Two New Articles: Toy Story and T. S. Eliot

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I’m happy to announce that I have two new articles out this summer:

The first is my first-ever academic article, titled “Relocating the Great Good Place, from Dante to James to Eliot’s Cocktail Party.” Published by The T. S. Eliot Studies Annual, it argues that Eliot’s play The Cocktail Party isn’t just a reimagining of Dante’s Divine Comedy; it is also in dialogue with the Henry James short story, “The Great Good Place”—which is itself a reimagining of Dante’s Comedy. This article began a few years ago as a seminar paper in Dr. Sebastian Langdell’s class on Dante and Dante reception at Baylor University. I’m grateful to Dr. Langdell for giving me the opportunity to first explore this topic, to Dr. Julia Daniel for introducing me to Eliot’s play while I was her research assistant, and to Timothy Lawrence and Justice Flint for their feedback and encouragement while I was putting together and revising what has been one of my most complicated writing projects so far. For those who can access the article through academic libraries, I will provide the Project MUSE link here.

The second is a review of Pixar’s Toy Story 5, my first original article for FilmFisher in over five years. This is a follow-up to the two-part “A Toy’s Telos” essay that I wrote for FilmFisher seven years ago (click here for Chapter 1; click here for Chapter 2). I am grateful to FilmFisher’s new editor Timothy House for giving me the opportunity to keep writing on this subject, and again to Timothy Lawrence for helping me flesh out my thoughts on this latest sequel. (Since Toy Story 5 is about technology, writing the article also gave me the opportunity to reflect further on Andy Crouch’s idea of “truly advanced technology.”) The review can be found here.   

The Problem with Highways

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From Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (InterVarsity, 2008):

“What does [the interstate highway] assume about the way the world should be? The world should be smoother and faster, and the world should be safer—its corners, hills and valleys literally rounded off in the interests of efficiency. Rivers and mountains should be scenery, not obstacles. The perceived distance from one place to the next should shrink—the mile should seem like a short distance rather than a long one. Consistency from place to place is more valuable than the particulars of each place—uniform in signage and road markings, fixed radii for curves and angles for exit ramps, and identical rules of the road should make local knowledge unnecessary. We should be able to go anywhere and feel more or less at home. Goods from far away should become more economically competitive with goods from nearby; goods nearby should have new markets in places far away” (33).

And from John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley in Search of America (Penguin, 2017):

“These great roads are wonderful for moving goods but not for inspection of a countryside. You are bound to the wheel and your eyes to the car ahead and to the rear-view mirror for the car behind and the side mirror for the car or truck about to pass, and at the same time you must read all the signs for fear you may miss some instructions or orders. No roadside stands selling squash juice, no antique stores, no farm products or factory outlets. When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing” (89-90).

“Localness is not gone but it is going. … [N]o region can hold out for long against the highway, the high-tension line, and the national television. What I am mourning is perhaps not worth saving, but I regret its loss nevertheless” (107).