Robert Dale Parker
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Robert Dale Parker
@robertdaleparker.bsky.social
990 followers 420 following 230 posts
Here for US &/or Modern fiction & poetry, critical theory, crime fiction. Author of How to Interpret Literature & books on US & Native American literature. Emerging writer of mystery & crime fiction.

https://rparker1648.wixsite.com/robert-dale-parker
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Recently, I went to see the Elizabeth Catlett exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. Here is Catlett’s woodcut of Phillis Wheatley, based on the famous frontispiece to Wheatley’s book of poems.

#Poetry #Chicago #Boston #Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley in a black and white woodcut. She sits at a writing desk, facing right, a quill in her left hand over a blank piece of paper, her chin in her right hand, and her eyes looking up contemplatively beneath her cap. Above her, as if representing her thoughts, three Black women are chained together hand and foot.
January 19, 2026 at 9:31 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
If you're at the Modern Language Association convention, you might stop by the Oxford University Press booth and check out my new book, The Literature of Extreme Poverty in the Great Depression. Isn't that a great cover?

#MLA26
Cover of The Literature of Extreme Poverty in the Great Depression, showing a black-and-white photo by Dorothea Lange of hungry men standing in a Depression breadline, especially one man nearly facing the camera and wearing a disheveled hat and coat and holding a battered tin cup above his clasped hands.
January 10, 2026 at 7:04 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
To think that there are people in the world who would do this to other people . . .

To think that millions of people would choose anyone who would do this to lead them . . .
A horrible line up in the infamous Salvadoran prison, nearly naked men all with shaved heads and all forced into a crouch with their head down and unseen faces to the floor, lined up like sardines or bodies on a slave ship while armed guards in black masks look down at them.
December 23, 2025 at 3:23 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
RIP Tom Stoppard
Stoppard from the shoulders up, facing the camera and smiling, with long dark hair, bangs, and a collard jacket above a white, collared shirt.
November 30, 2025 at 2:27 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
I guess I should use the occasion of Trump’s ruthless & callous Gatsby party last night to share news of my latest article: “Wealthy White Whining: The Great Depression in the Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald,” in the latest issue of Studies in American Fiction.

#Gatsby #Fitzgerald #Trump
Trump at his Gatsby party in the middle of a crowd of celebrants dressed up like characters from the extravagant party in Fitzgerald's roaring twenties. The opening page of the article "Wealthy White Whining: The Great Depression in the Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald."
November 1, 2025 at 3:06 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
Thousand came out for the #NoKings protest today in Champaign-Urbana.

The sign on the left says: "Mike Johnson, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Susan Collins . . . GOP. HE GRABBED US BY THESE PUSSIES."
October 18, 2025 at 8:35 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
Champaign-Urbana showed up with thousands of people for today's #NoKings protest.
A blue inflatable insect and a pale turquoise inflatable elephant wave to two small children carrying an American flag.
October 18, 2025 at 8:32 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
Sure, I know that Zohran Mamdani is super popular and showing up everywhere, but I didn’t expect to see him on the back of my morning cereal box.

@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social

#ZohranMamdani #Mamdani #NewYork #NewYorkCity
The back of a bite-size shredded wheat box with a picture of a smiling boy and a smiling man who looks uncannily like Zohran Mamdani.
September 24, 2025 at 2:40 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
#Football game last night.
One end of the inside of an American football stadium, lit up brightly by stadium lights as an orange sunset glows in the distance. The field is green, the end zone is painted orange, and most of the fans also wear orange.
August 30, 2025 at 7:04 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/20...

#Putin #Trump #Ukraine
Cartoon of a nefarious-looking but confident-looking Putin playing a passive-looking Trump shaped like a violin.
August 18, 2025 at 5:01 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
This morning's prairie walk.
A reconstructed prairie with grasses and wildflowers. Trees line the horizon under a blue sky mixed with wispy white clouds.
August 4, 2025 at 4:37 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
Devastated to learn of the death of Brian McHale, my good friend for over 50 years, from metastatic melanoma. Here are some of Brian’s books. His many articles and books leave a great legacy, but not as great as his friendship. RIP.
The following books written by Brian McHale: Postmodernist Fiction, Constructing Postmodernism, The Obligation toward the Difficult Whole: Postmodernist Long Poems, and The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodernism, plus two books he co-edited: Teaching Narrative Theory and Postmodern Literature.
August 1, 2025 at 4:07 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
Great satire of the New York Times' coverage of Mamdani. If you go to mamdanitimes.com and click on "Publish Another," you see a series of satirical fake NYT headlines expressing inane NY Times-style doubt about Mamdani—and you can send in your own. Don't miss it.
A fake New York Times headline that says "Mamdani's Economic Message Failed to Move These Trump Voters in Rural Tennessee Diner," with a "Publish Another" button just below.
July 9, 2025 at 3:51 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
Proof! Why does proof always look more beautiful than the published work?

