Audacious Literary Criticism & Political Commentary

Tuesday, November 30, 2025

Audacious Literary Criticism & Political Commentary

A Few Political Highlights...

My November 30, 2012 blog "Obama's 2012 Victory: The Demographic Becomes the Narrative" assessed the outcome of the 2012 presidential election (http://www.literarygulag.com/blog/show/75). It was edited and published as an opinion piece for the National Journal and The Atlantic under the title "How Demography Became the Narrative for Obama's 2012 Victory" on December 18, https://www.theatlantic.com/author/diana-e-sheets/.

My Opinion essay "Post-Convention Bytes: The 2012 Presidential Election and the Obama/Romney Divide" was published in International Business Times on September 18, 2012, http://www.ibtimes.com/post-convention-bytes-2012-presidential-election-and-obamaromney-divide-790212.

Edward Luce, then the Washington Bureau chief for the Financial Times, declared "Person of the Year: Barack Obama" on 12/23/2008, https://www.ft.com/content/7d93a336-d02e-11dd-ae00-000077b07658. Luce interviewed Simon Critchley---the philosophy chair at New York's New School---who raised doubts about Barack Obama's persona: "I have absolutely no sense of who Barack Obama is. It's very odd. The more one listens and reads, the greater the sense of opacity....Who is this man?"

My reply to Luce, in contrast to Critchley, was that Obama was our "first post-modern president." Adding, "Barack Obama is a brilliant man but he has the classic persona of the contemporary American professor. That means you sign up to an academia that is about securing tenure by avoiding taking strong positions, that you subscribe to a world where all truths are relative and where universities are large cauldrons of identity grievances." I added, "I'm not sure I want that in a president."

MY 2008 POLITICAL BLOG ON POLITICAL NARRATIVE RECEIVES STRONG INTERNET EXPOSURE

My blog "Politics & Literature: Framing the Political Narrative for Victory in the 2008 Presidential Election" was posted August 20^th, 2008. It analyzed arguments by linguists George Lakoff and Geoffrey Nunberg, as well as political psychologist Drew Weston regarding the importance of narrative (storytelling) in influencing the outcome of political elections by tapping into the emotional feelings and beliefs of potential voters. My blog was selected as the top featured article for September 9, 2008 on the Get Life Right, a Wetpaint site that featured political assessments of journalistic coverage in its "Who Watches the Watchers?" MetaFilter, a community weblog, also included discussion of my blog on September 9^th & 10^th, 2008.

BEGINNINGS OF LITERARY GULAG

My website was officially launched with my first literary post in June, 18, 2007 entitled "V.S. Naipaul's Perspective on the Irrelevance of Fiction & Its Implications for the Rest of Us." The argument Naipaul was making in 2005 was that fiction was no longer relevant because it no longer meaningfully engaged with the world. For as he said, "If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account. If you're a romantic writer, you write novels about men and women falling in love, etc., with a little narrative here and there. But again, it's of no account."

Nor was Naipaul alone in expressing his dissatisfaction with the 21^st century novel. "The American novel," as Tom Wolfe noted in Hooking Up published in 2000 (see my post on Wolfe by scrolling down towards the bottom of my Criticism & Commentary Posts featured on my website) "is dying, not of obsolescence, but of anorexia. It needs . . . food. It needs novelists with huge appetites and mighty, unslaked thirst for America . . . as she is right now." Adding, "The revolution of the twenty-first century, if the arts are to survive, will have a name to which no ism can be easily attached. It will be called "content." It will be called life, reality, the pulse of the human beast."

Literature and politics don't operate in a vacuum. They're shaped by the changing landscape of social beliefs. Today's Democratic Party has moved toward socialism and beyond. The Party's platform, shaped by feminization, political correctness, identity politics, and "social justice," is the very firmament of progressive policies that propose to shift our society from equal opportunity for all to redistributive social justice that guarantees economic outcomes regardless of contributions. It's worlds apart from the Democratic policy of former President Clinton, who left office on January 20, 2001. The current Democratic Party, having in recent years all but abandoned its working-class voters, appears to have become unmoored from economic growth as a means for improving the lives of Americans, leaving---at least for now---that mandate to Trump and the Republicans.

