Raising the Dead
An author’s visitation seems, in my students' eyes, a resurrection. The post Raising the Dead appeared first on Guernica.
Detail from Herman Henstenburgh's, "Vanitas Still Life." From the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When I announce that a visiting author is coming, my undergrads nearly drop the phones clutched in their laps, where they figure I can’t see them, and appear, for a fleeting moment, ecstatic. It must be a great lift to their spirits knowing that my monotonous autocracy will be interrupted, if only for one class. But it’s more than that. They’re elated at the opportunity to meet a living-and-breathing writer, one whose name is etched into the stone tablet of our syllabus. Their enthusiasm rarely stems from an affinity for any particular writer’s work, or even the prospect of rubbing elbows with
