Author: Heidi Tiedemann Darroch

  • Gail Bowen’s The Last Good Day and Agatha Christie’s Dead Man’s Folly

    I’ve just come across a fun allusion. Insomnia has me on a pre-bedtime reading diet of innocuous mystery fiction, ancient Greek novels, and Greek vocabulary. The latter, in particular, is very handy. Working on contract verbs produces slumber surprisingly quickly, but then I wake up, over and over. This is an Addison’s Disease/steroids issue, temporarily…

  • Content Warnings and Accommodations: How Much Trauma Do We Need to Read, Really?

    This morning I have an email request–thoughtfully conveyed, and with poignant personal detail. Given the power imbalance and the nature of their requests for informal accommodations, our students often feel like they need to share painful experiences with us. I can hold space for that, but I wish they didn’t feel so pressured to disclose.…

  • African American Women’s Fiction and Murder: From Toni Morrison to Tracy Clark

    During the fall of 1999, I attended NYU as a visiting grad student in order to take African American literature–I believe we covered 1880 to 1960ish–with the newly hired, and ever so brilliant, Dr. Elizabeth McHenry. Every white grad student should have at least one similar immersion experience. We were the minority, and most of…