Essay — Paul Cantor Complete Work

Milch's Last Stand

Deadwood has a different take on the common myth of the western. What is commonly billed as the triumph of civilization over barbarism is reinterpreted by Milch as the imposition of a remote and uncaring government on people hitherto living in freedom on the frontier. Essay

Popular CultureVirginiaMay 26, 2020Essay, Popular Culture, Film, Television, Deadwood

The Empire of the Future: Imperialism and Modernism in H.G. Wells

Wells's The Time Machine reveals the profound profound connection between imperialism and modernism. Essay

Science Fiction, H.G. WellsVirginiaMay 24, 2020Hufnagel, H.G. Wells, The Time Machine, Pos, Essay

The Uncanonical Dante: The Divine Comedy and Islamic Philosophy

It is only by reading Dante noncanonically that we become aware of the full richness and complexity of his thought, especially the way he is open to countercurrents of ideas within the supposedly rigid orthodoxy of the Middle Ages. Essay

Great BooksVirginiaMay 16, 2020Great Books, Dante, Essay

Harold Bloom

Rarely does a literary critic display the kind of genius and creativity characteristic of the famous authors he analyzes, but Harold Bloom did just that.

Literary TheoryVirginiaMay 12, 2020Literary Theory, Essay, Harold Bloom

The Talented Mr. Dukenfield: W.C. Fields and the American Dream

W.C. Fields lived the American Dream, but he struggled enough to do so that he became extremely aware of its dark side.Essay

Popular CultureVirginiaMay 9, 2020American Dream, W.C. Fields, Essay, Film

Springtime for Furtwangler

Ronald Harwood's Taking Sides is a sympathetic account of what happened when the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler found himself accused of being a Nazi after World War II.

VirginiaMay 5, 2020Drama, Taking Sides, Essay

Salman Rushdie

Given what happened to him after the publication of The Satanic Verses, who could criticize Salman Rushdie if he became a little gun-shy? Essay

PostcolonialVirginiaMay 5, 2020Postcolonial, Essay, Salman Rushdie

American Classic

Wood seeks to produce the paradox of an American Gothic, to combine the best of the New and the Old Worlds--a synthesis he found adumbrated in the quaint house that inspired the painting and led to its name. Essay

ArtVirginiaMay 4, 2020Art, American Gothic, Grant Wood, Essay, Painting

Felix the Great

Mendelssohn's works obviously deserve to be called great. He may not have changed the course of music history, but think of how much poorer that history would be without the likes of the Octet, the Violin Concerto, the Italian Symphony, and Elijah. Essay

Music, ArtVirginiaMay 4, 2020Music, Mendelssohn, Essay

Listen to Wagner

Wagner, for all his faults, his reprehensible behavior, and his contemptible beliefs, made a unique contribution to the world of music and expanded our awareness of the range of the human soul’s possibilities. Essay

Music, ArtVirginiaMay 4, 2020Art, Music, Wagner, Essay

Playwright of the Globe

Shakespeare tried to understand the world, and now the world tries to understand him. Essay

ShakespeareVirginiaApril 30, 2020Essay

A Handshake Across the Centuries

Things Fall Apart, the most famous postcolonial novel, actually has deep roots in European culture, the deepest roots possible. It has become a classic because of its ties to the ancient Greek classics.

PostcolonialVirginiaApril 30, 2020Chinua Achebe, Postcolonial, Essay

Hyperinflation and Hyperreality: Thomas Mann in Light of Austrian Economics

With the worldwide collapse of socialism as an economic system, Marxism today stands thoroughly discredited as an intellectual position. Essay

Economics & LiteratureVirginiaApril 15, 2020Thomas Mann, Literature & Economics, Essay