English Lessons | Big Think

English Lessons | Big Think http://bigthink.com/blogs/english-lessons English Lessons is a new blog celebrating writing we love, and illuminating why we love it—and what we can learn from it. Poetry, fiction, editorials; Presidential speeches, classic texts, criticism: English Lessons looks at how words used well can change the way we think about the world around us.  Sun, 19 May 2013 19:57:40 -0000 Copyright Big Think. This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License. Lesson 21: Gloria Steinem’s Aphorisms; Fish, Power, Love, Bunnies, and Life http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bigthink/blogs/english-lessons/~3/H5HKs9USq70/lesson-21-gloria-steinems-aphorisms-fish-power-love-bunnies-and-life http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-21-gloria-steinems-aphorisms-fish-power-love-bunnies-and-life Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:28:52 -0400 a man needs God like a fish needs a bicycle. U2 used the line well once, catching the additional irony of the idea when sung by a man. Yet ...

Read More]]> Lea Carpenter http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-21-gloria-steinems-aphorisms-fish-power-love-bunnies-and-life Lesson 20: JSOC-talk; When Less Is More: “For God and country: Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo.” http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bigthink/blogs/english-lessons/~3/nH5gFO73ktU/lesson-20-jsoc-talk-when-less-is-more-for-god-and-country-geronimo-geronimo-geronimo http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-20-jsoc-talk-when-less-is-more-for-god-and-country-geronimo-geronimo-geronimo Thu, 04 Aug 2011 09:48:57 -0400 this week’s New Yorker , we learn a little bit more not only about what happened in the last hours of the bin Laden raid, but also about how the ...

Read More]]> Lea Carpenter http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-20-jsoc-talk-when-less-is-more-for-god-and-country-geronimo-geronimo-geronimo Lesson 19: RFK; The Language of Atonement, and Classical References http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bigthink/blogs/english-lessons/~3/7cAonIjkMlY/lesson-19-rfk-the-language-of-atonement-and-classical-references http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-19-rfk-the-language-of-atonement-and-classical-references Wed, 13 Jul 2011 09:25:26 -0400 Robert F. Kennedy’s papers are being reviewed inspired us to revisit one of the former Attorney General’s finest speeches, one we have not written about here before. It was a speech given only three years following the assassination of RFK’s brother, and one given at ...

Read More]]> Lea Carpenter http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-19-rfk-the-language-of-atonement-and-classical-references Lesson 18: Sheryl Sandberg; Can A Speech Teach Ambition? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bigthink/blogs/english-lessons/~3/74Hyjc3cmVA/lesson-18-sheryl-sandberg-can-a-speech-teach-ambition http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-18-sheryl-sandberg-can-a-speech-teach-ambition Tue, 05 Jul 2011 14:38:14 -0400 Sheryl Sandberg in The New Yorker is an excellent companion to Sandberg’s TED speech of last December. The latter was passed like a Dead bootleg among a certain group of women who had made a certain set of choices in their lives, perhaps not unlike the way Gwyneth Paltrow’s ...

Read More]]> Lea Carpenter http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-18-sheryl-sandberg-can-a-speech-teach-ambition Lesson 17: Rockstar Games, Violence, Justice: If It’s Violent, Do We Care If It’s Literature? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bigthink/blogs/english-lessons/~3/tnibEJUxsk4/lesson-17-rockstar-games-violence-justice-if-its-violent-do-we-care-if-its-literature http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-17-rockstar-games-violence-justice-if-its-violent-do-we-care-if-its-literature Tue, 28 Jun 2011 15:38:16 -0400
Read More]]> Lea Carpenter http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-17-rockstar-games-violence-justice-if-its-violent-do-we-care-if-its-literature Lesson 16: W.H. Auden; War Talk, and Expectations http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bigthink/blogs/english-lessons/~3/r9Qg0yxz3sk/lesson-16-wh-auden-war-talk-and-expectations http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-16-wh-auden-war-talk-and-expectations Sun, 26 Jun 2011 18:26:35 -0400 a Goldilocks ...

Read More]]> Lea Carpenter http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-16-wh-auden-war-talk-and-expectations Lesson 15: Fermor; What Does A Soldier Scholar's Prose Look Like? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bigthink/blogs/english-lessons/~3/RWdtrzCZaos/lesson-15-fermor-what-does-a-soldier-scholars-prose-look-like http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-15-fermor-what-does-a-soldier-scholars-prose-look-like Thu, 16 Jun 2011 18:59:46 -0400 New York Times, “The Humanist in the Foxhole,” stands alone as a cool piece of writing worth studying. Kaplan writes: Unlike the young Winston Churchill in Sudan or the Prussian general Helmuth von Moltke journeying through the Ottoman ...

Read More]]> Lea Carpenter http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-15-fermor-what-does-a-soldier-scholars-prose-look-like Lesson 14: Children’s Literature; The Genius of Go the F*** to Sleep http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bigthink/blogs/english-lessons/~3/5q7xaKwivhw/lesson-14-childrens-literature-the-genius-of-go-the-f-to-sleep http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-14-childrens-literature-the-genius-of-go-the-f-to-sleep Wed, 08 Jun 2011 16:25:53 -0400 Go the F*** to Sleep is extremely powerful, and it’s extremely powerful for an audience who has supported and stomached and loved and memorized-to-the-point-of-loving-slightly-less the canon of (small) children’s literature. After board books, after McSweeney’s Baby Be of ...

Read More]]> Lea Carpenter http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-14-childrens-literature-the-genius-of-go-the-f-to-sleep Lesson 13: V.S. Naipaul: Does The Sex of The Author Matter? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bigthink/blogs/english-lessons/~3/WKh1IqPK2mw/lesson-13-vs-naipaul-does-the-sex-of-the-author-matter http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-13-vs-naipaul-does-the-sex-of-the-author-matter Fri, 03 Jun 2011 20:05:43 -0400 Naipaul is without question or controversy one of the finest living writers. Yet the controversy surrounding his recent interview with the Royal Geographic Society, in which he effectively takes down the history of literature written by women with a British public schoolboy’s damning phrase ...

Read More]]> Lea Carpenter http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-13-vs-naipaul-does-the-sex-of-the-author-matter Lesson 12: Pericles’ Funeral Oration; On Memorial Day, An Ode to Hearts and Soldiers http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bigthink/blogs/english-lessons/~3/Vl8bYPJ_X0A/lesson-12-pericles-funeral-oration-on-memorial-day-an-ode-to-hearts-and-soldiers http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-12-pericles-funeral-oration-on-memorial-day-an-ode-to-hearts-and-soldiers Mon, 30 May 2011 18:48:47 -0400 The Heart and the Fist , former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens writes about the Greek conception of phronesis. A kind of practical wisdom (a poor translation, but the closest), phronesis is a bit like a moral compass; it couples the ability to make choices with the knowledge that those choices ...

Read More]]> Lea Carpenter http://bigthink.com/ideas/lesson-12-pericles-funeral-oration-on-memorial-day-an-ode-to-hearts-and-soldiers