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"If We Must Die" is writer Claude McKay's most famous poem, showing his deft use of the form most associated with his work, the sonnet. McKay composed the poem in response to the outburst of racial violence in the summer of 1919, dubbed "The Red...

Her is a 2013 American romantic science-fiction film directed, produced, and written by Spike Jonze. The film follows Theodore, a lonely man in the final stages of a divorce. His career is writing "beautiful handwritten letters" on behalf of other...

Perhaps O'Hara's most celebrated poem, "Having A Coke With You" describes an afternoon spent in the park with a lover.

After returning from a trip to Spain in 1960, O'Hara wrote "Having A Coke With You" following an afternoon he spent with dancer...

The Martian, a science fiction survival film directed by Ridley Scott, is the big screen adaptation of the 2011 novel of the same name, written by Andy Weir. It tells the story of Mark Watney, a botanist turned astronaut, played by Matt Damon, who...

Released in 2016, J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy was a near-instant success, receiving widespread acclaim for its sobering depiction of white, working-class Americans experiencing a collective identity crisis. It remains a controversial book, with...

After the explosive release of Awakenings in 1973, Oliver Sacks waited over a decade to publish a second book. His next two books were released within a year of one another: A Leg to Stand On in 1984, and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat in...

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing is a children's book published in 1972, and is to date one of author Judy Blume's most famous works. It is the first book in the Fudge Series, which follows the experiences of a 9-year-old fourth grader named Peter...

Although “In an Artist’s Studio” was published posthumously in 1896, the poem’s composition occurred on December 24, 1856, a date which has proved useful for scholarly interpretation. Since its publication, scholars have assumed that Rossetti’s...

The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals was written in 1785, four years after Kant had written his magnum opus, The Critique of Pure Reason. In the Groundwork, Kant aims to extend the insights of the Critique. Where the Critique inquired into...

"Shakespeare Behind Bars" is a movie documentary that tells the story of the most unlikely Shakespeare Company in the world. It was one of only sixteen documentaries out of six hundred and twenty four submissions to be selected for its world...

The Reluctant Fundamentalist joins the list of what has already proven a rather fertile genre that should prove to become only more and more fertile as time moves on and sensitivities become less delicate. The central event of the story is the...

There is an expression about saving the best till last; this is exactly what Jim Crace did when he penned his final novel, Harvest. Even before he had finished writing the novel, Crace announced that it would be his final one. He stuck doggedly to...

"El Canto de mio Cid", otherwise known as "The Poem of the Cid", is the oldest Castilian epic poem that is preserved today. It is based on a real-life historical event and its hero is also taken from history. El Cid was a Castilian nobleman and...

Born and raised in the northern state of Michigan, Marge Piercy is a writer and poet, a lot of whose work engages with political question and social dilemmas. Her novel Woman on the Edge of Time, published in 1976, is no exception to that rule.

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"The Destructors" was initially published in a British photo-journalism magazine called "Picture Post". It was commonly considered to be Britain's answer to "Life" magazine. Graham Greene, one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, was...

My Brilliant Friend is the first novel in a four part series known as the "Neapolitan Quartet." The series includes My Brilliant Friend (2012), The Story of a New Name (2013), Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (2014), and The Story of the Lost...

The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas’s first novel, debuted as number one on The New York Times bestseller list when it was published in February 2017. Thomas developed the novel from a short story she wrote for her senior project in Belhaven University’...

Whiplash is a 2014 movie drama written and directed by Damien Chazelle. It tells the story of Andrew Neiman, a talented young drummer who is attending a prestigious conservatory and studying jazz. He is taken under the wing of a brilliant and...

"Song (Love a child is ever crying)" appears in Lady Mary Wroth's sonnet sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, published in 1621 as a companion text to the prose romance The Countess of Montgomery's Urania. Pamphilia to Amphilanthus features more...

Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men (The original French title is Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes) by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a famous critique of modern society. Also...

Sarah "Saartjie" Baartman was a sideshow then a headlining attraction for audiences in Britain in the Nineteenth Century, billed as the Hottentot Venus, and it is at this time in her life that we meet her in Suzan-Lori Parks' play. Written in...

Clear Light of Day is perhaps Anita Desai’s most beloved work, notable for its lush prose and compelling, compassionate look at the inner lives of an Indian family. It is also her most autobiographical work, taking place in the same area where she...

Author Elie Wiesel wrote Night (1960) about his experience that he and his family endured in the concentration camps during World War II between 1944 and 1945, primarily taking place the notorious camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. More than just...

Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher, and cultural theorist. He is best known for his ideas on postmodernism, simulation and hyperreality.

Baudrillard's work, including "Simulacra and Simulation", critiques the impact...