literary criticism — Bunk History

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Cover of "James" by Percival Everett

Gulp Fiction, or Into the Missouri-verse

On Percival Everett’s “James.”

by Matt Seybold via Cleveland Review of Books on March 25, 2024

Past Tense

The historical novel isn’t cool. Popular? Yes. Enduring? Yes. A bit, well — for nerds? Also yes. Coolness lies in being at the right place at the right time.

by David Schurman Wallace via The Drift on March 12, 2024

Image from the filmstrip, showing a grieved woman with her head in her hands, being comforted by a man standing beside her

Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the Hands of the Red Scared

Again and again, a fervant British anticommunist's filmstrip of the novel shows images of women in states of distress.

by Georgina Blackburn via Commonplace on February 6, 2024

Willa Cather wearing a mink shawl and a large hat in Paris

Prairie Swooner

The hardscrabble origins and unique vision of novelist Willa Cather.

by Eric Banks via Bookforum on February 6, 2024

Carl Van Vechten's portrait of John A. Williams, 1962.

What Becomes of the Brokenhearted

John A. Williams’s unsung novel.

by Gene Seymour via Bookforum on February 6, 2024

Hannah Ardent

Anatomist of Evil

Lyndsey Stonebridge’s book hurls us deeper into Hannah Arendt’s thinking, showing us that there was muddle rather than method at the heart of it.

by Stuart Jeffries via Literary Review on February 1, 2024

Black and white portrait of Jones Very

The Voice of Unfiltered Spirit

In the poetry of Jones Very, whom his contemporaries considered “eccentric” and “mad," the self is detached from everything by an intoxicated egoism.

by Brenda Wineapple via New York Review of Books on January 18, 2024

Cover of Ned Blackhawk's book; a pole with feathers attached is next to the title, "The Rediscovery of America"

The Promise and Perils of Synthetic Native History

Over the past year, two prominent historians have invited readers to rethink the master narrative of US history.

by Gregory D. Smithers via H-Net on January 11, 2024

Painting of waves crashing in the ocean by Winslow Homer

After Melville

In every generation, writers and readers find new ways to plumb the depths of Herman Melville and his work.

by Andrew Schenker via The Baffler on November 22, 2023

The covers of "Romance in Marseille" and "Amiable with Big Teeth" by Claude McCay over a blue blackground splattered with paint.

Zeal, Wit, and Fury: The Queer Black Modernism of Claude McKay

Considering the suppressed legacy of Claude McKay’s two “lost” novels, “Amiable with Big Teeth” and “Romance in Marseille.”

by Gary Edward Holcomb via Los Angeles Review of Books on September 11, 2023

Shelby Foote with a drawing of a Civil War battle superimposed over him.

The South’s Jewish Proust

Shelby Foote, failed novelist and closeted member of the Tribe, turned the Civil War into a masterpiece of American literature.

by Blake Smith via Tablet on September 6, 2023

Black students walking a gauntlet of white students to enter Clinton High School.

Why Did They Bomb Clinton High School?

It was the first Southern school to be integrated by court order, and the town reluctantly prepared to comply. Then an acolyte of Ezra Pound’s showed up.

by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on July 31, 2023

Charles Dickens as he appears when reading, Harper’s Weekly (December 7th, 1867).

A Christmas Carol In Nineteenth-Century America, 1844-1870

What were Americans' immediate responses to "A Christmas Carol," and how did Dickens' reading tours and eventual death reshape its meaning?

by Thomas Ruys Smith via Comparative American Studies on July 27, 2023

Basketball players resting on court

Game Changer

On the mismatched sporting advice of Clair Bee and John R. Tunis.

by Dan McQuade via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 10, 2023

Layered collage of an eye over the portrait of Thomas Jefferson, against the backdrop of the Declaration of Independence.

Who Really Wrote ‘the Pursuit of Happiness’?

