A Few Thoughts on Close Reading There are still some literary critics who have New Critical notions of close reading, imagining that we are somehow isolating the “words on the page” as an autonomous verbal structure and identifying strategies of irony, ambiguity, and paradox etc. However, literary theory has long moved beyond this model – … Continue reading Close Reading…
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A Poem for the Children of Sandy Hook Elementary School
A Poem for the Children of Sandy Hook Elementary School Next time you shaveor put on lipstick, look beneaththat deepening mirror: the wailingof mothers half a world awaybeneath the cries of this mother, bereaved,the anguish of ragged children beneath the smiling faceof Emiliewho lies dead, slumpedover friendsin this little town, where the worldwould live. She wasto … Continue reading A Poem for the Children of Sandy Hook Elementary School…
Women of the Eastern Diaspora: Poetry Reading and Discussion of Exhibition
Ornament and Narrative: A Poetry Reading and Discussion of Art by Women of the Eastern Diaspora M.A.R. Habib Rutgers University, Stedman Art GalleryDecember 6, 2012 I’d like to begin by thanking my colleagues Martin Rosenberg and Cyril Reade in the Department of Fine Art for inviting me to read my poetry in the context of … Continue reading Women of the Eastern Diaspora: Poetry Reading and Discussion of Exhibition…
Postcolonial Studies
Review of Postcolonial Literary Studies, ed. Robert P. Marzec (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 480 pp. M.A.R. Habib, Rutgers University Postcolonial studies has a great to offer in a world still imperiled by war, cultural and military colonialism, and a persistent demonizing of other cultures and religions. Precisely in virtue of its potential importance, both … Continue reading Postcolonial Studies…
Homi Bhabha’s “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse”: Review by Rafey Habib
I have just finished re-reading Homi Bhabha’s essay on the ambivalence of colonial discourse. As teachers of literature, we often remark how much more we see in a poem or a novel in further readings. This was certainly true of Bhabha’s essay for me. I saw so much more in it than in previous readings: … Continue reading Homi Bhabha’s “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse”: Review by Rafey Habib…
Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia: Review by Rafey Habib
I have just finished reading Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbiain preparation for my graduate class in post-Colonial literature. Of course this book was warmly received by Rushdie and company on account of its comedy, “irreverence” and its “wild” impropriety. It is indeed a substantial book, dealing with themes of immigration, racism, class, the status of … Continue reading Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia: Review by Rafey Habib…