Author Archives: Robin Bates

The Tempest and Our Own Coup Attempts

We can see our current electoral politics, and the threats to social order, in Shakespeare’s “Tempest.”

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A Love Poem to a Long Marriage

A love poem from my wife, which I share on our 53rd wedding anniversary.

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Trump Christians Worship Moloch

While Sen. Mike Lee has accused Texas senate candidate Talarico of being in thrall to Maloch, Ginsberg’s “Howl” shows that the real Moloch is the America Lee desires.

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Something Funny Happened Along My Career Path

Looking back over my academic career, I explore a regret over not having achieved more as a literary scholar.

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Shaq on Homer’s Basketball Lessons

At LSU, Shaq O’Neal recently wrote a thesis on mentorship in the Odyssey. I imagine the basketball examples he might have used.

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A Book Fair in War-Torn Ukraine

Kyiv continued to hold its annual book festival this year despite Russian attacks. In Ukraine, book publication is seen as self-defense and reading as resistance.

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Death Eaters Have Seized the Ministry of Magic

“The Death Eaters have taken over the Ministry of Magic,” says Barbara McQuade about Trump’s seizure of the Justice Department. The parallels are too apt.

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“Parasite and Tool of a Proud Tyrant”

Dickens’s “Dombey and Son” captures the relationship between a tyrant and his sycophant—not unlike what we are seeing in the White House these days.

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Aslan’s Song of Creation

In the recently published “The Green Worlds of C.S. Lewis,” John Gatta says that Lewis has a vision of God’s creation as one that is always unfolding, never static.

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