Now available for the first time in a Brief Edition, this classic thematic anthology has long been hailed for its exceptionally rich collection of essays, memoirs, stories, poems, and plays, and for its inclusion of classic and contemporary images.
Now available in a more affordable and accessible format, The Conscious Reader, Brief Edition brings together over 85 readings representing a wide array of culturally diverse authors and fascinating topics, a broad range of academic disciplines, and a unique mix of genres. Authors range from Plato, Shakespeare, and Chief Seattle to Bob Dylan and Tony Kushner, with Notebook clusters bringing together related readings at the beginning of each unit. Brief, flexible apparatus includes an introduction to each theme and helpful headnotes, discussion questions, and writing assignments for each selection.
Rhetorical Contents
Preface
THE SEARCH FOR SELFNOTEBOOK
CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD, Praetor Violet
ARYEH LEV STOLLMAN, Die Grosse Liebe (including Leander photo)
URSULA MELENDI, All of Heaven for Love
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES
ANNIE DILLARD, So This Was Adolescence
GREG GRAFFIN, Anarchy in the Tenth Grade
NANCY MAIRS, On Being a Cripple
JORGE LUIS BORGES, Borges and I
ZORA NEALE HURSTON, How it Feels to Be Colored Me
FICTIONERNEST HEMINGWAY, Indian Camp
SANDRA CISNEROS, Hips
POETRY
DYLAN THOMAS, The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower
DENISE LEVERTOV, In Mind
ANNE SEXTON, Her Kind
CARL DENNIS, The God Who Loves You
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS: PARENTS AND CHILDREN NOTEBOOK
THOMAS LYNCH, The Way We Are
JUDITH ORTIZ COFER, Casa: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood
ESSAYS
THE KORAN, Sura 12. Joseph
FICTION
EDWIDGE DANTICAT, Selection from Breath, Eyes, Memory
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS, The Use of Force
ELIZABETH SPENCER, Instrument of Destruction
POETRY
BOB DYLAN, It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS: MEN AND WOMENNOTEBOOK
LEO BRAUDY, Arms and the Man
JARED DIAMOND, What are Men Good For?
ESSAYS
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
VIRGINIA WOOLF, The Angel in the House
MARGARET ATWOOD, Fiction: Happy Endings
FICTION
KATE CHOPIN A Respectable Woman
POETRY
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds (Sonnet 116)
WILLIAM BLAKE, The Garden of Love
RITA DOVE, Beauty and the Beast
GREGORY CORSO, Marriage
E. E. CUMMINGS, I like my body when it is with your
THE CULTURAL TRADITION: POPULAR CULTURE
NOTEBOOK
GLORIA STEINEM, Wonder Woman
MARINA WARNER, Fantasy’s Power and Peril
ESSAYS
ROGER EBERT, Great Movies
ERIC SCHLOSSER, Fast Food Nation
RANDALL KENNEDY, The N-Word
JULIAN JOHNSON, Who Needs Classical Music?
POETRY
SONIA SANCHEZ, A Poem for Ella Fitzgerald
THE CULTURAL TRADITION: ART, THE ARTIST, AND SOCIETY
NOTEBOOK
V. S. NAIPAUL. Two Worlds: Nobel Lecture 2001
STEPHEN KING, Selection from On Writing
ESSAYS
E.M. FORSTER, Art for Art’s Sake
CRISTIAN AMIGO, Intervention #1: Musical Openings
JOHN BERGER, Uses of Photography
JORN JACOB ROHWER, The Art of Conversation: How Spoken Words Turn Into Writing, and Arthur Miller: I’ve Never Been a Hero
FICTION
WILLA CATHER, The Sculptor’s Funeral
POETRY
CATE MARVIN, Ocean is a Word in this Poem
WALT WHITMAN, Poets to Come
SCIENCE, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND THE FUTURE
NOTEBOOK
HENRY DAVID THOREAU, Why I Went Out into the Woods
EDWARD O. WILSON, A Letter to Thoreau
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES
FREEMAN DYSON, Can Science Be Ethical?
ESSAYS
ALAN TENNANT, Great Plains of the Arctic
MATT RIDLEY, Free Will
NILES ELDREDGE, Creationism Isn’t Science
BARBARA GOLDSMITH, Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie
SHIREEN LEE, The New Girls Network: Women, Technology, and Feminism
POETRY
AFFONSO ROMANO DeSANT’ANNA, Letter to the Dead
FREEDOM AND HUMAN DIGNITY
NOTEBOOK
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., I Have a Dream
DOROTHY DAY, Martin Luther King
ESSAYS
THOMAS JEFFERSON, The Declaration of Independence
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON AND LUCRETIA COFFIN MOTT, Seneca Falls Convention
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, The Gettysburg Address
WILLIAM FAULKNER, Nobel Prize Award Speech
GEORGE ORWELL, The Principles of Newspeak
CHIEF SEATTLE, Speech on the Signing of the Treaty of Port Elliott
PLATO, The Crito
MARY GORDON, A Moral Choice
POETRY
REYNOLDS PRICE, Tom, Dying of AIDS
MATTHEW ARNOLD, Dover Beach
GLOBALISM, NATIONALISM, AND CULTURAL IDENTITY
NOTEBOOK
ADAM GOPNIK, The City and the Pillars
ANTHONY SHADID, Legacy of the Prophet
ELIE WIESEL, Why I am an American
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES
RICHARD RODRIGUEZ, Hispanic
ESSAYS
SUSAN SONTAG, Regarding the Pain of Others
JAMES BALDWIN, The Discovery of What it Means to be an American
CARSON McCULLERS, Loneliness … an American Malady
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, Of Cruelty and Clemency, and Whether It Is Better to Be Loved or Feared
DRAMA
TONY KUSHNER, Homebody/Kabul
POETRY
TED KOOSER, Prisoners from the Front
KATHA POLLITT, Night Subway
THE EXAMINED LIFE: EDUCATION
NOTEBOOK
MALCOLM X, A Homemade Education
ANTON CHEKHOV, The Bet
ESSAYS
REYNOLDS PRICE, The Great Imagination Heist
JOAN E. HARTMAN, What We Did and Why We Did It
LEWIS THOMAS, Humanities and Science
KEVIN FINNERAN, The Merits of Meritocracy
GEOFFREY NUNBERG , Teaching Students to Swim in the Online Sea
POETRY
LANGSTON HUGHES, Theme for English B