Having been a teacher of one kind or another for about forty years, I’m calling this page HOMEWORK out of nostalgia (a Greek word often translated as "the pain of memory"). Let's pretend I've written all these things on the board or posted them to a class e-list. But you're not in school, you don’t have to do it, and I (not-really-your-teacher) have no idea if these things will be on the test.
I can only offer Arcana's Axioms:
If you're paying attention, it's all education.
and
Everything is more complicated than you think it is.
With that in mind, here are some prose books – stories long and short, fiction and non-fiction. I’ve chosen them (and everything on the lists that follow) for love and/or necessity. If you’ve not yet read them, consider reading them now; if you have, maybe this is a good time to read them again. There’s no particular order – I just thought, oh! that one! that one has to be on the list.
Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
Beloved + Sula + Paradise, Toni Morrison
Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Runaway, The Beggar Maid, Lives of Girls and Women + more story collections, Alice Munro
The Four-Gated City, Doris Lessing
The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
The Changelings, Jo Sinclair
Lost in the City + The Known World, Edward P. Jones
An Unsuitable Job for A Woman, P.D. James
Murder Must Advertise + probably all the other Wimsey books, Dorothy Sayers
The Little Disturbances of Man + Enormous Changes at the Last Minute + Later the Same Day, Grace Paley
Woman on the Edge of Time, Marge Piercy
Howards End + Maurice, E.M. Forster
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
The Way the Crow Flies, Anne-Marie MacDonald
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow
Emma + Pride and Prejudice + Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Toughest Indian in the World + Ten Little Indians + the first chapter of Indian Killer, Sherman Alexie
The Dollmaker, Harriette Arnow
Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson
Huckleberry Finn + more, Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens)
Blonde, Joyce Carol Oates
+
Look Me in the Eye, Barbara Macdonald with Cynthia Rich
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, Annette Gordon-Reed
Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, Alison Light
When and Where I Enter + IDA, A Sword Among Lions, Paula Giddings
Eleanor Roosevelt, Blanche Weisen Cook
1491, Charles C. Mann
Women Who Write Plays (interviews), ed. Alexis Greene
A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn
How Children Fail + How Children Learn, John Holt
Woman's Evolution, Evelyn Reed
Ah, ok. I see what’s happening here - there'll always be too many to list. But I'll add a few poets-of-the-moment anyway, people whose work has recently delighted me.
Sarah Lindsay ... Patricia Smith ... Bob Hicok ...... more later
And here’s a little batch of movies - fiction films; I may add more as they come to mind. You always knew teachers made their lists this way, didn't you?
Antonia's Line (dir. Marleen Gorris)
Monsoon Wedding (dir. Mira Nair)
Lone Star + Baby, It's You (dir. John Sayles)
Daughters of the Dust (dir. Julie Dash)
Smoke Signals (dir. Chris Eyre)
After Life (dir. Hirokazu Koreeda)
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (dir. Amy Heckerling)
If These Walls Could Talk, I & II (dir. I - Nancy Savoca, Cher; II - Jane Anderson, Martha Coolidge, Ann Heche)
Murmur of the Heart (dir. Louis Malle)
Harold and Maude (dir. Hal Ashby)
Last Night (dir. Don McKellar)
The History Boys (dir. Nicholas Hytner)
I Like It Like That (dir. Darnell Martin)
Citizen Ruth (dir. Alexander Payne)
All Over Me (dir. Alex Sichel)
The Visitor (dir. Thomas McCarthy )
Nothing But A Man (dir. Michael Roemer)
I'm Not There + Safe + Far from Heaven (dir. Todd Haynes)
Real Genius (dir. Martha Coolidge)
Thelma and Louise (dir. Ridley Scott)
Do the Right Thing (dir. Spike Lee)
My Brilliant Career + High Tide (dir. Gillian Armstrong)
My Life Without Me (dir. Isabel Coixet)
Silverado (dir. Lawrence Kasdan)
Whale Rider (dir. Niki Caro)
Monster (dir. Patty Jenkins)
American Splendor (dir. Shari Berman and Bob Pulcini)
The Winter Guest (dir. Alan Rickman)
Some writers, artists and activists to visit.
playwright, journalist, lawyer, activist Cindy Cooper: cyncooperwriter.net
writer, cartoonist, performer Nicole Hollander: nicolehollander.com
activist, coach, fiber artist, scholar/teacher/writer Gwyn Kirk: gwynkirk.net
poet, activist, scholar/teacher Minnie Bruce Pratt: www.mbpratt.org
poet and memoirist Judith Barrington: judithbarrington.com
activist and blogger Bob Simpson: http://www.bobboblog.org/bobbo-50
Some projects and organizations to learn from, work with and support.
