History as Fiction—Lillian Tolman-Bronski

 Something that intrigued me about Kindred, was the sort of singular focus on Dana's lineage in position to Rufus. Of course, he was rather more prone to near-death experiences, but ostensibly Alice was close a few times, and it's important to recognize that this is a deliberate choice that the author made: to make her tied to Rufus, and not Alice, exclusively so far as we know. And she leaves the realm as he dies, not Alice, and he takes a part of her with him. Throughout the course of the novel, her allegiances lie with Rufus despite herself. She rues her inability to fully hate him, unlike Alice, who has had the same historic childhood bond with him.  The question at hand is why, and I think the answer must be something more than just merely that he is her ancestor. She has a love for him, one that surpasses reason, and one that is not visible with Alice. The book takes care to emphasize this bond as something sick and distorted, and reflects it in both Rufus and Dana's...

 Something that struck me as interesting about Mumbo Jumbo was how much factionalism there was between people who should arguably be fighting for the same thing.  The Knights of Templar vs the Teutonic Knights, and eventually the conflict's succession with the Order of The Wallflower, and perhaps even the Knights of Pythias and Knights of the White Camelia that were mentioned, suggested as being other factions. Even Warren Harding, an anti Jes-Grew president, and powerful figure was assassinated at the drop of the hat The conflicts themselves are not of extreme interest, but I think something important to look at is why. It is a deliberate choice made by the author to place such special attention on these historical feuds, contrasted with a relatively unified social movement in support of a psychological virus. Given Jes Grew's role as a metaphor for revolutionary social movements, it is important to understand the anti-Jes Grew movement as the upholder of the status quo and a...

Two reasons why we have titles such as "Father" and "Mameh" are obvious— a sort of plausible deniability for the events of the story and also the assurance of no misidentification. However, I think they're also supposed to represent a sort of universality, or at least a representation of the time. There are lines of societal development in all of the characters, and these applications are supposed to be generally extendable to all the fathers of the time, all the mothers, all the younger brothers. There was the reluctance to accept a more modern society from the patriarchal figure, the reserved dislike of the shifting culture of many fathers in America. There was the rise of first-wave feminism, the emergence from the cult of domesticity, the first disturbances of gender roles from many mothers in America. There was the rising revolutionary sentiment and mainstream radicalism—people such as Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman alongside enormous labor activity and socia...

I found the passage describing the automation process a particularly interesting part of Ragtime . The chapter starts off by describing the entrepreneurial spirit of America and the genius of Ford's inventions, his genius that has stripped down the necessities of production to what he perceives men to be capable of.  "He'd conceived the idea of breaking down the work operations in the assembly of an automobile to their simplest steps so that any fool could perform them. Instead of having one man learn the hundreds of tasks in the building of one motorcar, walking him hither and yon to pick out the parts from a general inventory, why not stand him in his place, have him do just one task over and over, and let the parts come past him on moving belts. Thus the worker's mental capacity would not be taxed" We enter on the scene of the test of his glory, and the first car has been produced. However, the first car is not his concern. He brushed the grass with the tip of ...