The African American Poet as Historian

Poets do history — just not in the way that historians conceive of it

What is history? Not the past, but the creation of “history,” the writing of history, the teaching of history? Is it only something someone formally trained as a historian can do, even though scholars of literature and African American studies, and high school teachers and writers engage with the past, ...
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The African American Poet as Historian

Eco’s How to Write a Thesis

A love letter to the humanities

I first picked up Umberto Eco’s How to Write a Thesis at the campus Barnes and Noble while writing my own. It didn’t seem particularly instructive, but I skimmed the book, already too far into the process to use Eco’s meticulous suggestions about organizing readings and archives with notecards. But his belief ...
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Eco’s How to Write a Thesis