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Bomber Country Reading With D. Swift

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

English professor Daniel Swift will be reading from his book tonight at 8:00pm in Davis. Named “an astonishing debut”by The New Statesmen, Bomber County: The Poetry of a Lost Pilot’s War has also been well received by the New York Times. Salon called it “understated but piercing” and “a classic.” Recent exciting rumors in the English Dept. suggest another positive review in this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review.

The book struggles with the ethical questions asked by The Second World War’s full scale bombing campaigns and the role of poetry in commemorating and explaining these attacks. The book is available from Amazon.com here and will probably be on sale during tonight’s reading.

Local News: Guy Who Did Reading Making Rest of Class Look Bad

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

BOLTON HALL—Reports have surfaced that a student in a 200-level English class made several salient and insightful comments during a recent class meeting, effectively ruining it for everyone else.

The dickhead in question, one Alex Thornton, began his demonstration of overwhelming intelligence by remarking that in the third chapter of the assigned reading, the author was making the case that “it is not just the powerful who are to be feared, but also the weak and frustrated,” or something equally obnoxious.

“Who does that asshole think he is?” said classmate Natalie Alba. “Speaking in complete sentences, directly quoting passages from the book… Is he trying to make me look stupid?”

The smarmy little know-it-all went on to link the reading that had been assigned for that class period to the over-arching theme of the course, indicating that he had not only done the current reading but all of the preceding ones as well.

“Somebody needs to put a sock in that kid’s mouth,” said classmate Andrew Brickman. “It’s pretty simple. If nobody talks in class then everybody gets an A. Learn how to be a team player for once in your life.”

Thornton continued to reveal himself to be a pretentious, overachieving piece of shit by commenting offhandedly that he had “read ahead,” as the twenty-four pages that had been assigned for the class period clearly had not been enough to occupy his enormous brain.

“What the fuck?” said the class’ instructor, Professor Dana Rathbone. “Why is this kid trying to act like I know what he’s talking about? You think I have time to read this crap? I have a life, you know.”