As an immigrant parent, I had been looking forward to participating in my son’s education journey through the American public school system. Not only I wanted to revisit math and science, but was curious to see what art, literature, and social sciences mean on this side of the hemisphere. When my son started 3rd grade, I decided to read along the novels they were studying in class. I grew up on steady diet of Enid…
American Literature
For those not familiar with American history, the term Pioneers is used to describe the explorers who moved westwards in search of land and riches from the heavily populated East. Writers like Willa Cather wrote novels and stories to capture the trials and tribulations of this period of exploration. Most of the westward expansion was by settlers who worked on railways which were being built to connect mining towns. Any pioneer’s town population was often…
I first learned about the Salem Witch trials when I read Robin Cook’s ‘Acceptable Risk‘ way back in 1998. I was immediately intrigued. What would drive intelligent educated people on witch-hunts? What was that hysteria that gripped Europe in the middle ages and the US as late as the 17th century? Arthur Miller’s critically acclaimed play The Crucible dramatizes the Salem Witch Trials and gives a glimpse of what may have happened. The Plot The…
