Author Archives: Marjorie Pak PhD

Ted Chiang1998. Starlight 2. Also in the collection Stories of Your Life and Others I’ve taught ‘Story of Your Life’ in many different ways over the years, depending on the focus of the course and the interests of the students. … Continue reading →

Ursula K. Le Guin1994, in The Birthday of the World and Other Stories  [pdf] Here’s what Steven Pinker says about language in the intro to his classic The Language Instinct (1993): ‘Chances are that if you find two or more … Continue reading →

Ursula K. Le Guin1975, Epoch anthology. Also in various collections. [pdf] This story is a good one to start the semester with, for a few reasons. First, it’s very short, so students who enroll late can read it right before … Continue reading →

by Ted Chiang At the beginning of the semester we talked about ineffability in the context of two stories: ‘Amnesty’ by Octavia Butler and ‘Toward a Theory of Alternative Lifestyles’ by Theodore McCombs. I found myself thinking about ineffability again … Continue reading →

by Ursula Le Guin We had a moment of confusion in class about how old Hsing and Luis are at the end of the story. I thought maybe late 20s/early 30s; Nico thought 60s. I just reread the end and … Continue reading →

by Ling Ma First, an unrelated note. Someone asked at our opera night about the difference between operas and musicals. I read up a little on this and the consensus seems to be that in opera, the voices are the … Continue reading →

the 1818 novel by Mary Shelley, the 1931 film directed by James Whale, and the film score by Michael Shapiro performed by the Atlanta Opera on 10/28/2023 The last few weeks have been tough. Our group’s expansive, multifaceted experience of … Continue reading →

Deborah Eisenberg Today’s discussion was so good! Thanks to all of you for helping me understand this very strange but very appealing story. I remembered the Ray Bradbury story this reminded me of: it’s called ‘Jack in the Box’ (hmm!) … Continue reading →

George Saunders First, THANKS again for the rich and insightful discussion… can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying these conversations as a wind-down to every week. We ended the hour talking about Eva. Afterwards, I wondered: Could we read the … Continue reading →

for fun We didn’t meet today, and I missed seeing you. I’ve also been thinking about question I thought y’all could help with: What are some of the funniest books or stories you’ve read? And if you want, you can … Continue reading →