Matthew Biberman's Blog
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Jun.19.2011
I am a father and I am a son. My father, Sid, lives with me and has since 2001. Back then, I was 34 and deeply resented this turn of events. People I knew assumed that somehow I had failed and had to boomerang back to live my dad.
This is the story our culture has come to expect. It is the...
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Mar.27.2011
When the Puritans closed the theaters in 1642, they destroyed a theatrical world we have since come to cherish. With the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, play going resumed but the age of Faustus and Hamlet had come to an end. An artistic community is a living entity and two decades of...
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Feb.14.2011
We have no respect for Valentine's Day, and I think we should.
Valentine's Day, understood correctly, is the most radical holiday of all. It is a day to celebrate love between humans. You can say that about Christmas, and Hanukkah, and Ramadan and Kwanzaa and every other holiday. You can say...
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Jan.26.2011
In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama declared that, when it comes to the business of higher education, America remains the country to beat. "We are home to the world's best colleges and universities," he said, "where more students come to study than any other...
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Jan.23.2011
Amy Chua wants us to talk about how Americans should be raising their children. Are we too soft? Should we be tougher? People are taking sides.
But I would submit that all this talk of so-called tiger mothers has less to do with being a parent and everything to do with what it means today to...
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Jan.19.2011
In her first interview since the Tucson, Ariz., massacre, Sarah Palin defended her use of the phrase "blood libel" in a video statement she posted last week. She told Sean Hannity that the term "obviously means being falsely accused of having blood on your hands. And in this case...
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Jan.14.2011
In my last opinion piece for AOL News ("Educators Can Help Prevent Future Giffords Tragedies," Jan. 10), I argued that, in the wake of the Tucson massacre, American educators need to familiarize themselves with the signs of psychosis and make a commitment to intervene when required....
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Jan.10.2011
The note said "I hope you die like that fat pig Ebert." The detective handed it back to me. We were sitting in my office at the University of Louisville. Someone, most likely a student in my Introduction to Humanities class, had left it for me to find.
The detective said, "It's...
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Dec.26.2010
It wasn't until I watched the sun set in Scotland that I began to rethink my idea of hitch hiking across the United Kingdom. Days ago, down in London I had first stood by an on-ramp hoping to catch a ride. I was an American studying abroad and I had decided to spend my winter break exploring....
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Dec.26.2010
--a guest blog by my daughter LUCY
Have you ever wanted to be a wizard?
Chances are if you’re between the ages of 26 and 6, the answer is yes. And we can thank J. K. Rowling for that. Her Harry Potter franchise has been gaining more and more fans since the first book was published way back in...
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Dec.03.2010
It's tough getting your story out, especially when you're an author with something to say. The publishing industry, like a lot of media, is changing radically -- and writers have to find more ways to have their product stand out in a crowded field.
There's an advantage if you write commercial...
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Nov.06.2010
Anyone who frequents the fiction section of a good independent bookstore knows that there is something of a cottage industry of writers currently churning out fiction invested in capturing the lived experience of ex-pat Indians who have moved to America. One of the more distinctive elements of...
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Sep.19.2010
--for G
The challenge for the reader of Shakespeare’s best known play appears most powerfully in Act I, Scene 2 when Romeo learns of the Capulet party. From his earliest efforts, Shakespeare reserved the second scene for his greatest artistic experiments, and, at least early on, the results are...
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Jul.20.2010
My friend and grad school adviser Stanley Fish sent shock waves through the blogosphere when he praised Sarah Palin's book. "I wouldn't count myself a fan in the sense of being a supporter," he wrote in a review, still "I found it compelling and very well done." Given the...
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Jul.10.2010
One enduring legacy of Freud’s work is the broad recognition within the culture of his “Oedipal” Theory. Most educated people can parse Freud’s claim, namely that early in the child’s development, he (and as first formulated the infant is a he) struggles to resolve his love of his mother with his...
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About Matthew
Currently a professor of English at the University of Louisville, I teach and publish on a wide range of literature, most often British Literature from Shakespeare to the Romantics along with contemporary Theory. I also work as a motorcycle mechanic, doing...
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Causes Matthew Biberman Supports
Amnesty International
Matthew’s Favorite Books
Today's desert island list: Shakespeare, Milton, the Romantics--esp Keats and Coleridge, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Hart Crane, Berryman, Lowell...