Transatlantic Studies: A Reading List
Using the Atlantic Ocean as a guiding metaphor, transatlanticism emphasizes the fluid nature of contrived national boundaries and identities.
Fear and Fertility in Elif Shafak’s Black Milk
Shafak exposes her terror over motherhood’s potential to devour creativity—a panic she imagines sharing with a parade of literary forebears.
Self-Publishing and the Black American Narrative
Bryan Sinche’s Published by the Author explores the resourcefulness of Black writers of the nineteenth century.
Urchins of New York and Elsewhere
Remembering the Sky Parlor for lost children and the public’s fascination with those who went astray.
Body Double
Long before the imposture of Anna Delvey, the Tichborne Claimaint swept a nation’s imagination.
Sorry, but Jane Eyre Isn’t the Romance You Want It to Be
Charlotte Brontë, a woman whose life was steeped in stifled near-romance, refused to write love as ruly, predictable, or safe.
How Facebook Revived the Epistolary Friendship
Would today's online, social media-based friendships look familiar to the letter-writing friends of earlier centuries, when epistolary friendships were also common?
Super Mario, Homer’s Odyssey, and the Meaning of Marriage
Nintendo's Mario and Homer's Odysseus have more in common than you might think.
Jane Austen and Adaptation
In The Atlantic on Sunday, Devony Looser discussed the 20-year-old film adaptation of Sense and Sensibility.