Literary Gulag seeks to strip away the boundaries between literature and politics in order to understand what is transpiring. Love Trump or hate Trump. Even if you're desperately trying to inhabit that third space apart from Trumpian and progressive doctrines, our current civil war means attempting to understand why Donald Trump---quite probably the single most influential American politician of the 21^st century---made the inroads he did and how his actions might alter American and global politics in the years to come.

The world we inhabit within the Literary Gulag is the period 2007-2016, situated well before the Capital riots protesting Trump's election loss in January 2020 and Trump's return as president in 2025.

On December, 12, 2007 "Virtue" was posted, http://www.literarygulag.com/blog/show/11. I quote here from my blog because it elaborates why I established Literary Gulag and why today's cultural and political values prevent great literature and threaten political freedom.

Within the Literary Gulag these days, that "black flower of civilized society" (Hawthorne), are the Defectors. They refuse to embrace a myriad of social causes oozing with 'virtue." Because they are incarcerated, our Gulagians can only dream of driving sports cars or luxury sedans or pick-up trucks rather than the eco-friendly alternatives. Though forced to eat gruel, they fantasize about devouring red meat. Gulagians acknowledge the possibility of geo-warming while wondering what global polices might genuinely reverse the trend. They consider voting for the Republican Party, if only the incarcerated could cast ballots, out of a conviction that tit-for-tat, not pacifism, provides the winning strategies. They are social pariahs to a literary establishment that is consumed with its own "virtue." Indeed, those outside the Gulag appear manifestly good. They decry violence and advocate programs that protect children and the most marginalized members of society. They honor authors who have risen from the ashes of injustice, or who have merely imagined such characters, to protest these inequalities. The feminized readers of these stories cry. They imbibe the moral outrage convinced that they, too, will become "virtuous" by proxy. This is the dismal state of fiction these days as innovation, truth, and excellence have been relegated to the Gulag while the literary establishment extols its self-righteous "virtuosity."

On January 9, 2008 a revised version of my "Virtue" blog appeared as an opinion piece for The Christian Science Monitor under the title "Looking for Real Virtue in Literature", https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2008/0109/p09s02-coop.html. It received a great deal of attention and appeared in several other newspapers.

My opinion piece argued that publishers, rather than concerned about "real virtue," offer "the most banal, the most feminized, the most gentrified, the most formulaic, the most politically correct pabulum." I provided two notable examples. The first was the novel Middlesex written by Jeffrey Eugenides, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003. Why was his novel noteworthy? Because it is a story about genetics, gender identity, and a hermaphrodite who transitions from Callie to Cal.

The second novel I emphasized was M.T. Anderson's The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party, which received the 2006 "National Book Award for Young People's Literature." It is a coming-of-age story written for high school students. What made it so noteworthy? It is about an African-American boy initially raised in privilege by a Boston Brahmin only to be subject to the gross injustices of slavery, racism, and the brutality of the American Revolution. The novel's purpose is to present a social justice parable for teenagers that, as I put it, "lays waste to the values of the founders."

OTHER ESSAYS PUBLISHED IN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

My blog "Twilight, Harry Potter, and the Youthful Reader: Morality, Gender, and $$$s in Today's Fantasy Blockbusters", http://www.literarygulag.com/blog/show/62 was posted on August 18^th, 2011. It was revised and appeared on October 14, 2011 for The Christian Science Monitor's book review section "Chapter & Verse" as "Is 'Twilight' a Romantic Teen Fantasy---or a Deeply Religious Parable?" http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2011/0902/Is-Twilight-a-romantic-teen-fantasy-or-a-deeply-religious-parable.

My blog on the Nobel Prize, "Literature's Nobel Prize and the Case---or Not---for Insularity," posted on October 14, 2011, http://www.literarygulag.com/blog/show/63 was reposted on The Christian Science Monitor's "Chapter & Verse the same day, https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2011/1014/Literature-s-Nobel-Prize-and-the-case-or-not-for-insularity. It considered the Nobel prize winner Thomas Tranströmer. Is his poetry preoccupied "social justice?" No. He was a thoughtful poet, not a political proselytizer.

