Spring Break
This issue unites a collection of interviews, critical essays, and a book review in their common efforts to consider the study of the humanities as a kind of cognitive method for approaching the world at large and the world within. Personism, Frank O'Hara's poetic methodology, has framed and informed this issue's major themes, which involve the interplay between the personal and public spheres as they relate to and unite art, literature, politics, and history.
Nick Brandt introduces the world of fine art photography to the wild animals of East Africa. Since 2003, his work has been on display in galleries, magazines, and newspapers throughout the world. The title of this photo essay/interview is borrowed from his 2005 monograph, On This Earth. His entire body of work can be found at his Web site, www.NickBrandt.com.
Bapsi Sidhwa is one of South Asia's most prominent writers. She has written six novels, including Cracking India, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She served on the late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's Women's Development committee and has taught at several universities, including Columbia. She resides in Houston, Texas.
Ania Loomba is the Catherine Bryson Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on Renaissance literature and history, which she examines through the lenses of gender studies and colonial and postcolonial studies. Her most recent publication is a compilation entitled Race in Early Modern England: A Documentary Companion (Palgrave, 2007).
Granville Ganter is Associate Professor of English at St. John's University. His research focuses on early nineteenth century orators, including Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the Seneca orator, Sagoyewatha (Red Jacket). His current work deals with women's oratory and education.
Sarah Langan has an M.F.A. from Columbia University, and is pursuing a master's in Environmental Toxicology at NYU. Her first novel, The Keeper (HarperCollins, 2006), was a New York Times Editor's Pick. Her second novel, The Missing (HarperCollins, 2007), won the Stoker Award for best novel. Her third novel, Audrey's Door, is slated for publication in early 2009.
Jesse Kavadlo is Assistant Professor of English and the writing center director at Maryville University in St. Louis. He teaches courses in writing, American literature, and interdisciplinary topics such as rock and roll, superheroes, conspiracies, and monsters. He is the author of Don DeLillo: Balance at the Edge of Belief (Peter Lang 2004) as well as essays on contemporary American fiction, cultural studies, and writing pedagogy.
Michael Modarelli is completing his doctorate in English and American Literature at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He has published on the ethics of adjunct labor in universities, as well as articles on Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare. He is currently Assistant Director for the summer reading program at UTK.
Giuseppe Mazzotta is Sterling Professor of Humanities for Italian and the Director of Graduate Studies at Yale University. He has written numerous essays on every century of Italian literary history. In the past decade, he has written books on the philosophy of Giambattista Vico and on cosmopoiesis in medieval and Renaissance literature. He is the editor of Norton's 2008 edition of Dante's Inferno.
Stanley Sultan has published books and essays about the literature of Modernism, as well as a novel and short stories. He also has written about Renaissance drama, the Bible and teaching. He is Professor Emeritus of English Literature at Clark University. This exploration of the humanist ethos of equality in our lives is by a liberal-socialist lifelong teacher.