February 2016 – Princeton Writes

A Celebration of Student Writing

Stephanie Whetstone2016-02-29T15:09:57-05:00

In this post, Maha Al Fahim '19 describes a new initiative that Princeton Writes is sponsoring – one that will showcase the remarkable work that student writers on our campus are producing outside the classroom. A Celebration of Student Writing, to be held from 7:00-8:30 p.m. on Monday, April 11, in the Hamilton Murray Theater in Murray-Dodge Hall, is open to all current and admitted students, who may obtain free tickets at the University Ticketing box office in Frist Campus Center or, in the case of current students, by logging in online at tickets.princeton.edu, beginning March 28. Any remaining tickets will [...]

A Celebration of Student WritingStephanie Whetstone2016-02-29T15:09:57-05:00

Roundtable with Amy Rowland on February 23

Stephanie Whetstone2016-02-20T11:59:27-05:00

Novelist and National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellow Amy Rowland will lead a dinnertime discussion entitled "Finding Your Novel in Real Life" in Mathey College's Firestone Room on Tuesday, February 23, from 7:00-8:00 p.m. Rowland, whose debut novel, The Transcriptionist, earned her the Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters last year, will explore the relationship between fiction and reality. How, she will ask, do novelists choose what to take from life when constructing a fictional self, a character, or an imaginary world? Is all writing autobiographical, as the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Donald Murray famously [...]

Roundtable with Amy Rowland on February 23Stephanie Whetstone2016-02-20T11:59:27-05:00

corpulent (KÔR-pyə-lənt)

Stephanie Whetstone2016-02-15T12:00:59-05:00

Definition (Adjective) Large or bulky of body; fleshy, fat. In Context "In a documentary I once saw on the BBC about British expatriates in Spain, there was an unforgettable image -- a corpulent Englishwoman in the tiny kitchen of her restaurant on the Costa Blanca, serving up English dinners with roast beef, gravy, three veg, and Yorkshire pudding, the poor woman pink and sweating in the heat of a Spanish summer." Paul Richardson, A Late Dinner: Discovering the Food of Spain, 2007.

corpulent (KÔR-pyə-lənt)Stephanie Whetstone2016-02-15T12:00:59-05:00

William Jennings Bryan on Eloquence

Stephanie Whetstone2020-01-14T14:11:20-05:00

William Jennings Bryan on Eloquence William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic nominee for president and secretary of state in Woodrow Wilson's first administration, was among the foremost public speakers of his day. His "Cross of Gold" speech of 1896 has been described as "one of the greatest pieces of American political oratory ever," and he played a starring role in the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. In In His Image (1922), he devoted a chapter to "The Spoken Word" and the attributes of eloquence. Here is an excerpt: "Eloquence may be defined as the speech of one who knows what he is [...]

William Jennings Bryan on EloquenceStephanie Whetstone2020-01-14T14:11:20-05:00

purblind (PÛR-blīnd)

Stephanie Whetstone2016-02-08T12:00:48-05:00

Definition (Adjective) Having imperfect perception or discernment; lacking in or incapable of understanding or foresight; dim-witted; stupid. In Context "The purblind day was feebly struggling with the fog, when I opened my eyes to encounter those of a dirty-faced little spectre fixed upon me." Charles Dickens, Bleak House, 1853.

purblind (PÛR-blīnd)Stephanie Whetstone2016-02-08T12:00:48-05:00

braggadocio (brăg-ə-DŌ-shē-ō)

Stephanie Whetstone2016-02-01T12:00:48-05:00

Definition (Noun) An empty, idle boaster; a swaggerer. The talk of such a person, empty vaunting. In Context "A Berlin reviewer wrote of the film that 'there is an outpouring of more unbearable braggadocio here, more bloated bamboozlement and deceit than in a score of Hitler rallies.'" Steven Bach, Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl, 2007.

braggadocio (brăg-ə-DŌ-shē-ō)Stephanie Whetstone2016-02-01T12:00:48-05:00

Citizen (2014) by Claudia Rankine

Stephanie Whetstone2016-02-01T10:55:19-05:00

Critical Assessment "Claudia Rankine’s book may or may not be poetry – the question becomes insignificant as one reads on. Her achievement is to have created a bold work that occupies its own space powerfully, an unsettled hybrid – her writing on the hard shoulder of prose. She eavesdrops on America and a racism that has never gone away. Citizen won the National Book Critics Circle poetry award in the US in recognition, partly, of the shocking truth it tells. Through brief encounters and troubling retellings of recent news, Rankine puts one, as a white reader, on constant alert for any unconscious racism in oneself. [...]

Citizen (2014) by Claudia RankineStephanie Whetstone2016-02-01T10:55:19-05:00