I'm A Blogger on the Huffington Post (reposted on Literary Gulag)

My opinion piece "Commencement Speakers, Academic Freedom, and the Pursuit of Excellence," published on HuffPost on May 19, 2014, was reposted on Literary Gulag on April 9, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-diana-e-sheets/commencement-speakers_b_5345490.html. The National Association of Scholars "retweeted" my tweet about my HuffPost to its 1145 followers.

My blog "Leibovich's This Town: The Tittle-Tattle Flibbertigibbet Musing of a Fashionisto Political Reporter in the Washington Beltway" was posted initially on Literary Gulag on October 26, 2013 and appeared on HuffPost on October 30, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-diana-e-sheets/leibovichs-this-town-the-_b_4178997.html.

Why are the humanities in crisis today? The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has its assessment ("The Heart of the Matter") as does Harvard ("Mapping the Future"). My opinion piece "The Crisis in the Humanities: Why Today's Educational and Cultural Experts Can't and Won't Resolve the Failings of the Liberal Arts", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-diana-e-sheets/the-crisis-in-the-humanit_b_3588171.html, was posted on HuffPost on July 15, 2013 and subsequently reposted on Literary Gulag on May 28, 2014.

Note: My academic essay on this subject "The Humanities in Crisis: What Went Wrong and How to Restore Their Centrality in our Daily Lives" appears in the essay collection edited by Michael F. Shaughnessy entitled The Humanities in 2015, which was published by Nova Science Publishers. That essay is available as a free download on Literary Gulag and on my webpage on the open-access University of Illinois IDEALS website, https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items/55018.

My blog "Obama's 2012 Victory: The Demographic Becomes the Narrative" was posted on Literary Gulag on November 30, 2012 and revised for HuffPost on December 21, 2012. It argues the election was won by focusing on demographics, not narrative, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-diana-e-sheets/obamas-2012-victory-the-demographic-becomes-the-narrative_b_2341438.html. An edited version of that Literary Gulag blog also appeared as an opinion post in the National Journal and The Atlantic on December 18^th.

My opinion piece "Obama's 'Kingdom of Virtue': All Is Fair in Political Warfare Though Victory May be Fleeting" appeared on November 18, 2012 on HuffPost and discussed the outcome of the 2012 Presidential Election. Here's the link, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-diana-e-sheets/obamas-kingdom-of-virtue-_b_2156587.html.

Another opinion piece of mine "Our Superheroes Romney and Ryan: Why You Should Hope Republicans Win the Presidential Election" was published on HuffPost on October 18, 2012. It received 620 comments, 142 "likes," and a lot of venomous rants. Thirty people "shared" it, 13 "tweeted" it, and 9 e-mailed it. Here's the link, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-diana-e-sheets/our-superheroes-romney-ryan_b_1980198.html.

ATTENDED A WORKSHOP ON LONGFORM JOURNALISM AT THE NORMAN MAILER WRITERS COLONY (June, 2012). By Alana Newhouse. Contributions by Evan Ratliff, Max Linsky, Anna Holmes, and David Samuels.

COLLABORATION WITH PROFESSOR MICHAEL F. SHAUGNESSY

Shaughnessy & I published at least 25 online Q&As while he was a Sr. Columnist at EducationNews.org. He encouraged me to publish a paper with The New Mexico Journal of Reading (Vol. XXVII, No. 3). I have essays on reading and critical thinking in three book collections he edited that were published by Nova Science Publishers. Our greatest collaboration was working together on The Doubling: Those Influential Writers That Shape Our Contemporary Perceptions of identity and Consciousness in the New Millennium (Nova Science Publishers, 2017). My three essays and The Doubling are available for downloads on Literary Gulag & Ideals.

Much of my content featured in online blogs, newspapers articles, interviews, radio stations, and online journals---whether literary criticism or political commentary or fiction---are no longer available. I will feature a few relevant items with current online links after supplying the television, video, and radio content that was given to me.

The television and video interviews available on my YouTube channel have active links posted on Literary Gulag for viewing and listeners can hear my radio MP3 recordings on Literary Gulag.

