Roger Ebert And The Multicultural Passkey Of The Midwest
Shortly after he graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1964, Roger Ebert left his native Urbana for a yearlong postgrad fellowship in Cape Town, South Africa.
David Foster Wallace, Religion, And The Midwest
At the end of the film The End of the Tour, journalist David Lipsky (played by Jesse Eisenberg) and novelist David Foster Wallace (played by Jason Segel) return to where they first met, in Wallace’s bland house in Bloomington, Illinois.
Writing from the Borderlands
Clickbait is easy: just ask people to weigh in on stuff they have strong opinions about but will never agree on. Politics: clickbait gold. Red-carpet sartorial choices: those too.
The Jungle Is A Terrible Novel – So Why Does It Still Work?
Some time back, two friends gave my wife and I a housewarming present: a copy of Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jungle. Not the sunniest way to help a couple settle into a new house, but it’s a thoughtful gift if you know us.