Sexing the Classics

Jo Page, who visited the Institute in March, ponders the forthcoming Fifty Shades of Grey versions of literary classics in Metroland column "Reckonings" this week:

"You’d think with all the sex there is in the world of literature—Poe with his necrophilia, Hawthorne with his adultery, Mailer and Miller and Updike and Roth with all manner of erotic expressiveness—that we wouldn’t need to go looking for more titillation. But maybe we do...."

More.

Read More......

Binnie Kirshenbaum Reads Monday 7/23

"A tremendous talent. Her novels are sexy, intelligent, complex, and provocative; they press against your heart the way old lovers do." — Junot Diaz

"Not many young female novelists can deal with sex, the appetite for it, and the loss of such appetite, with such candor, lack of self-protection, and humor as Binnie Kirshenbaum." — Norman Mailer

"...Kirshenbaum, the prolific writer of novels and stories written with wit and serious moral concern...is a presence to be reckoned with. One of her charms is that vestigial ladylike manner of a young woman who deports herself properly, aims for grace....(A) novelist of enormous cultural reach....the voice of a writer, known, or on the endless journey to knowing herself." — Maureen Howard

Kirshenbaum, who is also Chairperson of the Writing Program at Columbia University School of the Arts, will share the stage with award-winning memoirist and novelist Darrin Strauss, Monday,  July 203rd, 8PM, Davis Audiorium, Palamountain Hall, 815 North Broadway, Saratoga. Free.

Click here for more events in the series. All are free and open to the general public.

Read More......

Telecommunications and Sexual Relations ca. 1668

Bestselling science writer James Gleick, who visited last March (see a YouTube clip here), writes about state-of-the-art telecommunications in 1668 in the most recent entry on his blog "Around."

"Anyone interested in the relations between men and women (or any number of other topics) can get great pleasure from the day-by-day online version of The Diary of Samuel Pepys. It’s a soap opera. Especially at this moment (9 November 1668) and for the last few weeks (that is, 343 years ago).

If you’re not up to date, Sam’s wife caught him in flagrante with her 17-year-old maid, Deborah Willet. He wasn’t sure exactly how much she saw. At one point he confessed to the embracing but denied the kissing. Or the other way around." More.

Read More......