Category: American Literature

19thCLit, 21st Century Lit, 4 Quartets, American Literature, Australian Literature, Exploring Literature (Clemente), Extra-Mural Teaching, Francis Webb, Literature in Time and Space ENGL111, Literature: An Introduction, Literature: An Introduction 2020, New York, Nineteenth, Nineteenth Century Literature Test, NSW Art Gallery, Oz Lit, Poetry of Grace @ Aquinas, Poetry Workshops, Reading Australia, Research and Writing, Rilke, Shakespeare Plus, The Sacred in Literature and the Arts, Twentieth Century Literature ENGL202, Visionary Blake, Visionary Imagination, William Blake, Wisdom, x Blogging

Greetings and farewell from A/Prof Michael Griffith (Literature: Strathfield)

by michaelgriffith1 • June 30, 2022 • 0 Comments

I am retiring after 45 years at ACU. While it certainly sounds a long time, I remember vividly my first days on Castle Hill Campus in 1977 and then the flow of new literature students, through Castle Hill, then Mount Saint Mary and occasionally MacKillop. Every year a wonderful crop of new faces, new enthusiasms!…

American Literature, New York, x Blogging

Top of the Class ePortfolios in American Literature

by michaelgriffith1 • November 27, 2019 • 0 Comments

Here are the top 12 ePortfolios presented for marking in American Literature ENGL204- and indeed it was very hard to pick between them. All are outstanding examples of the art of blogging and of creating an effective ePortfolio in WordPress. More importantly they all demonstate a passionate interest in the way that literature can shape…

American Literature, x Blogging

Robert Frost and Robert Lowell 2019

by michaelgriffith1 • October 20, 2019 • 0 Comments

Two Roberts- Frost and Lowell This week we are exploring the contrasting worlds of Robert Frost and Robert Lowell, two iconic poets of North America who have done so much to “Sing America” in the Twentieth Century. Robert Frost, inheritor of the transcendentalists and of the energy of Walt Whitman, powerfully expresses his deep love for the American landscape…

American Literature, x Blogging

American Literature Week 11

by michaelgriffith1 • October 15, 2019 • 0 Comments

Important advice for ePortfolio uploads:

American Literature, x Blogging

The Beats & Postmodernism

by michaelgriffith1 • October 14, 2019 • 1 Comment

I hope you have enjoyed exploring, interrogating this group of poets and artists. Perhaps top of the list, in my estimation, comes Patti Smith who gigantically carries forward the subversive, passionate impulse of Ginsberg, Kerouac, O’Hara and Ashberry. Here she is singing her heart out, challenging all the heartless stereotypes that infect contemporary America: https://youtu.be/LNnC8hYOmlw Blog…

American Literature, Australian Literature, Oz Lit, Visionary Blake, Visionary Imagination, William Blake, x Blogging

Sacred Silence in Literature and the Arts

by michaelgriffith1 • October 1, 2019 • 2 Comments

ACU students are welcome to attend this event for free on presentation of their student ID on the day. Come and be enlightened as never before and enjoy the company and the good food. You can find the full program details right here: Sacred Literature Conference Program Final

American Literature, x Blogging

American Modernism and Manifestos

by michaelgriffith1 • September 24, 2019 • 0 Comments

Please find the audio lecture followed by the slides used and then the audio tutorial followed by the whiteboard image discussed. Modernism American 2019 Hi All, today we had a saunter through the highways and byways of American Modernism, beginning with William Carlos Williams and ending with Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin’s parody of Adolf Hitler in The…

American Literature, x Blogging

William Faulkner – Week 8- As I Lay Dying

by michaelgriffith1 • September 24, 2019 • 0 Comments

This week Jess ventured into the amazing territory of William Faulkner’s re-creation of the world from the inside. He takes us right into the centre of the consciousness of each of his characters Addie Bundren, Anse Bundren and their children (Cash, Darl, Dewey Dell, Vardaman and Jewel [fathered by Whitfield]. Each character has their own way…

