Lev Raphael's Blog, page 41

Stop Misinterpreting "Free Speech"

Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post this week is typical of commentators who blather about "free speech" when college students protest one commencement speaker or another every spring.

She's like far too many opinion writers and talking heads who demonstrate a complete misunderstanding of the Bill of Rights. Someone like Dick Cheney, for instance, is free to speak about his beliefs, his past, his hopes and dreams, his view of foreign affairs, or whatever he likes anywhere he wants to. And...

The Day I Defended Fifty Shades of Grey(!)

Yes, I know the book is awful in every possible way, and I've blogged about it several times on The Huffington Post. And last month in a sex writing workshop, I used one of its sex scenes as an example of very bad writing. Here's some of the excerpt I chose:

His hands run down my body and over my breasts as he reaches the dip at the base of my neck with his lips. He swirls the tip of his nose around it then begins a very leisurely cruise with his mouth, heading south, following the path of...

Museum Day Around the World

May 18th is International Museum Day so visit one if you can and don't be put off by pedants who say you need to do "homework" beforehand.

That's what The Washington Post advised in a long article that was supposed to take the anxiety out of art:

Our response to art is directly proportional to our knowledge of it. In this sense, art is the opposite of popular entertainment, which becomes more insipid with greater familiarity. So study up. Even 10 minutes on Wikipedia can help orient you and...

What's With Jonathan Franzen Bashing Edith Wharton?

Planning to teach Wharton soon, I took another look at Franzen's New Yorker hatchet job on Edith Wharton and it was worse than I remembered. The critics' darling praises her classics The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, and The Age of Innocence, but grossly misreads her character and her life.




For a contemporary novelist Franzen sounds remarkably old-school sexist when he harps on Wharton's appearance: "Edith Wharton might well be more congenial to us now if...she'd looked like...

It's Official: Jeb Bush is a Dud

It's not just Gail Collins of the New York Times who's noticed that Jeb Bush is making a mess on the campaign trail or whatever trail he's on. That's despite the fact he's always been considered competent (compared to his brother, of course). As a humorist, Collins is having fun picking him apart, though she does seem honestly surprised.

But even fellow Republicans like Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio have attacked him for saying he would have gone to war in Iraq in 2003...

Is Reading Greek Mythology Toxic For Students?

That's the buzz at Columbia University, where students published an editorial complaining about reading Greek myths in one of their classes. They said in part:

Ovid's "Metamorphoses" is a fixture of Lit Hum, but like so many texts in the Western canon, it contains triggering and offensive material that marginalizes student identities in the classroom. These texts, wrought with histories and narratives of exclusion and oppression, can be difficult to read and discuss as a survivor, a person o...

Is Greek Mythology Toxic?

That's the buzz at Columbia University where students published an editorial complaining about reading Greek myths in one of their classes. They said in part:

"Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' is a fixture of Lit Hum, but like so many texts in the Western canon, it contains triggering and offensive material that marginalizes student identities in the classroom," wrote the four students, who are members of Columbia's Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board. "These texts, wrought with histories and narrati...

'Dig' Dug Itself a Giant Hole

Dig on the U.S.A. Network was a hot mess in the style of The DaVinci Code, and it was tremendous fun until the end, when it just fizzled out. Much like that thriller.

For those who missed it (SPOILERS AHEAD), it involved a multi-national conspiracy to bring about Armageddon by destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque and building the Third Temple. Or so it seemed, because it was never clear how that would happen if World War III broke out as various characters kept predicting. I mean, can anyone really...

"Dig" Dug Itself a Giant Hole

Dig on the USA Network was a hot mess in the style of The DaVinci Code and it was tremendous fun until the end when it just fizzled out. Much like that thriller.

For those who missed it [spoilers ahead], it involved a multi-national conspiracy to bring about Armageddon by destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque and building the Third Temple. Or so it seemed, because it was never clear how that would happen if World War III broke out as various characters kept predicting. I mean, can anyone really work...

Has a Teacher Changed Your Life?

This is Teacher Appreciation Week and I'm giving a shout-out to the writing professor who changed my life. Her advice and guidance in college echo in my mind decades later now that I've been teaching at Michigan State University as a guest for several years.

I had dreamed of being a writer since I was in second grade, but it wasn't until I took my first class with Kristin Lauer at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus that I fell in love with writing itself.




She was my first and bes...