TELEVISION & VIDEO INTERVIEWS (Click on Videos & Podcasts)

2011, Television: The Literati Scene: Smoki Bacon & Dick Concannon, co-host Joanna Datillo. Diana Sheets discusses her novel American Suite. BNNTV23 Boston & metro region, Click on Videos & Podcasts, The Literati Scene.
2010, Television: The Literati Scene: Smoki Bacon & Dick Concannon, co-host Joanna Datillo. Diana Sheets discusses her novel The Cusp of Dreams BNNTV23 Bost & metro region, Click on Videos & Podcasts, http://www.literarygulag.com/interviewTheLiteratiScene.html.
2011 Video: The Illini Bookstore, University of Illinois Reading by Diana Sheets from her novel American Suite, three segments, Click on Videos & Podcasts, http://www.literarygulag.com/interviewOpeningSceneAS.html; http://www.literarygulag.com/American_Suite_Illini_Union_Reading_Explicit.mp4; http://www.literarygulag.com/American_Suite_Illini_Union_Reading_Explicit.mp4.

PODCASTS

AMERICAN SUITE: BOOK EVENTS, READINGS & SIGNINGS

I was at the Big E in West Springfield, MA signing books as part of the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association in the Connecticut Building. I was there from September 16-18, 2011, http://connecticutauthorsatthebige.wordpress.com/meet-the-authors/.

Attended Smoki Bacon & Dick Concannon's annual Boston party filled with folks who were interviewed by them on their TV program (myself included) "The Literati Scene."

Attended "Greet the Authors" at Old Mistick Village in Mystic, Connecticut May 21-22, 2011.

January 8, 2011. Great reading/signing. Lots of friends & readers showed up at Bank Square Books in downtown Mystic, Connecticut---my hometown!

Wednesday evening, January 5, 2011 gave a reading/signing at the Harvard Coop (Harvard Square) in Cambridge, MA. Richard Kaplan gave a great introduction. The audience had interesting comments and insights (have to be on your toes to read before a Harvard audience). I love that bookstore---for its physical beauty, its display of titles, and the opportunity to reacquaint yourself with all those books you should buy, you must read!

Terrific review by Ellen Alexander of American Suite posted on Bookpleasures.com on October 29, 2011. For Ms. Alexander, the novel is "a clever character-driven novel that'll have you laughing and crying and even rooting for that illusive happy ending." For her, American Suite and Dvorak's musical composition by the same name share common features: "an interweaving of major and minor themes; a succession of dances and a series of varying movements." Check out her review, http://www.bookpleasures.com/websitepublisher/articles/4208/1/American-Suite-Reviewed-By-Ellen-Alexander-of-Bookpleasurescom/Page1.html.

There's a fabulous review of American Suite by Lois Henderson that is posted on July 17, 2011 on Bookpleasures.com, http://www.bookpleasures.com/websitepublisher/articles/3712/1/American-Suite-Reviewed-By-Lois-Henderson-of-Bookpleasurescom/Page1.html. For Ms. Henderson, American Suite "is a spoof of conventional American society, mores and literature" that is written "in reaction to the emotional neediness of the stereotypical female reader." For her the lead character, Arisa Selby, who relocated from Manhattan to the Midwest, "is an absolute treat" because "her sense of emotional disjointedness and acerbic NYC wit bring her into head-on conflict with the perfectly mannered 'Overly Friendly People' of America's heartland." Henderson concludes, "American Suite would make a brilliantly insightful and extremely witty contrast to Woody Allen's angst-ridden movies if it were to be transformed into a screenplay. Let's hope that Hollywood is taking note."

Christopher Lewis, the "Dad of Divas" just reviewed "American Suite." Here's what he had to say, "This story is a page-turner and one that will keep you on the edge of your seat from the beginning of the story to the very end....There are many humorous parts...." He then adds, it's a story that "intertwines love, drama, sadness, and tender understanding." Check out the review on his website, http://dadofdivas-reviews.blogspot.com/2011/03/book-review-american-suite.html.

There's a great review of American Suite by Alan Caruba in Bookviews that was posted for November, 2010. American Suite, Caruba writes, is "wickedly funny" and is "a real treat as the author takes a look at life today." For a more complete look at the review, click on the link that follows, scroll down past "Novels, Novels, Novels" to the softcover section where American Suite tops the list, http://bookviewsbyalancaruba.blogspot.com/2010/10/bookviews-november-2010.html.