-
Recent Posts
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.”
Pages
- 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
Categories
Archives
- June 2022
- October 2021
- July 2021
- May 2019
- January 2019
- August 2018
- May 2017
- March 2017
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- May 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- October 2015
- August 2015
- June 2015
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- February 2013
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- May 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
Tags
- Apple computer
- art
- a song of ice and fire
- avengers
- Baudelaire
- bbc
- Benjamin
- broadway
- charles yu
- class
- culture
- downton abbey
- drama
- fantasy
- fiction
- flaneur
- franzen
- game of thrones
- george r. r. martin
- group think
- hbo
- history
- hive mind
- in the heights
- invisible
- legibility
- literature
- miranda
- music
- musical
- new york times
- novel
- orientalism
- poetry
- politics
- pop culture
- popular culture
- race
- rock music
- shakespeare
- superhero
- theater
- title sequence
- Tony Award
- twelfth night
Meta
Author Archives: Peter Schmidt
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
Posted in Uncategorized
1 Comment
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
Posted in Other (including pop culture of all kinds)
Tagged Apple computer, autocorrect, Facebook, Gmail, Google
Leave a comment
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
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
Why Judith Butler is Overrated
One of many reasons why Judith Butler is grossly overrated: Here’s a passage from her new book Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, followed by 2 brief comments of mine, one a translation of Butler-ese into regular English. Overall, … Continue reading