“And in the university that is no easy task, for each one of you by virtue of you being here will be deluged by opportunities to misname yourselves. To forget who you are, to forget where your real interests lie. Make no mistake you will be courted; and nothing neutralizes creativity quicker than tokensim. ThatContinue reading “RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: Tokensim the Neutralizer of Creativity (Audre Lorde)”
Category Archives: history
RKS British Literature: Master and Beggars in Burma! (George Orwell)
“No natives in this Club! It’s by constantly giving way over small things like that we’ve ruined the Empire. This country’s only rotten with sedition because we’ve been too soft with them. The only possible policy is to treat em like the dirt they are. This is a critical moment, and we want every bitContinue reading “RKS British Literature: Master and Beggars in Burma! (George Orwell)”
RKS French Literature: Sexual Promiscuity of Children in A French Coal Mining Town (Émile Zola)
“They grew up quickly, these mining girls; and he remembered the ones back in Lille and how he used to wait for them behind the factories, whole gangs of them, already corrupted at the age of fourteen by living in the kind of destitution that makes people simply let themselves go. From the age ofContinue reading “RKS French Literature: Sexual Promiscuity of Children in A French Coal Mining Town (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: Parisian Bourgeoise Shareholders Visit the Squalid French Coal Mining Town (Émile Zola)
“Mme Hennebeau was already growing tired of this visit, happy one minute to alleviate the tedium of her exile by playing this role of a zoo guide, then immediately repulsed by the vague odour of poverty that hung everywhere, despite the cleanliness of the carefully selected houses she dared to enter. In any case allContinue reading “RKS French Literature: Parisian Bourgeoise Shareholders Visit the Squalid French Coal Mining Town (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: Extreme Poverty and Quasi Starvation (Émile Zola)
“Buried beneath the blanket, all that could be seen of her was her long face with its broad features, which had a certain heavy beauty, but which at the age of thirty-nine, had already been disfigured by her life of poverty and the seven children she had borne. She told him how there was noContinue reading “RKS French Literature: Extreme Poverty and Quasi Starvation (Émile Zola)”
RKS British Literature: Who Are the Opium Eaters in England? (Thomas De Quincey)
“Reader, I am sorry to say, a very numerous class indeed. Of this I became convinced some years ago by computing at that time, the number of those in one small class of English society (the class of men distinguished for talents, or of eminent station), who were known to me, directly or indirectly, asContinue reading “RKS British Literature: Who Are the Opium Eaters in England? (Thomas De Quincey)”
RKS Japanese Literature: Japanese Flocking Like Pigeons for Sticks of Gum Thrown by American Soldiers (Akiyuki Nosaka)
“A couple of hundred yards east down the wall of people, a cry arose that could have been a cheer or a scream. I looked over to see two American soldiers who stood a head-no, a head and shoulders-above the crowd that surrounded them. As I was about to step into to the road toContinue reading “RKS Japanese Literature: Japanese Flocking Like Pigeons for Sticks of Gum Thrown by American Soldiers (Akiyuki Nosaka)”
RKS Japanese Literature: Pimping to American Soldiers in Post War Japan (Akiyuki Nosaka)
“I needed English for my pimping-if you can call getting one or two women a day for soldiers pimping. The girls were all pale, boney-shouldered aspiring whores who had word that they could meet America-san and get chocolate if they came here, the soldiers all sad-faced boys would stood watching what was then the swift,Continue reading “RKS Japanese Literature: Pimping to American Soldiers in Post War Japan (Akiyuki Nosaka)”
RKS Japanese Literature: Hiroshima Aftermath: People Looking Like Baked Rice Crackers (Yoko Ōta)
“The number of people on the riverbed increased minute by minute, many of them now with severe burns. At first, we didn’t realize that their injuries were burns. There were no fires, so how could they have been burnt so badly? Strange, grotesque, they were more pathetic than frightening. They had all been burnt inContinue reading “RKS Japanese Literature: Hiroshima Aftermath: People Looking Like Baked Rice Crackers (Yoko Ōta)”
RKS Japanese Literature: Hiroshima Aftermath: Face Puffed up Like a Loaf of Bread (Yoko Ōta)
“This was the first good look we had had of each other’s angry faces, but smiling was an impossibility. We couldn’t see our own faces, but looking at each other gave us an idea. My sister’s face was puffed up like a loaf of bread, and her eyes, normally large, black and uncannily clear, hadContinue reading “RKS Japanese Literature: Hiroshima Aftermath: Face Puffed up Like a Loaf of Bread (Yoko Ōta)”
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