I know of him and have One Day in the Life. Stalin and his purges are a bit trivialized in the class (based on weeks given to particular subjects), so I think I'll only have time for a poem (by Mandelstam or others) and then the historical stuff. But I'll keep him in mind.
Are you looking at Solzhenitsyn too then? Not sure if there are short stories, but passages from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archipelago might prove useful.
Yes, fits quite well, I think. Thanks. Merry Christmas to you too.
Oh yeah, good, yes that one kind of fits, doesn't it? Merry Christmas, by the way.
Found the Osip Mendelstam poem you posted in the Revolutionary Poems thread long ago. Might be usable for my class. Thanks for your help.
[continued from previous] He argues that the Nazi holocaust was the last in a series perpetrated by Europeans against supposedly inferior races, the most notable prior one having been that of the Belgians against the Congolese, with estimated death toll 18m. Lindqvist, as you may guess from his title, refers repeatedly to Heart of Darkness, so you could use the two books together. 'Inferior race' rhetoric seems to have been widespread prior to the Nazis, with lots in the UK. During WWI it was actually used against Germans in Britain by a right wing journalist who inspired a pogrom against them arguing that you couldn't claim human rights for people who were barely human. I get this from Andrew Marr's recent BBC series The Making of Modern Britain, which doesn't have enough to be teaching material for your course, but points in passing to instances of proto-Nazi thought in early 20th Century Britain. The eugenics movement started here.
children's book? Did I say I was writing a children's book? Oh yes, I see. Didn't pursue it and can't remember what it was now. Been thinking of new ideas for screenplays and going back to my novel. Teaching genocide? Do you mean the holocaust specifically or genocide in general? There's a lot of really obvious stuff on the holocaust theme, good and bad (Primo Levi, The Reader, Sophie's Choice, The White Hotel etc. etc. I'm sure I'm duplicating other people's suggestions). Perhaps slightly less obvious is Alain Resnais' documentary on the Auschwitz, Night and Fog. On the subject of genocide in general, you could also look up Sven Lindqvist, e.g. here. [continues in next post]
How's your children's book going? I posted a topic in General Literature about teaching genocide. Do you have any suggestions of good lit. or ideas?
I was in an art exhibition in a town in Holland, which was odd since I don't want to be an artist, but an incredibly nice experience anyway. A lot of what I showed was writing. And I've just about finished a feature-length screenplay to my satisfaction. Wondering how best to tout it around now. Last night I had an idea for a children's book and couldn't sleep for thinking about it. Unemployment can be very productive.
Good, busy with school stuff and the like but getting excited about nearly finishing (after six years). Just getting internet access back so I'll be seeing how often I can make it around. Anything new with you?