This article on Fitzgerald in the next Studies in Amer Fiction is a spinoff from my new book, The Literature of Extreme Poverty in the Great Depression (online for free at many univ libraries):

global.oup.com/academic/pro...
The top half of the first page of proof for an article called "Wealthy White Whining: The Great Depression in the Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald."
July 8, 2025 at 4:50 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
Sturgeon Bay in Door County, Wisconsin

#Sunset
Framed by the iron spans of a hundred-year-old bridge, an orange sunset in a cloudy sky hovers over a harbor of pleasure boats in the foreground and, in the middle distance, over the bay in the Wisconsin town of Sturgeon Bay. A tall mast rises in the center of the photo, seeming to brush against the sinking sun and slice through its reflection in the bay.
June 25, 2025 at 3:47 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
It’s time for journalists, “journalists,” & pundits to put a moratorium on the word “deal,” which they have turned into a tool for sanewashing & ventriloquizing Trump & institutionalizing his transactional narcissism & vanity.

#Trump #Tariffs #LawFirms #Universities #Congress
Headshot of Trump puffing out his cheeks.
May 28, 2025 at 2:16 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
From today's walk in a county park.

#Deer #Walking
A deer in the green woods, looking curiously at the photographer, with another deer in the background.
May 27, 2025 at 4:23 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
Clematis.

From searching online, I believe these are Clematis florida, also known as Asian virginsbower, passion flower clematis, and Asian clematis.

#Bloomscrolling
A closeup of white flowers with 8 pointed petals.
May 17, 2025 at 2:25 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
#Bloomscrolling #Spring
Purple rhododendron, up close.
May 15, 2025 at 2:50 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
Marc Elias on US journalism's feeble resistance to Trump:

#Journalism #Trump #Democracy
Too long, but here's an abridged version: The White House Correspondents' Dinner showed how diminished the legacy media has become. Trump has mocked them, dictated their access and replaced them with right-wing outlets. He even pressured them to cancel their entertainment while his administration largely boycotted the event. Trump came into office attacking the media and has never stopped. Yet, in his keynote address, the head of the Correspondents’ Association went out of his way to say that the media are not “the opposition.” Since Trump’s reelection, we have seen a steady decline of legacy media and a rapid growth of independent outlets. The public is tired of media treating politics and democracy like a sporting event with two equally meritorious sides, media produced by people who fail to view themselves as avowedly pro-democracy, and in opposition to those trying to destroy it. Legacy media isn’t declining because people no longer value news; it’s because they value it more than ever. I have no interest in sitting with people who believe their job is to stay neutral while the administration deports two-year-old American citizens. I do not want to share cocktails and canapés with those who will not stand full-throated against attacks on law firms, universities, nonprofit organizations and, yes—media institutions. I did not start Democracy Docket in 2020 to attend parties. I founded it to reject false neutrality and be unapologetically pro-democracy.
April 28, 2025 at 5:08 PM
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Act Blue responds to Trump's attack.
To our ActBlue donors, friends and all Americans who believe in liberty and our democracy: Donald Trump and his GOP accomplices launched an unprecedented attack on democracy in America by targeting ActBlue with a series of completely baseless allegations. Since our founding, ActBlue has become a vital part of the infrastructure of our democracy. We are a safe and secure fundraising platform that enables tens of millions of Americans to participate at a grassroots level in the most fundamental pillar of our society: elections. Nothing that Donald Trump does or says will interrupt ActBlue from carrying out our mission. ActBlue abides strictly by all federal and state laws governing our work. ActBlue, bar none, is the leader in reliability, transparency, accountability and fraud detection efforts. Today’s escalation by the White House is the further weaponization of the instruments of federal power by Donald Trump to shut down all political, electoral and ideological opposition. It is time for the entire Democratic party, grassroots donors and all Americans who embrace the value of civic participation to unite and create a blue wall against the oppressive abuse of power by this White House and their accomplices in Congress. Donald Trump is seeking to tear down the grassroots power we have built. We are undeterred and stand together. We will not back down. Thank you for standing with us as we fight for our democracy. – Regina Wallace-Jones CEO & President, ActBlue
April 25, 2025 at 2:17 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
Who would have thought that the court that gave Trump immunity would dilly dally over whether he can shred the Constitution?

As a sign at a rally last week said: "They're eating the checks. They're eating the balances."
On the right of this cartoon, a man is stretched out on a rack for torture. Chains hold his legs to the bottom of the rack, while a pulley stretches his arms up at the top. To the left, the black-robed justices of the US Supreme Court discuss the law, while Chief Justice Roberts turns aside and says to the man getting tortured: “Please be patient while we discuss the relative meanings of ‘facilitate’ and ‘effectuate.’”
April 17, 2025 at 3:44 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
Went to see the cherry blossoms the other day.

#Bloomscrolling #Spring
A curving sidewalk covered in a canopy of white cherry blossoms.
April 15, 2025 at 5:46 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
The rampant normalizing of Trump's whacko and destructive behavior is indescribably dangerous.
A cartoon depicting a voter going along with all the dangerous things Trump has done over the years but then saying he's gone too far when it comes to tanking the stock market.
April 10, 2025 at 7:34 PM
robertdaleparker.bsky.social
Today is the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Great Gatsby.

#Gatsby
The original cover of The Great Gatsby, showing two eyes and a pair of red lips hovering in a fairly dark and bright blue sky above the bright lights of a city, with the title words at the top in yellow and F. Scott Fitzgerald at the bottom in white.
April 10, 2025 at 2:21 PM