The imagination is often thought of as the antithesis of ordinary life, as something that escapes from the everyday into the exotic and strange. But one implication of this newsletter’s motto, “Imagination as the home of human life,” is that imagination begins at home. The ordinary and everyday are also constructed by the imagination, which invests common objects and daily rituals with significance. Someone could write a book called
I was thinking of Shakespeare's "weird sisters" in Macbeth chanting 'Fair is foul and foul is fair' while reading your newsletter, and then you ended it with something similar! Incidentally, the three witches were my favorite characters in the production I saw. Even if they manipulated Macbeth, they seemed to have a connection to the oracular language I love in literature.
As a middle school physical education teacher, I can attest to the many versions of clean and dirty. The thing that still baffles me is that the girls are often shamed for smelling, while boys still celebrate their foulness. Of course, at the elementary level, this isn't as big a deal because puberty hasn't happened yet, but societal norms are still alive and well there too.
While also listening to your podcast discussion of the Tempest, even Prospero prefers the airy spirit over the earthly fish-man. I wonder if his pushing away/hatred of the base and natural Caliban is his own repression of that in himself.
As always, I'm grateful for how you bring things to my attention that which I wouldn't otherwise contemplate.
I was thinking of Shakespeare's "weird sisters" in Macbeth chanting 'Fair is foul and foul is fair' while reading your newsletter, and then you ended it with something similar! Incidentally, the three witches were my favorite characters in the production I saw. Even if they manipulated Macbeth, they seemed to have a connection to the oracular language I love in literature.
As a middle school physical education teacher, I can attest to the many versions of clean and dirty. The thing that still baffles me is that the girls are often shamed for smelling, while boys still celebrate their foulness. Of course, at the elementary level, this isn't as big a deal because puberty hasn't happened yet, but societal norms are still alive and well there too.
While also listening to your podcast discussion of the Tempest, even Prospero prefers the airy spirit over the earthly fish-man. I wonder if his pushing away/hatred of the base and natural Caliban is his own repression of that in himself.
As always, I'm grateful for how you bring things to my attention that which I wouldn't otherwise contemplate.