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Sentimental Frenzy

On the basis of a sixty-second clip, thousands of prominent Americans rushed to denounce the students of Covington Catholic High School. The students’ alleged crime was mobbing an American Indian activist named Nathan Phillips while wearing “Make America Great Again” caps. Respectable people . . . . Continue Reading »

The Sentimentality Trap

A textbook I use for my introductory poetry classes, the classic Western Wind, defines sentimentality as “emotion in excess of its object.” Sentimentality is not simply too much emotion, but an imbalance of it, an over-investment of emotion relative to that in which it is invested. I have never . . . . Continue Reading »

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