Season of the Witch: Border Lines, Marginal Notes [Paperback]

Gail B. Griffin (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Griffin, author of Calling: Essays on Teaching in the Mother Tongue, excels at describing both the difficulties and the exhilaration of teaching college. She's at her best in an essay titled ``The Bluest Eyes'' about teaching African American literature to a mostly white class, but she's also very fine in pieces on the culture of academe. Brilliant in its brevity, ``Dirty Pictures'' is an essay about some hate mail she received after her photograph was published in a newspaper and also about a female student who showed up to warn her that she might be receiving some old, pornographic photographs of said student in the mail. ``Dear Katie: The Scarlet Letter'', a lengthy response to a niece who asked about being a woman in academia, stuns with its straight talk about discomfiting situations. Her cultural examinations are apt too: both the differences between the written and film versions of The Wizard of Oz and her youthful obsession with the Beatles are dissected with good humor and insight. Sometimes, however, she slips too deeply into academic jargon, or worse, reveals that she is still enamored with Paul McCartney et al. after all these years. (The sappiest essay here compares the death of John Lennon with the end of a long and intense relationship and ends ``You were right, we all shine on. Here in the dark, when I look up, I still see you, brightest of all.'') One device is more than tired: the use of dictionary definitions of words to set off examination of their deeper meaning.

Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In Griffin's second essay collection (after Calling: Essays on Teaching in the Mother Tongue, Trilogy, 1992), she explains that "each of the three sections uses the metaphor of margins in different ways." The first use is autobiographical ("from my sense of the personal and historical margins in my life"); the second group is about teaching ("the classroom as a borderland"); and the third concerns "cultural, racial, and national memory." Several essays, including "The Bluest Eyes: Teaching African American Literature in White Classrooms," are derived from earlier presentations in academe and deserve rereading. "Season of the Witch," a 1992 chapel lecture at Kalamazoo College (Mich.), where Griffin chairs the English department and directs women's studies, is timely in this day of sexist ageism. For education and women's studies collections.?Helen Rippier Wheeler, formerly with UC-Berkeley, SLIS
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Trilogy Books (December 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0962387959
• ISBN-13: 978-0962387951
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,415,994 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Detroit in 1950, a place and time I've always regarded as almost mythically significant. Educated by lots of good and bad teachers, by the civil rights movement, by the Beatles, by the '60's, by a formidable mother, and by 19th-century novels galore. Came to Kalamazoo College in 1977 with the intention of moving on in a couple years, and I'm still there, teaching literature, nonfiction writing, and women's studies.

My first two books are out of print but available here on Amazon or through me. CALLING is the story of coming of age as a feminist teacher, and Carolyn Heilbrun called it the best account of the academic patriarchy that she'd read, bless her heart. SEASON OF THE WITCH is a more motley collection of personal essays. My new one, "THE EVENTS OF OCTOBER": MURDER-SUICIDE ON A SMALL CAMPUS (September 2010, Wayne State U. Press), is the result of four years of research into the murder of a woman student by her former boyfriend in 1999. Part "immersion journalism," part memoir, part analysis, it's my attempt to place the tragedy squarely on the spectrum of violence against women and to understand how and why such "events" happen. It was thoroughly exhausting to write and I'm proud of it.

In my spare time I read a lot, watch movies, contemplate my cat, and reflect on the brilliance and beauty of Johnny Depp. I also write and publish poetry and brief nonfiction, a form that really interests me.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars White pages aren't blank pages, November 16, 2000

By 

Heather Booth (Kalamazoo, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Season of the Witch: Border Lines, Marginal Notes (Paperback)

Gail's book is one of those that I would never want to place in a single category. It's a perfect blend of memoir, storytelling, commentary, and literary criticism. A good part of the work focuses on growing up white and female, and the challenges that come when someone of this background teaches literature by African Americans. She confronts many aspects of the collective history to which she belongs that are often unacknowledged or set aside. As a professor of literature, she seems to examine her own life, culture, and history as if it were one of her classroom texts - carefully, thoughtfully, and fully aware of the many opposing and contrasting views one could hold. I left the experience of reading this book feeling that I knew more about literature, my culture, and myself. There is much more within this book than a simple memoir, cultural commentary, or literary critique would offer - it's too beautiful and complex to belong in one of these categories.

5.0 out of 5 stars Another book that deserves wider readership, November 30, 2002

By 

Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Season of the Witch: Border Lines, Marginal Notes (Paperback)

Gail Griffin's book should have been published to greater fanfare. I suspect the major publishers were nervous (if indeed they saw this book at all) because, as another reviewer said, the book is difficult to categorize. A book of essays? Sounds dreary.

Yet Seasons is one of the liveliest, most insightful career books available. As a career coach, I frequently cite Gail's story of being asked to cover for a project-botching colleague. The man was paid a stipend but everyone knew he would do a bad job -- so the administration asked Gail to give up her summer research quarter (for which she was not paid) and do the job -- for no compensation of course!

As a former college professor myself, I can relate to Gail's stories of second-class treatment in academia. She triumphed and became a department head -- but the frustrations never go away completely. Male colleagues interrupt her office hours and her classes. I've had similar experiences.

Some of the best essays in the book deal with Gail's classroom experiences as she teaches literature to undergraduates. In fact, I think she would do better to put together a collection of those experiences and sell them as a book. Her discussion of The Color Purple and her analysis of a Rita Snow poem are worth the price of the book. She makes literature come alive and we see why she is such a gifted teacher.

If you can get a copy of this book, send it to anyone who's entering academia, especially women. And if you like literature and want to share Gail's exuberance, that's another reason to track down this book and buy it.