American Literature, x Blogging

African American Literature- Since The Civil War

by michaelgriffith1 • September 10, 2019 • 0 Comments

Images from Today’s Lecture: African American Writing Recordings from today’s classes: Today we strode through a host of key writers, men and women, who were powerfully proclaiming the need for free expression and total acceptance as humans. Underpinned by Martin Luther King Jr, all these writers expressed passionately their sense of injustice and their need for healing.…

American Literature, x Blogging

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson

by michaelgriffith1 • August 21, 2019 • 3 Comments

These are two of the greatest American poets of the Nineteenth Century. You are going to love their insights, their passion and their originality. Please go and read carefully the introductions to both poets in either volume of the 2 Anthologies: page 1070 and page 1246 in Volume 1 (The Norton Anthology of American Literature…

American Literature, New York, x Blogging

American Literature 2019 Session 1

by michaelgriffith1 • July 30, 2019 • 0 Comments

Today we romped through an historical and cultural survey of American Literature, beginning with the early 17th Century and ending up with Tupak today! We also had a wonderful tutorial exploring Thoreau’s decision to live “deliberately” and not to die feeling that he hadn’t really lived. This paragraph provoked some powerful deep self-questioning by…

American Literature, Australian Literature, Bush Walking, Oz Lit, Visionary Imagination, William Blake, x Blogging

A Pome- from a recently discovered Manuscript of a play by W. Shakespeare

by michaelgriffith1 • July 28, 2019 • 5 Comments

Spring is come The grass is riz Oi wonder where the flowers iz But Shakespeare was wrong this time: the flowers are blooming, exploding around Sydney now in the dead of winter!!. This is the amazing aspect of living on the 33rd parallel: the seasons cannot make up their minds: is it winter? is it…

American Literature, x Blogging

American Literature 2019

by michaelgriffith1 • July 24, 2019 • 0 Comments

Hello All, We will be starting our exploration of American Lit next week and this is where I will be posting my key thoughts about the reading I am doing on the subject. So please stay tuned. I hope all of you will buy the text (The Norton Shorter Anthology of American Literature 9th Edition:…

American Literature, New York, x Blogging

New York 2019 Tutorial 2

by michaelgriffith1 • January 2, 2019 • 0 Comments

Hi All, thank you for your wonderful contributions to today’s classes. We felt that you learnt a lot and -if you read the texts and ready and listen to the study guides you should not have a problem with our quizzes. The drama quiz will remain on January 9th (NSW & VIC 11-12; QLD 10-11.…

American Literature, New York, x Blogging

African American Writing: Harlem, New York: James Baldwin

by michaelgriffith1 • December 10, 2018 • 0 Comments

Please find here the first audio talk on James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On The Mountain. Also find underneath, notes and links to the content mentioned in the talk: Page of Links and Clips on James Baldwin (1924-1987) https://www.biography.com/people/james-baldwin-9196635- Please watch the short 3 minute clip on James Baldwin’s life at the start of this article. It…

American Literature, Australian Literature, New York, x Blogging

Best American Literature Blogs 2017

by michaelgriffith1 • November 25, 2017 • 1 Comment

American Literature was a new unit for me to teach this semester at Australian Catholic University, but it dovetails beautifully into the short intensive unit I teach in January The Literature and Drama of New York which is being taught in January in the snow and ice of that amazing city. So this semester-long unit American Literature…

American Literature, Australian Literature, Reading Australia, x Blogging

Best Australian Literature Blogs 2017

by michaelgriffith1 • November 25, 2017 • 0 Comments

Russell Drysdale “The Mountain Has Its Own Meaning” Judith Wright An occasion for celebration: Australian Literature – a first year unit at Australian Catholic University- has again produced an extraordinary group of bloggers. Their work reveals how blogging has enabled them to connect with Aust. Lit. in a way that expands beyond the rigours of…

