorothy and her friends are from Baum’s sequel to The Wizard of Oz (1900), The Emerald City of Oz (1910). Chapter 12, “How They Matched the Fuddles,” and Chapter 17, “How They Came to Bunbury.” Use … Continue reading
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Seems a good time to read some C. P. Cavafy
Candles The days of the future stand in front of us Like a line of candles all alight—Golden and warm and lively little candles. The days that are past are left behind, A mournful row of candles that are out; … Continue reading
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., on the values of literature
Amen, brother! Read this talk of his. I’m also struck by the contrast between this essay in the NYTimes Book Review (Oct. 31) and Marjorie Perloff’s depressing and deluded essay in a recent issues of the LA Review of Books … Continue reading
Donald Rumsfeld Tries to Enter Into Heaven
(as retold later by the Devil) … into the known unknown or maybe it’s an unknown unknown Donald comes to the Gates unrepentant. A large book swings open hard to see the pages but it seems they hold long lists … Continue reading
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16 postcard-length meditations on the Game of Thrones ending
Does this really need a spoiler alert? OK, spoiler alert. Don’t have a meltdown. Dany touching the Throne of Swords in the snow in 8.6 completes one of the dream-visions she had in the House of the Undead in the … Continue reading
download Ecotone and/or Spleen (my 2 new poetry chapbooks)
Ecotone // 14 poems by Peter Schmidt, about wandering through the natural world … A downloadable pdf, from Pixel Press / Swarthmore You may also download SPLEEN (political poems protesting + reimagining the fate of society and nature). =====For either or … Continue reading
Cultural biases built into Gmail and FB autocorrect spelling
Two examples: 1. No matter how many times I type a student’s name, Shaoni, in Gmail, Gmail’s autocorrect always wants to convert that to “Shane.” Ditto for Facebook. Shaoni is a South Asian name. Shane is a name popular with … Continue reading
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Tagged Apple computer, autocorrect, Facebook, Gmail, Google
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On Contradictions in Nathaniel Rich’s “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change.”
Nathaniel Rich’s issue-long essay in this week’s New York Times Magazine receives a title worthy of a play: “Losing Earth: The decade we almost stopped climate change. A tragedy in two acts.” It’s definitely worth an hour or two of … Continue reading
Garbage In / Garbage Out: Why is Facebook Using Its Powerful Resources To Help Teachers Teach Bad Common Core Standards In AP English Classes?
Facebook on its Summit Learning Resources Site for K-12 English & Language Arts teachers is now promoting ready-made lesson plans for teaching Common Core standards. Sounds good, right? But many of the lesson plans are screwed up because so many … Continue reading
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On Canons and “Headcanons” in Cultural Studies
Yes, “headcanons” (one word) is a term. Has been for awhile. Interesting conundrum: while the idea of an agreed-upon “canon” has been treated with increasing skepticism in literary studies (though not by all parties), the concept thrives in popular culture, … Continue reading