Tag Archives: Jungle Books

Kobe: The Lone Wolf Going Down

Kobe is both like and unlike Akela, the Lone Wolf in “The Jungle Books.”

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Mowgli, a Tea Party Libertarian?

Although Kipling’s “Jungle Books” sometimes read like a rightwing fantasy, there’s a progressive element as well.

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Peyton Manning as Moby Dick?!

Sports Saturday In anticipation of football’s “Wild Card Weekend,” which begins today, I see that a sports writer has invoked Herman Melville’s masterpiece. Dan Graziano believes that Indianapolis Colt quarterback Peyton Manning has become Rex Ryan’s Moby Dick. He has beaten the New York Jets coach so many times that Ryan has become obsessed with […]

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What Fictional Fantasy Means

Having taught British Fantasy Literature for the first time last semester, I need to think back on it before it becomes a distant memory.    By reflecting publicly, I can share some of the insights I gained from the course. Two major things I learned are that (1) fantasy is an oppositional genre—by which I […]

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Environmental Revenge Fantasy

Film Friday Henceforth I will devote my Friday posts to something I like almost as much as literature–which is to say, movies.  Film is, after all, a narrative art form, and I teach film history and theory as well as literature at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Although I may, at times, look at intersections between […]

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The Magic World of Children’s Lit

William Kristof, the much traveled Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times, wrote recently about the disturbing way that children’s IQ scores often drop over summer vacation. The cause is lack of intellectual stimulation. The problem is more severe with poor than it is with middle class kids. As an antidote, Kristof offered […]

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