Wendy Willis advises us on how to deal with bros like Donald Trump and Robert Bly. Pair with Greg Chase’s recent piece on understanding the Trump supporter through Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.
Dealing with Bros
Airy Fairy
Anyone who’s majored in the humanities has likely heard warnings that it’s better to major in the sciences. If, as many would have it, we live in a scientist’s world, what place is there for the arts? At the Ploughshares blog, Cathe Shubert finds a place for writers in a STEM-obsessed society. You could also read Cathy Day on the job prospects of writers.
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Bookends on Russian Literature
To accompany this infographic on Russian literature, The New York Times asked Francine Prose and Benjamin Moser what makes 19th century Russian writing so distinctive. Pair with our own Matt Seidel‘s take on rejected Bookends questions.
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JJS on Seidel
“Seidel scared himself with poetry, and us too. How had he done it?” John Jeremiah Sullivan presented the Hadada Award to Frederick Seidel at The Paris Review’s Spring Revel last month. You can read the full text of his speech and three of Seidel’s poems. This seems to be a much better week for Sullivan because he also just won the James Beard Foundation’s MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award for his essay “I Placed a Jar in Tennessee.”
Lupita Nyong’o + Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie + ‘Americanah’
In book-to-film news, Lupita Nyong’o has signed on to produce and star in an adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie‘s novel Americanah, and we couldn’t be more excited. For more from Adichie, be sure to check out her “Year in Reading” piece for The Millions.
Questlove in Question
The Roots‘ longtime drummer Questlove found himself in hot water after his late night Michele Bachman prank, but this week he’s the subject of a 2,500 word essay in Newsweek, so things have pretty much balanced out.