Literature

Women and literature: the dual tradition of African American fiction

By Bernard W. Bell

The prevailing wisdom of most African Americanists, is that due to the distinctive history and acculturation of Africans in the British colonies in North America, African-American literature is most meaningfully assessed in the context of multiple geographical, oral, and literary heritages.

The origins of hip hop: Iceberg Slim

By Terri Hume Oliver

Today, we’ll look at one of the literary forerunners of the hip hop revolution; Iceberg Slim. Slim’s works are marked by a criticism of American justice, devotion to the politics of the Black Panthers, frank language, and a combination of violence and sexuality. They remain influential to this day.

The lost age of innocence

By Anatoly Liberman

While working on my etymological database, I looked through countless old journals and magazines. I especially enjoyed reading the reviews of etymological dictionaries published in their pages. Some were shockingly abrasive, even virulent; others delightfully chatty and unabashedly superficial.

An Etymologist at a Moment of Soul Searching

By Anatoly Liberman If you have ever written a grant proposal, the form you filled out must have had a question about your methodology.  Among the many useless words invented to add ceremony or to the bureaucratic procedure, methodology occupies a place of honor.  It is a synonym of method(s) but pretends to have a […]

From War to Peace,
Or, Harrying without Harrassment

By Anatoly Liberman The Old Germanic word for “army” sounded approximately like harjaz. Its Modern German continuation is Heer, and nearly the same word is used in Icelandic, Norwegian, and Danish (army is a borrowing from French; the idea of this word is “armed force”).  English has lost harjaz, but it is astounding how many […]