In 1952, Dr. Seuss published an essay in which he pointedly critiqued racist humor. True, his own work – both before and after then – did contain stereotypes. In an essay that’s been languishing at American Quarterly since August 2010, I examine the conflict between Seuss’s progressive impulses and a visual imagination steeped in early…
I’m doing it again – teaching an entire course devoted to Dr. Seuss (the link in this sentence takes you to the current draft of the syllabus). Â Art! Â Politics! Â Verse! Â Nonsense! Â Activism! Â These are but some of the subjects we’ll explore in English 710: Dr. Seuss, a graduate-level course which begins on Wednesday. Aiming to…
Inspired by BoingBoing’s notice of my post on Syd Hoff’s leftist cartoons, I’m sharing another letter from the late Mr. Hoff, along with a cartoon from 1939. As those who remember his first letter to me might recall, he and I corresponded – and spoke over the phone a few times – when I was working on…
On her blog today, Anita Silvey asks her “readers to weigh in with their list of five books that they can’t live without or the ones they read again and again.” So, first, let me encourage you to weigh in over on her blog. As soon as this post is up, I’ll do the same….
Often, media headlines highlight academic research in order to make fun of it – so that people can say, “look at how these eggheads spend their time!” or “They needed a study to prove that!?” Â My title (above) alludes to such media coverage, but my purpose here is to highlight a new article which argues……
Born 107 years ago today in Springfield Mass., Theodor Seuss Geisel had an extraordinarily prolific career. Â Most people know him for the 44 books he wrote and illustrated under the name “Dr. Seuss.” Â But that’s only part of his career. Â He wrote another 13 books under the name “Theo. LeSieg,” one book as “Rosetta Stone,”…
Following the deaths this month of Brian Jacques, Janet Schulman, and Margaret K. McElderry, we turn to the last words of those who wrote for the young – Seuss, Dahl, Thurber, Montgomery, Nesbit, Charles M. Schulz, Crockett Johnson, and others. “Yes. I’m not going to die tomorrow.” – Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904-1991) “Ow,…
Quick post from Amtrak heading north. Â On the way back from the Diane Rehm Show (now archived on website), I passed the person at right, who was selling copies of Street Sense and who kindly granted me this photograph. Â I always enjoy spotting signs of Seuss in the world. Â And, here, I suspect that Seuss…
A holiday classic for misanthropes: “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.”
This post is for my fellow intellectual laborers – be you academics, teachers, authors, artists, carpenters, curators, architects, doctors, plumbers, web designers, or… well, any job that requires you to use your noggin’. Â If you think about it (and people reading this blog probably do think about it), intellectual labor covers many jobs – you…
