More alt-text: Sybil, 45, she/her/hers; Passions: First-year writing, creative writing, blogging, OER (open educational resources), ungrading, reading nonfiction by BIPOC/LGBTQIA, & general blasphemy; Uninvited settler.
I’m very excited to see what this IEH (Intentionally Equitable Hospitality) is all about!
ha, I love the blasphemy comment… I assume in a non-religious sense here? One of the things I think is strange about me is that I became more rebellious and willing to challenge authority as I got older… I’m not sure if that’s normal or? I wonder about you?
Blasphemous in the sense that I teach English, but detest Shakespeare… I grew up Catholic, but am now atheist… I also feel like I don’t fit any political party anymore; I’m too far left, but it’s okay.
Ooh tell me more about detecting Shakespeare though you teach English
I mean, I detest a lot of people I used to like for many reasons. My biggest disappointment was Rudyard Kipling, because I love “If” so much, and Jungle book. I guess I also really loved Bill Cosby growing up. So many disappointments 😞
So tell me more about Shakespeare!
I think it starts with how much he was crammed down my throat. I had to read his stuff in high school, and then I had to take one particular college class devoted JUST to him, and then his stuff was required reading for my high school students when I taught k12, and I was like “ENOUGH! HE’S NOT THAT GREAT! I’M OVER IT!”
And THEN when I got my current job, some faculty just adored him, and when I advertised my World Lit course, I made posters that said “No More Dead White Guys” and they tried to get me fired for it.
SO, my experiences with that guy is not good. There are so many other writers who are more worthy of reading. Like, why wasn’t Salman Rushdie crammed down my throat? ERrrrrggggg.
Yes, lots of disappointments as I learn about people as an adult: Like Aristotle or Teddy Roosevelt or Lincoln. Oh well.
I don’t think I’ve heard of why Kipling is problematic?
BLASPHEME ON, Sybil!!! And as for very problematic Kipling, there’s a genius re-appropriation of his Just So Stories here, called NOT-SO STORIES 🙂
quote “Once upon a time, Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories—fantastical yarns of wondrous creatures in faraway places—bewitched children across the world. But times change. Today, Kipling’s writing tells us a different tale; of a love of Empire, and the troubling legacy of British colonialism. In Not So Stories, writers of colour from around the world reclaim these stories and remake them into something new. Something different. Something that belongs to us all.”
https://rebellionpublishing.com/product/not_so_stories/