Recovering the lost Moravian history of William Blake's family

This paper seeks to amend and extend Keri Davies’s essay on Blake’s mother published in Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly in 1999. There, he established that Blake’s mother Catherine’s true maiden name was Wright, and that Thomas Armitage, her first husband, was born in Royston, Yorkshire in 1722, the son of Richard Armitage of Cudworth. Davies also produced evidence that contradicted E.P. Thompson’s Muggletonian hypothesis, and speculated upon the identity of Blake’s maternal grandparents. We now link Blake’s mother to a very different religious community, providing further evidence about her first marriage, and correcting the assumptions Davies made in identifying Blake’s grandparents. These latest discoveries about Blake’s mother disclose her place of birth (Walkeringham, Nottinghamshire), the names of her parents and siblings, and her association with the Moravian sect. Documentary and autographic records in the archive of the distinctive and exceptional eighteenth-century Moravian church, some dating from many years before the poet was born, are a vivid indicator of how much of our thinking about Blake’s life and early influences might need to be revised and rewritten in the future

Easter 4 • Acts 2:42–47 • May 11, 2014

All who believed quite naturally and quite regularly shared all things in common, as would, as should, the superabundantly blessed persons of a singular household and family

The Robert Penn Warren Collection at Emory University: A Personal Account

The Special Collections division of the Emory library is home to a vast array of materials of remarkable value to the study of Robert Penn Warren, and this account provides a useful running guide to those extensive holdings

In the Culture of Truthiness: Comic Criticism and the Performative Politics of Stephen Colbert

I analyze comedian Stephen Colbert\u27s performances as the bloviating fake pundit, Stephen Colbert. Colbert\u27s work reflects the progression of personality-driven media and performance-driven society. His frequent shifts and blending of characters – from actor and entertainer to pundit and politician – call attention to the similarly character-driven nature of real figures in politics and media. Using Kenneth Burke\u27s theory of tragic and comic frames of acceptance, I analyze three sets of Colbert\u27s performances – hosting The Colbert Report, speaking at the White House Correspondents\u27 Association dinner, and running for president – as well as the conventional situations and discourses he complicates. I argue that Colbert\u27s comic critique provides perspective by incongruity about the processes of production, mediation, and persuasion in the business of news punditry – and the literal staging of politics performed as entertainment