Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Self Simplified- A Student’s Tool Kit

Posted on April 24, 2011 by M.A. Miller

Mission Statement: We are determined to simplify the critical jargon presented in the Tool Kit of Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson’s book “Reading Autobiography”in order to provide to all those in the Blogosphere a way of interpreting and analyzing autobiographies … Continue reading →

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Hello World, Rankine Speaking…

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Mallory B.

I’m finding that the more I read from Rankine, the more I sense a separation between narrator and text.  For a while I blamed both agency and authenticity, unreasonably upset that she would separate herself from her readers in such … Continue reading →

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A Quest for Agency: Don’t Let Me Be Lonely

Posted on April 13, 2011 by E.Peterson

Agency plays an ever-present role in Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. Her original work is splayed throughout with cultural references–medical, entertainment, sports, political, historical, and literary. A constant theme that appears strung through these references … Continue reading →

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I was told “You will never forget this moment”.

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Angela Pelaez

And I haven’t. There are moments in life where everything around you is internalized- cataclysmic moments where everything turns on itself and life shifts from what you’ve known. Hiroshima, the Kennedy assassination,  the stock market crash, they all come to … Continue reading →

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Claudia Rankine and Space in Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Liver

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Sonam

Reading Rankine’s unique work, I was struck by her frequent references to different prescription drugs, the television and the liver. As I read on, I felt that this was more of an Autobiography of America from a certain perspective in … Continue reading →

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Collective memory and the role of the media in Don’t Let Me Be Lonely

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Crystal Frost

In Reading Autobiography, Smith and Watson discuss the expanded possibilities for collective memory and the creation of “’imagined communities’” with the advent and widespread use of technologies such as television, film, and the Internet (26). The sense of identification with … Continue reading →

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Experience and the Reader in Don’t Let Me Be Lonely

Posted on April 12, 2011 by M.A. Miller

When I picked up Claudia Rankine’s book, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely from the University Bookstore, I read the title and gulped. I remembered hearing those words from my grandmother before she died and I remembered saying words like them … Continue reading →

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Rankine’s Lyric Voice and Form

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Meaghan K.

Considering Rankine’s obsession over understanding loss and ultimately death, I feel that the lyric is the perfect approach to trying to reify those abstract and complex ideas.  Her background as a poet allows her this liminal space between narrative and … Continue reading →

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The Moments Inbetween “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely”

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Marshall

For an individual who considers themselves “happy,” reading Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely is an exercise in self-restraint. “Why” you may angrily shout at the lifeless novel “can’t she stop being so damned depressed?” Yet to read Rankine’s … Continue reading →

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Don’t Kill My Embodiment

Posted on April 11, 2011 by John Vasoli

Don’t Let Me Be Lonely seems to be the wrong title for Claudia Rankine’s lyric about American life. I would suggest something more along the lines of Don’t Die on Me. Or, if that’s too cliche, perhaps something more subtle … Continue reading →

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