By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Highway’ is from 1950: an early short story by Ray Bradbury (1920-2012). In just a few pages, Bradbury gives us one of his earliest responses to the atom bomb and nuclear Armageddon. Bradbury is widely recognised as one of the greatest – and […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) A song about drugs? Or a literal ride across a desert? Or a longing for the dry expansive lands of America while enduring the rains of a foreign land? ‘A Horse with No Name’, the best-known song by the folk group America, has invited […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) was an important twentieth-century American poet whose work was firmly rooted in the African-American community which she wrote about so well. Born in Kansas, Brooks declared her intention to become a poet when she was just seven years old.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘You Belong with Me’ is a Taylor Swift song, which featured on her second studio album, Fearless (2008). Swift wrote the song with Liz Rose and produced it with Nathan Chapman. Although ‘You Belong with Me’ has a ‘story’ at its heart which is […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Unique’ is a strange word. It’s often assumed that there are no true synonyms for unique, because the word literally presupposes that the thing or person described as ‘unique’ is truly one of a kind, rather than simply rare. ‘Unique’, some people declare, is […]