by Bryan Waterman | Aug 26, 2013 | Books, Complete, Writing New York |
From its first sentence I had a hunch that Teju Cole’s Open City (2011) would have been a perfect fit for the Writing New York syllabus Cyrus and I tinkered with for almost a decade, and when we eventually take up the course again — Inshalla — I take very seriously...
by Bryan Waterman | Aug 22, 2013 | Books, Complete, Writing New York
Looking for one last, fantastic read before summer ends? This year I’ve been pitching Teju Cole’s 2011 award-winning novel Open City to anyone who’ll listen. It’s brief but still feels bursting with detailed observation, beautifully written, and as important a novel...
by Cyrus Patell | Mar 11, 2013 | Complete, Cultural History, This Day in New York History
Today is the 365th anniversary of the famous “goats and hogs ordinance” passed in New Netherland under the governorship of Peter Stuyvesant. Here’s the text of the ordinance: Whereas the Honble Director General and Council of New Netherland have daily seen and...
by Bryan Waterman | Sep 26, 2011 | City on Stage, Complete, Writing New York
Cyrus’s discussion of Irving’s History over the last week or so lays the foundation for one of the big trajectories we trace in Writing New York: the idea of constructed histories — the literariness of the city’s history — and the very...
by Cyrus Patell | Sep 14, 2011 | Complete, Writing New York
Had I actually given a lecture today in Writing New York, I would have taken up the theme of New York exceptionalism introduced in my discussion of E. B. White’s Here is New York on Monday. Today’s reading would have been drawn from Russell Shorto’s history of...
by Cyrus Patell | Sep 12, 2011 | Books, Complete, Writing New York |
It was an interesting experience, rereading E. B. White’s Here is New York on 9/11. It reminded me how valuable a tool the concept of the horizon of expectations is for literary critics. Coined by the literary historian and reader-response theorist Hans Robert Jauss,...
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