Joshua GrassoRefusing to Read: A Hunger Strike of the Soul, a Vow of Intellectual CelibacyIn a recent Freshman Composition course, a student had a question about our first reading assignment, a short 8–9 page essay in our class…Jun 231Jun 231
Joshua GrassoWherever You Are Is Someone’s Somewhere Else: Or, Why It’s Okay To Settle Down and Not Move UpWhy is a direction the guiding metaphor for our entire lives? Think about it: what is it about “up” that makes it so appealing?…couldn’t…Dec 28, 20232Dec 28, 20232
Joshua GrassoHow I Forgot to Flunk My First Semester of College and Found My Life in a Humanities TextbookOct 22, 2023Oct 22, 2023
Joshua GrassoThe Novel That Launched a Thousand Childhoods: Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine (and what it means to…Note: all passages from the Bantam/Doubleday edition of the book (1976)Aug 3, 20231Aug 3, 20231
Joshua GrassoFanny Price: Jane Austen’s Greatest Heroine? Or an Insufferable Prude?Of all of Austen’s novels, Mansfield Park (1814) gets precious little attention and far too little love. Why? Actually, I’m somewhat at a…Jul 2, 20231Jul 2, 20231
Joshua GrassoDispatches From the Trenches of World War HumanitiesHUMANITIES MAJORS ARE DECLINING…SOME CALL IT THE END OF THE LIBERAL ARTS. IS THE WAR ALREADY LOST? OR ARE WE FIGHTING THE WRONG BATTLES?Jun 4, 202317Jun 4, 202317
Joshua GrassoThe Practice of Surrender: When Work Becomes Art in The Bhagavad GitaThe Story Behind the StoryFeb 13, 2023Feb 13, 2023
Joshua GrassoThe Problem With Star Wars: Myths Aren’t CanonAs a lifelong fan of Star Wars, I’ve watched it evolve from a hit series of movies in the late 70’s/early 80’s, to a pop culture sensation…Dec 29, 202211Dec 29, 202211
Joshua GrassoThe Loneliness of the Post-Pandemic ClassroomNoah Galuten’s essay, “Food, It Turns Out, Has Little to Do with Why I Love to Travel” (2020), documents his experiences eating his way…Aug 4, 2022Aug 4, 2022
Joshua GrassoLiterature Exists in the Margins: or, Why It Isn’t a Comic Book Without the Ads!It’s easy to forget that literature, whenever it was written, is a unique creation of its own time and space. That each book comes from…Jun 30, 20221Jun 30, 20221