A few days after refusing a proposal from the man who would eventually become her husband, Charlotte Perkins Gilman -- turn-of-the-20th-century writer and social reformer -- wrote a document in her private diary that she titled “An Anchor to Windward.” It details her reasons for wishing to remain single. A little context: Walter Stetson proposed …
Continue reading “I Am Cool, Fearless, and Strong”: Reasons for Living Single
One pleasurable challenge of my job is getting to teach interdisciplinary courses. To expedite students through their general education requirements in History, English, and Philosophy, our college offers hybrid courses combining two or three disciplines. But, lacking hybrid professors to go with them, these courses are taught by folks like me -- stretching, consulting, and …
The new trailer for Greta Gerwig's film adaptation of Little Women has gone live, and book lovers have gone into a delighted tizzy (except diehard fans of the Winona Ryder-Christian Bale film, of course). One unusual thing about Gerwig's new version, which surprisingly has gotten little press, is that these March sisters are distinctly less American. …
Continue reading If Louisa Met Saoirse: On Bigotry and Casting Little Women
Just like we infer the existence of a black hole by the behavior of matter around it, so I learned of the existence of Marie Kondo’s Netflix series based on a sudden flurry of posts on social media about how many books a person should own. Apparently, Kondo’s Tidying Up includes scenes of tidying up …
Continue reading Reasons to Own a Lot of Books that Don’t Spark Any Joy
Longbourn, Jo Baker’s 2013 semi-retelling of Pride and Prejudice, may well be the best-written Austen-adjacent text that I’ve read, in terms of prose style. And I have read… a lot. I use the term “semi-retelling” because the book is about the Longbourn servants, focalized through Sarah the housemaid, and doesn’t really concern the events of …
Continue reading Below the Bennets’ Stairs: Jo Baker’s Longbourn (book review)
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