Yeah, intelligent input, darlin'.

I learned today that the phrase “to have and to hold,” the phrase heard probably only less that “in sickness and in health” in wedding vows, originated as part of a clause in a deed to transfer absolute ownership and property rights from one individual to another. This phrase (also known as the…

When Auds, Claire, and I did our project for VIcFemPopCult, we discovered that most wedding traditions are creepy. For example, the whole carry the bride over the threshold thing dates back to the time of arranged marriages when the woman might not have been super willing to consummate the relationship and the man would have to pick her up and force her into the bed room. Romantic, huh?

Also, traditional British wedding cakes are basically fruitcake.

I know that I complain a lot about grad school, but despite how stressful the past year and a half have been, I don’t think I would take back my decision. I hate the “you shouldn’t go to graduate school because you’re never going to be a professor” rhetoric. You know what, I probably won’t be a professor. Yes, it’s stupid to take out loans to get a PhD. Yes, there are things about academia that need to change. At the same time, discouraging students from going to graduate school is the wrong way to go about things.

South Carolina made Newsweek’s list of most embarrassing state governments. Palmetto pride?

budsey:

sarahcolombo:

When we get back to the states and have access to libraries, Sarah and I are going to start a new blog where, between the two of us, we read 50 books by female authors and informally write about them (probably with a lot of digressions). I am going to cover 20 of those books. I’m mostly motivated…

My list (in no particular order):

Twilight Stephanie Meyer

Emma Jane Austen

Middlemarch George Eliot

The Children’s Book A.S. Byatt

A Mercy Toni Morrison

We Have Always Lived in the Castle Shirley Jackson

The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood

Blonde Joyce Carol Oates

Push Sapphire

The Coldest Winter Ever Sister Souljah

The Shipping News Annie Proulx

Wise Blood Flannery O’Connor

Runaway Alice Munro

White Teeth Zadie Smith

The Waves Virginia Woolf

American Wife Curtis Sittenfeld

The House of the Spirits Isabelle Allende

And Then There Were None Agatha Christie

LA Candy Lauren Conrad

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present Gail Collins

Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters Jessica Velenti

The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir

Tokyo Fiance Amelie Nothomb

Mina’s Joint Keisha Ervin

Mary Barton Elizabeth Gaskell

Mudbound Hillary Jordan

Sex and the City Candace Bushnell

The Portable Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker

Bastard Out of Carolina Dorothy Allison

Annie John Jamaica Kincaid

Some of these may change. Feel free to offer suggestions.

If you want to try out some Margaret Atwood, I’d suggest The Handmaid’s Tale, which I have read over and over again, over The Blind Assassin, which I was unable to finish. But apparently, a lot of other people liked it….

I second that. I read The Blind Assassin at some point in college and was convinced that I hated Margaret Atwood. I recently read The Handmaid’s Tale and it was fabulous. Also, I’d recommend Gilead and Home by Marilynne Robinson.

budsey:

andgoodbye:

peterwknox:

(via fluffah)

I don’t doubt it for a second. Although, I read most of the books the article mentions long before I was 12, other than Fahrenheit 451, which I did read in middle school. I read good stuff back then; due to laziness, my taste has gotten a whole lot trashier.

“When a 14-year-old gushes that the Twilight series are the best books she’s ever read in her whole life, it’s easy for grownups to forget that this is not necessarily hyperbole. At that age, we haven’t heard any clichés, and even dumb ideas are new.”

1. “Let’s be honest: We all know that Ulysses and A la recherché du temps perdu are “better” books than The Velveteen Rabbit or The Little Prince, but come on—which would you take with you on a spaceship to salvage from the dying Earth?”

Not gonna lie… I’m pretty sure I’d take Ulysses on a spaceship over The Velveteen Rabbit a.k.a. the saddest kids book ever. Closely followed by Charlotte’s Web and The Giving Tree.

2. Ayn Rand is the devil.

3. I recently learned that the Little House books were originally considered radically liberal (for their time, of course…). So much so that Wilder’s daughter severely edited them— so take their “morals” with a grain of salt.

Aside from that, I think this is probably true. And problematic for the 14 year old girls whose lives are being shaped by Twilight.