Homework for ... some point in the near future

I mentioned earlier that I had applied for a summer seminar on decolonizing comparative rhetoric. I want to read some articles that might be relevant to this topic before then, but I have also come across some talks on YouTube that might help fill me in on the conversation. This video, for instance, is a lecture by LuMing Mao, a famous scholar in comparative rhetoric:

I might not be able to watch it until Thanksgiving (!) or winter break (!!), but I'll try to fit it in. By the way, the Delhi Comparatists seem to have a lot of interesting lectures and discussions.

Interview with Jonathan Lerner, author of Lily Narcissus, published

bookish.asia has published an interview I did with Jonathan Lerner about his new novel Lily Narcissus. I had fun talking with him about his writing process and how he does research for his writing. As someone who isn't a fiction writer, I'm fascinated by the differences in how their novels come together. Lerner used the word "unconscious" a few times, telling me, “I only found out what was going to happen to these characters as I unfurled the story.”

The interview is accompanied by some nice color slides of Taipei that Lerner's father took between 1957 and 1959, so check it out--and then buy his book!

Jhumpa Lahiri video about writing in Italian

This video about Jhumpa Lahiri gets into her experience of writing in Italian; I think I'll suggest it to my first-year writing students. One thing she says that I found interesting and might inspire some conversation is this:

I like being at the beginning again as a reader and as a writer. I like that I'm limited. I like that I only have a certain vocabulary and certain tools, and I can only go so far. That appeals to me.

I wonder what my students might think about that perspective...