The voice of Doctor Johnson, archcritic of the American Revolution, was constantly in mind for the Declaration of Independence’s drafter.

by Peter Moore via The Atlantic on July 4, 2023

The sillhouette of a Civil War statue on a night sky.

The Spirit of Appomattox

Why is Shelby Foote's Civil War subject to so much contemporary debate?

by Jonathan Clarke via The Hedgehog Review on March 1, 2023

Black writers Askia Toure, Lorenzo Thomas, and Ismael Reed seated at an Umbra meeting.

A New Flame for Black Fire

What will be the legacy of the Black Arts Movement? Ishmael Reed reflects on the transformation and growth of Black arts since the 1960s.

by Ishmael Reed via New York Review of Books on January 14, 2023

Books from the 1990s.

What Literature Do We Study From the 1990s?

The turn-of-the-century literary canon, using data from college syllabi.

by Matthew Daniels via The Pudding on January 11, 2023

Woman standing on a wall of books, holding a megaphone, 1919.

Choice Reading

Nineteenth-century New York City was filled with books, bibliophilia, and marginalia.

by Denise Gigante via Lapham’s Quarterly on November 21, 2022

Edith Wharton.

Why Do Women Want?: Edith Wharton’s Present Tense

"The Custom of the Country" and its unique relationship with ideas of feminism and the culture of the early 20th century elite.

by Sarah Blackwood via The Paris Review on November 1, 2022

Library of Ashurbanipal Mesopotamia 1500-539 BC Gallery, British Museum, London

Stop Weaponizing History

Right and left are united in a vulgar form of historicism.

by Arjun Appadurai via The Chronicle of Higher Education on September 27, 2022

A family tree relating Aaron Sachs' book "Up From the Depths" with Lewis Mumford and Herman Melville.

Why Reading History for Its “Lessons” Misses the Point

On Lewis Mumford, Herman Melville, and the gentle art of looking back in time.

by Daniel Immerwahr via Slate on June 6, 2022

Painting of an ocean by the British painter J. M. W. Turner, 1840-1845. Pictured is a stormy sea, its waves breaking on a shore.

The Sea According to Rachel Carson

Her first three books were odes to the world’s bodies of water and their creative power over all life forms.

by Hannah Gold via The Nation on May 17, 2022

Photo of Jack Kerouac, 1956

Jack Kerouac’s Journey

For "On the Road"’s author, it was a struggle to write, then a struggle to live with its fame. “My work is found, my life is lost,” he wrote.

by Joyce Johnson via New York Review of Books on March 2, 2022

Illustration of Silvia Federici in a picket line, by Jovana Mugosa.

Silvia Federici Sees Your Unpaid Work

The crisis that Federici identified in the 1970s has reached a boiling point.

by Joanna Biggs via The New Republic on February 11, 2022

Painting of a Puritan family sitting around a table with books.

Read More Puritan Poetry

Coming to love Puritan poetry is an odd aesthetic journey. It's the sort of thing you expect people partial to bowties and gin gimlets to get involved with.

by Ed Simon via The Millions on February 4, 2022

William Faulkner in front of bookshelf

William Faulkner’s Tragic Vision

In Yoknapatawpha County, the past never speaks with a single voice.

by Jonathan Clarke via City Journal on January 4, 2022

Illustration of Louise Fitzhugh smiling and holding journal.

The Tragic Misfit Behind “Harriet the Spy”

The girl sleuth, now the star of a TV show, has been eased into the canon. In the process, she’s shed the politics that motivated her creation.

by Rebecca Panovka via The New Yorker on December 9, 2021

Newspaper article titled 'Novel-reading a cause of female depravity'

Why Novels Will Destroy Your Mind

Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, novels were regarded as the video games or TikTok of their age — shallow, addictive, and dangerous.

by Clive Thompson via Medium on September 9, 2021

A church building situated amongst mountains.

Thoreau In Good Faith

A literary examination of Henry David Thoreau's life and legacy today.

by Caleb Smith via Public Books on July 19, 2021

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