On Twitter today, I came across Amalie Flynn’s poetry, which you can read on her blog Wife and War. In many ways, Flynn reminds me of a homefront Yusef Komunyakaa; her narrator gives a voice to mediations on the same dark register. There is an unfiltered honesty–approaching, but then veering away from, the confessional–that must be so [...]
Archive for the ‘Literature’ Category
Amalie Flynn’s poetry offers visceral meditations on Afghanistan, night raids
Posted in Literature, tagged Afghanistan, Amalie Flynn, Night Raids, War in Afghanistan (2001 – present), Wife and War, Yusef Komunyakaa on May 3, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
The Importance of Starship Troopers Today: Reflecting on Bloom, Heinlein, and Libya
Posted in Literature, tagged Abu Muqawama, Andrew Exum, Facebook, Harold Bloom, Jason Whiteley, Libya, Modern Warfare, Robert A. Heinlein, Rolf Potts, Small Wars Journal, Starship Troopers, Twitter on April 27, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Wading through Twitter this morning, I came across Andrew Exum’s post on Harold Bloom’s dismissal of Robert Heinlein’s 1959 novel Starship Troopers, which appeared in The New Yorker. Rolf Potts asked Bloom what he thinks of the novel’s inclusion in military reading lists, and the literary critic is less than impressed. “I can’t take that seriously, I’m sorry,” [...]
Ghosts of Empire: T. E. Lawrence and the Haunted Narratives of U. S. Counterinsurgency Doctrine
Posted in Literature, tagged 2009 EGO Conference, Counterinsurgency, David Galula, David Kilcullen, Dominick LaCapra, T. E. Lawrence, University of Florida on November 16, 2009 | 1 Comment »
On Thursday and Friday, the University of Florida hosted the 2009 EGO Conference. The topic was “Home/sickness: Desire, Decay, and the Seduction of Nostalgia,” and Dominick LaCapra–a historian from Cornell–gave the keynote address. I took part in a panel called “Evocations of Empire: Political Analyses of the Past and Present” in which I delivered a [...]
Teaching American Literature through Narratives of War
Posted in Education, Literature, tagged Ambrose Bierce, AML2070, Art Spiegelman, Colby Buzzell, David Kilcullen, Dear Mr. President, Donald Rumsfeld, E.G. "Buck" Shuler Jr., Eagle Eye, English, Ernest Hemingway, Flight 93, Frederick Kagan, Gabe Hudson, James J. Lindsay, Jarhead, Jean Baudrillard, Jeff Withington, Jerome Johnson, Jim Stavridis, John Nagl, Joseph J. Went, Kayla Williams, Love My Rifle More Than You, Maus, Montgomery McFate, My War: Killing Time in Iraq, Paul Fussell, Randa Jarrar, Robert A. Heinlein, Roberto J. González, Rudyard Kipling, Sig Christenson, Spenser Ackerman, Starship Troopers, Stephen Crane, Survey of American Literature: Narratives of War, The Great War and Modern Memory, The Red Badge of Courage, The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien, University of Florida, Walt Whitman, Yusef Komunyakaa on June 13, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Jeff Withington, posting at the US Naval Institute blog, shared an email exchange he had with Admiral Jim Stavridis on the value of an English major and the impact it has had on his life. Admiral Stavridis also recommends a “must-read” list for midshipmen before receiving their commission. Well, I have one-upped the admiral. In [...]
