Posts tagged Lit

notsospiffywhat:

I do not miss you because you are far 
or because you are not here.
I do not miss you because of what we do
when we are together
or because of the  places we go
and the things we speak about.
I do not miss you because of your touch
your kisses and your hugs
I do not miss you because of the way
you protect me in the middle of the night
when I am afraid.

I miss you because your presence reminds me
of what it feels like to be safe
and whole
and cared for
and when you are gone
for however short or long
the coldness of reality and how
alone
we are born and shall die
creeps back

and I need you all the more.  

dionthesocialist:

Sara Koffi’s first piece for The Black Kids Table tackles one of my favorite subjects: the highly racialized nature of literary academia. Read the whole thing on The Black Kids Table:

“As an English major, I’ve never expected much when it comes to classes focused on the most notable literary contributions to society. I’ve sat through classes featuring dead white men upon dead white men, wondering why a PoC was so rarely between the pages. This semester, I thought my prayers had finally been answered. The course I enrolled in would be focusing on American Autobiography with a clear section devoted solely to African-American autobiography. Oh, happy days!

It wasn’t until we started having class discussions about African-American autobiography that I’d realized I’d been praying to Satan. I’d gotten what I’d wanted, but in a way that was so mind boggling and distorted I wanted to close my textbook and leave on a regular basis. What could possibly be so terrible about studying African-American autobiography? What could be so wrong with analyzing Washington, Du Bois, and Douglass alongside the likes of Franklin, Thoreau and Whitman?

Literary colorblindness. Literary colorblindness is best described as evaluating someone’s writings based solely on their words, meaning you may not fully consider the author’s race as the backdrop. Sounds awesome, right? Sounds like a good old fashioned we-are-the-world type throwback?

Wrong.Dead. Wrong.”

READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS OHMYGOD THE AMOUNT OF TIME I’VE HAD TO FACE THIS READ IT READ IT READ IT! 

howtodropoutofschool:

1. Open Culture:  Not a large a selection, but high quality texts. If you just want to skim a book to brush up on a course you took in ninth grade, download one of these. I have yet to be disappointed.

2. Book Boon: Provides free college-level textbooks in a PDF format. Probably the widest range of subjects on the web. The site is also pretty.

3. Flat World Knowledge: The worlds largest publisher of free and open college textbooks. Humanitie texts are particularly difficult to come by, this site has a great selection in all disciplines.

4. Textbook Revolution:  Some of the books are PDF files, others are viewable online as e-books, or some are simply web sites containing course or multimedia content.

5. Library Pirate: I’ve always had an addiction to torrent based pirating. When this site opened a few months ago, I went a little overboard. After dropping two hundred on a paperback spanish textbook, I downloaded the ebook version illegally. I also got a great Psyc text i’m obsessed with.  It will be interesting to see how this site grows- they already have a great selection.