There’s a Special Place in Dante’s Inferno for Wafflers and Neutral Souls

From MLK and JFK to Gavin Newsom, Dante’s Misquoters Still Get to the Heart of the Poet’s Disdain for Moral Cowardice

There’s a Special Place in Dante’s Purgatory for Wafflers and Neutral Souls | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Dante’s Divine Comedy, an epic poem recounting the Florentine’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, remains the go-to guide to the afterlife, the world’s most famous travelogue for the great beyond. But Dante matters more than that. Dante’s encounters with the dead offer enduring lessons for the living, including one that speaks with vital urgency to us today.

Consider California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press conference on June 5, 2020, as a Dantean case study. The governor insisted that “we”—institutions and the community at large—must change to combat systemic anti-Black racism. Urging …

by Guy P. Raffa | August 31, 2020

In 1910, Jack London Saw COVID Coming

In The Scarlet Plague, the California Author Imagined a 21st-Century Epidemic Hitting the Bay Area and the World

by Joe Mathews | April 14, 2020

Jack London saw this coming. So why didn’t we?

In 1910 the California author, already famous for The Call of the Wild and White Fang, wrote a short post-apocalyptic …

How Venezuela’s Oil Riches Fueled a Literary Explosion

In the Mid-20th Century, Writers Seized on the Conflicts Laid Bare by Petroleum’s Power to Reshape Society

by José González Vargas | October 5, 2018

On December 14, 1922, a gusher of petroleum was discovered in Zulia, a rural area of western Venezuela. For nine days the oil showered onto the surrounding farmland, scaring the …

How a Pakistani Novelist and Translator Learned to Love Dictionaries

The Books He Once Saw as ‘Villainous’ and ‘Unwieldy’ Helped Him Introduce Children to Urdu Classical Literature

by Musharraf Ali Farooqi | July 25, 2018

An image from a winter morning in Hyderabad, Pakistan, when I was four, forms my earliest memory of literacy.

Bundled up in layers of sweaters, I am reciting from an …

The Cold War Government-Funded Publishing House that Took American Literature to the World

Though Driven by a Desire to Assert U.S. Values, Franklin Publications Was Viewed as Pushing Imperialist Propaganda

by Amanda Laugesen | July 13, 2018

In 1952, a group representing the most important trade, university, and educational publishers in the United States met in New York City to incorporate Franklin Publications.

Some of the men (and …

The Real-Life Adventuress Who Turned Nancy Drew Into a Modern Heroine

Mildred Wirt Benson Helped Invent the Fictional Teen Sleuth Who Became a Generational Role Model

By Jennifer Fisher | June 25, 2018

Nancy Drew struggled this way and that. She twisted and squirmed. She kicked and clawed. But she was powerless in the grip of the man.

‘Little wildcat! You won’t do …

literature

There’s a Special Place in Dante’s Inferno for Wafflers and Neutral Souls

From MLK and JFK to Gavin Newsom, Dante’s Misquoters Still Get to the Heart of the Poet’s Disdain for Moral Cowardice

In 1910, Jack London Saw COVID Coming

In The Scarlet Plague, the California Author Imagined a 21st-Century Epidemic Hitting the Bay Area and the World

How Venezuela’s Oil Riches Fueled a Literary Explosion

In the Mid-20th Century, Writers Seized on the Conflicts Laid Bare by Petroleum’s Power to Reshape Society

How a Pakistani Novelist and Translator Learned to Love Dictionaries

The Books He Once Saw as ‘Villainous’ and ‘Unwieldy’ Helped Him Introduce Children to Urdu Classical Literature

The Cold War Government-Funded Publishing House that Took American Literature to the World

Though Driven by a Desire to Assert U.S. Values, Franklin Publications Was Viewed as Pushing Imperialist Propaganda

The Real-Life Adventuress Who Turned Nancy Drew Into a Modern Heroine

Mildred Wirt Benson Helped Invent the Fictional Teen Sleuth Who Became a Generational Role Model

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Treason Isn’t Just a Crime—It’s a Sin of the Heart

In Dante’s Inferno, Traitors Are Cast Into Deepest Hell for Breaking the Bonds of Love

The Men Who Made the 20th Century

How Winston Churchill and George Orwell Helped Defeat Fascism and Communism to Create the Modern World

Fresno Taught Me to Write and Dream

In California's Central Valley, Heat, Exhaust, and Tule Fog Breed Killer Poems

How Zombie Films Reveal the True Dangers of COVID-19

Like the Living Dead, a Virus Can Overwhelm Powerful States, Ruin Economies—and Reveal Our Best and Worst Selves

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