Movies Directed by Women: Movies By Women
Organic Consumers Association: organicconsumers.org
Chicago Women’s Liberation Union: cwluherstory.org
The Fund for Women Artists & The WomenArts Network: womenarts.org
+ lots of cool useful information about bridges in Portland, Oregon: bridgestories.com
+ visit the JANE page for links to organizations that work for reproductive justice
I can only offer Arcana's Axioms:
If you're paying attention, it's all education.
and
Everything is more complicated than you think it is.
With that in mind, here are some prose books – stories long and short, fiction and non-fiction. I’ve chosen them (and everything on the lists that follow) for love and/or necessity. If you’ve not yet read them, consider reading them now; if you have, maybe this is a good time to read them again. There’s no particular order – I just thought, oh! that one! that one has to be on the list.
Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
Beloved + Sula + Paradise, Toni Morrison
Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Runaway, The Beggar Maid, Lives of Girls and Women + more story collections, Alice Munro
The Four-Gated City, Doris Lessing
The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
The Changelings, Jo Sinclair
Lost in the City + The Known World, Edward P. Jones
An Unsuitable Job for A Woman, P.D. James
Murder Must Advertise + probably all the other Wimsey books, Dorothy Sayers
The Little Disturbances of Man + Enormous Changes at the Last Minute + Later the Same Day, Grace Paley
Woman on the Edge of Time, Marge Piercy
Howards End + Maurice, E.M. Forster
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
The Way the Crow Flies, Anne-Marie MacDonald
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow
Emma + Pride and Prejudice + Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Toughest Indian in the World + Ten Little Indians + the first chapter of Indian Killer, Sherman Alexie
The Dollmaker, Harriette Arnow
Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson
Huckleberry Finn + more, Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens)
Blonde, Joyce Carol Oates
+
Look Me in the Eye, Barbara Macdonald with Cynthia Rich
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, Annette Gordon-Reed
Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, Alison Light
When and Where I Enter + IDA, A Sword Among Lions, Paula Giddings
Eleanor Roosevelt, Blanche Weisen Cook
1491, Charles C. Mann
Women Who Write Plays (interviews), ed. Alexis Greene
A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn
How Children Fail + How Children Learn, John Holt
Woman's Evolution, Evelyn Reed
Ah, ok. I see what’s happening here - there'll always be too many to list. But I'll add a few poets-of-the-moment anyway, people whose work has recently delighted me.
Sarah Lindsay ... Patricia Smith ... Bob Hicok ...... more later
And here’s a little batch of movies - fiction films; I may add more as they come to mind. You always knew teachers made their lists this way, didn't you?
Antonia's Line (dir. Marleen Gorris)
Monsoon Wedding (dir. Mira Nair)
Lone Star + Baby, It's You (dir. John Sayles)
Daughters of the Dust (dir. Julie Dash)
Smoke Signals (dir. Chris Eyre)
After Life (dir. Hirokazu Koreeda)
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (dir. Amy Heckerling)
If These Walls Could Talk, I & II (dir. I - Nancy Savoca, Cher; II - Jane Anderson, Martha Coolidge, Ann Heche)
Murmur of the Heart (dir. Louis Malle)
Harold and Maude (dir. Hal Ashby)
Last Night (dir. Don McKellar)
The History Boys (dir. Nicholas Hytner)
I Like It Like That (dir. Darnell Martin)
Citizen Ruth (dir. Alexander Payne)
All Over Me (dir. Alex Sichel)
The Visitor (dir. Thomas McCarthy )
Nothing But A Man (dir. Michael Roemer)
I'm Not There + Safe + Far from Heaven (dir. Todd Haynes)
Real Genius (dir. Martha Coolidge)
Thelma and Louise (dir. Ridley Scott)
Do the Right Thing (dir. Spike Lee)
My Brilliant Career + High Tide (dir. Gillian Armstrong)
My Life Without Me (dir. Isabel Coixet)
Silverado (dir. Lawrence Kasdan)
Whale Rider (dir. Niki Caro)
Monster (dir. Patty Jenkins)
American Splendor (dir. Shari Berman and Bob Pulcini)
The Winter Guest (dir. Alan Rickman)
Some writers, artists and activists to visit.
playwright, journalist, lawyer, activist Cindy Cooper: cyncooperwriter.net
writer, cartoonist, performer Nicole Hollander: nicolehollander.com
activist, coach, fiber artist, scholar/teacher/writer Gwyn Kirk: gwynkirk.net
poet, activist, scholar/teacher Minnie Bruce Pratt: www.mbpratt.org
poet and memoirist Judith Barrington: judithbarrington.com
activist and blogger Bob Simpson: http://www.bobboblog.org/bobbo-50
Some projects and organizations to learn from, work with and support.
Movies Directed by Women: Movies By Women
Organic Consumers Association: organicconsumers.org
Chicago Women’s Liberation Union: cwluherstory.org
The Fund for Women Artists & The WomenArts Network: womenarts.org
+ lots of cool useful information about bridges in Portland, Oregon: bridgestories.com
+ visit the JANE page for links to organizations that work for reproductive justice