The Greek divinity Nemesis, rarely depicted in art, has no place in the Olympian pantheon of a dozen gods and goddesses. But she's an omnipresent force of retribution, an implacable force of punishment that arrives, if not sooner, then later. So too, it seems, with President Donald Trump, who is 'clearly not a man who discards his grudges easily,' William Galston of the Brookings Institution said recently. This observation is an understatement. 'Flooding the zone,' a term borrowed from football, was former Trump adviser Steve Bannon's way of describing the Trumpian tactic of issuing a barrage of statements whose sheer pace and multiplicity, not to mention contents, are intended to stymie any impulse at rational response. Like Nemesis, Trump is now pursuing his perceived enemies, using the power of the presidency. Among his recent retribution: He has fired Department of Justice officials and staff who worked on criminal investigations and prosecutions of him; he has revoked security clearances for intelligence officials to 'punish his perceived opponents,' as one news story put it. And he has removed the portrait of Gen. Mark Milley from the Pentagon wall that traditionally features portraits of the retired chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as Milley was. In 2024, journalist Bob Woodward reported that Milley had told him, 'No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump. Now I realize he's a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country' ' clearly sparking Trump's ire....
Stoicism may be having a renaissance. For centuries, the ancient philosophy that originated in Greece and spread across the Roman Empire was more or less treated as extinct ' with the word 'stoic' hanging on as shorthand for someone unemotional. But today, with the help of the internet, it's gaining ground: One of the biggest online communities, The Daily Stoic, claims to have an email following of over 750,000 subscribers. Perhaps it's not so surprising. The United States' current political climate has parallels to the last few centuries B.C. in ancient Rome, home of notable Stoics like the the philosopher Epictetus, a former slave, and the emperor Marcus Aurelius. During this period of instability, including the fall of the Roman Republic, Stoicism helped its practitioners find community, meaning and tranquility. Today, too, society faces widespread feelings of isolation, depression and anxiety. Meanwhile, more and more people are looking for answers outside of mainstream religion. According to a 2022 Gallup Poll, 21% of Americans now say they have no religious affiliation....
If you went to high school in the United States anytime since the 1960s, you were likely assigned some of the following books: Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'Julius Caesar' and 'Macbeth'; John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men'; F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby'; Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird'; and William Golding's 'The Lord of the Flies.' For many former students, these books and other so-called 'classics' represent high school English. But despite the efforts of reformers, both past and present, the most frequently assigned titles have never represented America's diverse student body. Why did these books become classics in the U.S.' How have they withstood challenges to their status' And will they continue to dominate high school reading lists' Or will they be replaced by a different set of books that will become classics for students in the 21st century' The high school canon has been shaped by many factors. Shakespeare's plays, especially 'Macbeth' and 'Julius Caesar,' have been taught consistently since the beginning of the 20th century, when the curriculum was determined by college entrance requirements. Others, like 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' winner of the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, were ushered into the classroom by current events ' in the case of Lee's book, the civil rights movement. Some books just seem especially suited for classroom teaching: 'Of Mice and Men' has a straightforward plot, easily identifiable themes and is under 100 pages long....
People often put national boundaries around the written word. If you read French poetry or Victorian novels, it is tempting to understand those texts strictly in relation to the history and culture of France or Britain. Yet it often helps to take a wider view about literary production. Consider that for many centuries, Chinese provided a common language of literary elites in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Into the 19th century, writers across East Asia were producing their work specifically in classical Chinese, an ancient form of writing in which each character denotes a word, not a sound. Then, with the global tide of modern nationalism, many of those older works became marginalized in the public sphere. But in recent years, that trend has begun changing, according to Wiebke Denecke, a professor in MIT's literature program, and an expert on premodern East Asia. More scholars are again diving into older works written in classical Chinese. Certainly, if Denecke has anything to do with it, that paradigm change will continue. Her work analyzes these older periods of East Asian history ' largely from 1200 B.C.E. to 1200 C.E. ' and is highly comparative in nature. Denecke has published two books, many scholarly articles, edited numerous volumes, and has worked vigorously as an editor to anthologize the classical literature of East Asia, making it more readily accessible for many readers....