American Literature, Australian Literature, Reading Australia, x Blogging

Reading Australia: Best Summative Blog Posts for 2017

by michaelgriffith1 • November 17, 2017 • 0 Comments

There have been some truly fabulous Summative Blog Posts from the group of students who have just finished the third year unit Reading Australia. Such wonderful reflections that bring into focus students’ ethnicity, their appreciation of what Australian culture has to offer, but also their deep sadness at the continuing injustices, especially to indigenous people.…

American Literature, x Blogging

The Beats, New York School, Postmodernism

by michaelgriffith1 • October 20, 2017 • 0 Comments

What an amazing day we have had exploring, interrogating this group of poets and artists. Perhaps top of the list comes Patti Smith who gigantically carries forward the subversive, passionate impulse of Ginsberg, Kerouac, O’Hara and Ashberry. Here she is singing her heart out, challenging all the heartless stereotypes that infect contemporary America: https://youtu.be/LNnC8hYOmlw Blog Topics:…

American Literature, x Blogging

William Faulkner As I Lay Dying

by michaelgriffith1 • October 6, 2017 • 2 Comments

This week we ventured into the amazing territory of William Faulkner’s re-creation of the world from the inside. He takes us right into the centre of the consciousness of each of his characters Addie Bundren, Anse Bundren and their children (Cash, Darl, Dewey Dell, Vardaman and Jewel [fathered by Whitfield]. Each character has their own way…

American Literature, x Blogging

American Modernism

by michaelgriffith1 • September 22, 2017 • 0 Comments

Hi All, today we had a saunter through the highways and byways of American Modernism, beginning with William Carlos Williams and ending with Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin’s parody of Adolf Hitler in The Great Dictator is one of the great modernist, linguistic deconstructions of political grandiosity. It is paralleled by Chaplin’s closing speech where, using an entirely different…

American Literature, x Blogging

Two Roberts- Frost and Lowell

by michaelgriffith1 • September 15, 2017 • 0 Comments

Today we explored the contrasting worlds of Robert Frost and Robert Lowell, two iconic poets of North America who have done so much to “Sing America” in the Twentieth Century. Robert Frost, inheritor of the transcendentalists and of the energy of Walt Whitman, powerfully expresses his deep love for the American landscape and of its…

American Literature, x Blogging

African American Writing since the Civil War

by michaelgriffith1 • September 8, 2017 • 0 Comments

Today we strode through a host of key writers, men and women, who were powerfully proclaiming the need for free expression and total acceptance as humans. Underpinned by Martin Luther King Jr, all these writers expressed passionately their sense of injustice and their need for healing. Most powerful of all was James Baldwin in his…

American Literature, x Blogging

Mark Twain- Huckleberry Finn (& other things!)

by michaelgriffith1 • September 1, 2017 • 0 Comments

As we learned today Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) was quite a character, perhaps a little like a Michael Moore of the 19th Century, daring to satirize and expose everything that stood in the way of a truly humane way of being human! His story “The War Prayer” (which you can read by clicking here https://www.antiwar.com/orig/twain1.html)…

American Literature, x Blogging

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson

by michaelgriffith1 • August 25, 2017 • 0 Comments

The father and mother of American poetry! That is what this pair have been called; see Ginsberg, along with Sharon Olds and Galway Kinnell singing their praises: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M5O3_FYB4A This week we have explored “Song of Myself”, “The Brooklyn Ferry” and a host of poems by Emily Dickinson. The present such an astonishing difference in life-style and…

American Literature, x Blogging

Transcendentalism Week 3

by michaelgriffith1 • August 19, 2017 • 0 Comments

This week Jess Brooks gave a wonderful exposition of the richness of the transcendentalists in 19th Century America. These clearly are a key to understanding later developments in American Literature, especially its spirituality and its search for authenticity in human experience. Emerson and Thoreau were the central focus of her presentation; both the lecture and…

American Literature, x Blogging

American Writing- Just the Beginning!

by michaelgriffith1 • August 11, 2017 • 0 Comments

Thank you all for your keen participation in this new unit. We are off to a great start with a survey of the Soul of America (text is now in the library -Close Reserve) and today American Indian Writing. Both topics are closely tied together. The spiritual emptiness of contemporary American culture seems to be…