Category: Fiction
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Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
The basic situation of Robinson Crusoe’s early life was that of a young man who did not want to get a job. Robinson was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family. His father was a successful businessman, a trader in “merchandise.”
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Fiktion ist der Schlüssel zu kreativen Lösungen, von Alan N. Shapiro
Die Beschäftigung mit Fiktionen und Utopien ist nicht gerade en vogue. Erfolgreiche Transformationsbewegungen haben jedoch als Ausgangspunkt, dass ein anderes als das gegenwärtige Leben gewünscht wird oder vorstellbar ist – statt wie zur Zeit eine Hyperrealität als Zukunft zu akzeptieren.
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Homage to Bernie Sanders’ Democratic Socialism and George Orwell’s 1984, by Alan N. Shapiro
On April 4th of a year that he presumes to be 1984, Winston Smith positions himself in a small recessed space in his apartment, the only spot from which he cannot be observed by the telescreen. He begins to tranfer his “interminable restless monologue” onto the pages of a clandestinely procured hardbound writing tablet.
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Radical skepticism and the logic of Shakespeare’s artistry, by Robert Schneider
Robert Schneider is the author of a book-length reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice called Shylock, The Roman. This book is important as a basis for investigating the relationship between Shakespeare and Star Trek as twin canonical texts of what universities call “Western Civ.”
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The Identity and Anxiety of Colonial Dublin in Joyce’s Dubliners, by James Shapiro
“Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears…” This line from ‘The Sisters,’ the first story in James Joyce’s Dubliners, establishes from the outset a central theme of the collection.
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Journal Entry: The Void, by Mary Fox
What follows is neither philosophical, nor academic. It is, however, both self-indulgent and self-referential, as a journal can only be. It presents no “truths” and it is peppered with inconsistencies and flaws, because I am.