Mark Twain – background, history, works, writing style

“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn” (biography.com). Mark Twain was one of the first to use raw language, short words, and distinct accents in his writings. During his time, most authors looked to the British for their approval. His work was controversial for some because it discussed … Read more

The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born – Ayi Kwei Armah

The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born unfolds in a post-colonial Ghana grappling with what it means to be independent. The account is unforgiving. Author Ayi Kwei Armah describes a state mired in corruption that teeters on the edge of a military coup. Delving deep into Ghana, it questions the source of the rot within … Read more

The Roamers

The Roamers is set in a world of the mind, far from the concept of realism. It begins with a vague economical description of the city of Naramunz where a toymaker named Darzutash, owns a toy shop near the merchant’s gate. The protagonist, Darzutash is a ‘humble’ yet mysterious character who presents himself merely as … Read more

Eula Biss – “Time and distance overcome”

Since the dawn of mankind, inventions and technology have changed the world. The telephone has helped millions of people to get back in touch, and communicate with family and friends. It is truly and astonishing accomplishment to build machine like the telephone, which in the late 1800-hundreds were wired and connected to telephone poles, and … Read more

Giuseppe Di Lampedusa’s The Leopard

Italian history of 1860s is generally told in the lens of the victors: the defeaters of Austrian empire and other international rule over the dispersed Italian states, and the unifiers of Italy into one nation. Indeed, extensive discussion of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the courageous Italian patriot who led the Italian unification and liberated Italy from traditional … Read more

Freud’s illustration of coca as a remarkable and versatile resource in “Über Coca”

Nineteenth-century economic, scientific, and social changes prompted revived interest in coca, and its alkaloid cocaine, crystallized first in 1960. Yet to continue on the trajectory to achieve status as a world commodity, coca and cocaine still needed “modern” uses and outlets, reinforced scientific prestige, new passionate advocates, and the support of capitalist interests. Sigmund Freud’s … Read more

‘Abd al-Rahmdn Munif: Man against Nature.

In ‘Abd al-Rahman Munif s novel Nihdydt the spatial setting is less pri mordial than in NazTf al-hagar. Here, the story revolves around a small town on the edge of the desert, named al-TIbah. In the East are the well, the market, orchards and the mountains; in the North and West are plains and hills … Read more

Watson’s Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay

Watson’s Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay is one of the greatest dual bibliographies of political personalities to be written in the early 19th century setting. The book entails a plethora of arguments regarding democracy and development of the United States in the first half of the 19th century. The setting of the book covers an … Read more

Damascus literature review

1. Zeitlian Watenpaugh, Heghnar. “The Image of an Ottoman City: Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries”. Leiden/Boston: E. J. Brill (2004), p 1-23. Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of California, Davis. Her research concerns urban and architectural history in the Middle … Read more

Oedipus the King

Oedipus the King is a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles. The story is about Oedipus who becomes the king of Thebes. Throughout the play he finds out that he is unknowingly married to his mother and killed his father. The point of view of the chorus and therefore the purpose is a different one than … Read more

Chapter two of Juan Gonzales’s Harvest of Empire – critical analysis

Chapter two of Juan Gonzales’s Harvest of Empire discusses the key differences and relationships between the United States and Latin America during the nineteenth century. The chapter, entitled “The Spanish Borderlands and the Making of an Empire (1810-1898)”, opens with a quote from Thomas Jefferson describing his take on American Manifest Destiny, or the idea … Read more

Character paper – Leah Schwartz

Character: Leah Schwartz Character Paper I’ve been a laborer since I was very young. Papa brought us to the United States when anti-Semitism began to rise in Russia, and he thought it would be easy to find a job with his fine tailoring skills. But when we realized employers just wanted human machines for workers, … Read more