While in prison, Mandela performed the role of Creon in Antigone. The experience may have helped train him for leadership years later.
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Author Archives: Robin Bates
Antigone Taught Mandela Leadership
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Antigone, Apartheid, Edith Hall, leadership, Nelson Mandela, Sophocles, South Africa Leave a comment
The Joys of Reading Fanny Burney
In which I share my first-time reading experience of Fanny Burney’s Cecilia, which I couldn’t bear to put down.
O’Connor Illustrates White Identity Formation
In the short story “Artificial Nigger,” O’Connor shows how racism is inculcated in a child. Toni Morrison’s sees the story as paradigmatic.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Artificial Nigger, Flannery O'Connor, racism, Toni Morrison, white identity Leave a comment
She My Lodestar While I Go and Come
Four poems for Mother’s Day.
At 75, She Accessed Her Inner Amazon
Entering her mid-seventies, my wife imagines herself as an Amazon warrior girding herself with velcro greaves and cuirasses.
It Was the Worst of Times: Gilded Age Redux
As the U.S. engineers a second Gilded Age and Trump fantasizes about ballrooms and monuments, it’s time to revisit Tale of Two Cities.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Charles Dickens, Donald Trump, Gilded Age, Tale of Two Cities, wealth inequality Leave a comment
Hope in Blooming Lilacs (Whitman)
For all the damage Trump & Co. are doing, Whitman, writing after the death of Lincoln, reminds us of American resilience.
Using Poetry to Stand Up to Tyranny
The poem that uses myth and literature to imagine the possibilities for action in the face of oppression.