By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What is a ‘banana republic’, and where does the phrase come from? The origins of this phrase can be found in the work of a popular American writer, although his role in coining this phrase and giving it to the world is not as well-known as it should be.
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 most lyrical – science-fiction writers of the twentieth century, although he preferred to describe himself as a ‘fantasy writer’ or simply as a ‘writer’. Although he is known for novels such as the dystopian classic Fahrenheit 451 and the horror novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, much of Ray Bradbury’s best work was in the short-story form.
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 a slew of interpretations since it was first released in 1971.
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 hardly new, the lyrics to the song are worthy of closer analysis because of the way Swift and Rose build a detailed picture of the love triangle at the story’s centre.
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