{"id":18,"date":"2025-02-27T23:49:01","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T23:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp_JLG\/?page_id=18"},"modified":"2025-09-28T18:41:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T18:41:13","slug":"public","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jennielightweisgoff.com\/index.php\/public\/","title":{"rendered":"Public"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Public Writing<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Jennie Lightweis-Goff\u2019s teaching and scholarship challenge the centrality of nation and periodization to literary studies, exploring minor spaces \u2013 smaller than nations or regions \u2013 as literary archives with vast temporal boundaries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Major Articles<\/h3><\/div>
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in the shadow of the sears factory, or, the immigrant\u2019s closet<\/a><\/h4>
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just femme & dandy<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I enter a new city, I begin a ritual. I try to find a garment made there. The ritual is political, oriented toward history and survival. The wool suits and fur coats of a not-so-distant past in New Orleans and Baltimore offer vernacular affirmation to the evidence of a changing climate. The \u201cMade in Memphis\u201d and \u201cMade in New York\u201d tags offer ephemeral monuments to the unheralded laborer, migrant and immigrant alike.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Spring 2023<\/div>

Vulnerability in America<\/a><\/h4>
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Walking among us are people who have never been hurt; they are confident that they remain unhurt because they have taken care. (\u201cBe careful!\u201d they say, when we leave their company.) Meanwhile, many of us live hurt, live unprepared for future hurt. I am confident that I am living because no one wants me dead. And I call this optimism.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Winter 2024<\/div>

Concept Creep: A Progressive\u2019s Lament<\/a><\/h4>
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Liberties<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps it was not the \u201cparanoid style\u201d of the political right, but the \u201chermeneutic of suspicion\u201d practiced by the academic left, that seized American tongues. The desire to flush out the enemy of concealed meaning generates martial language in scholarly writing.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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November 2024<\/div>

Democracy is for Losers<\/a><\/h4>
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Nine months before the election, my brother died what political scientists call \u201ca death of despair\u201d on the floor of a restaurant in Upstate South Carolina. On the six-month anniversary, Hurricane Helene devastated the region, and I found myself praying \u2014 for a reason I cannot articulate \u2014 that the restaurant, at least, would be spared the force of the wind and water.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>

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September 29, 2024<\/div>

The Velvet Ditch<\/a><\/h4>
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The Point<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Academics are people who give land acknowledgments before driving home to gated communities, so they are evidently immune to embarrassment.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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May 6, 2021<\/div>

Guilty Pleasures: Little Debbie Zebra Cakes<\/a><\/h4>
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Avidly<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On big days, I reward myself. No more liquor; I\u2019m not allergic to spirits, but an addict knows \u201chow narrow is the margin between being lost and being saved<\/a>.\u201d Milestones include the final day of the semester. Birthdays. Landing in Beijing. The second dose of Pfizer. Enchanting conversations with beautiful men. Near my campus or on my afternoon walk, I am sure to find my guilty pleasure at CVS or a gas station. It is a stark white cake with black stripes I\u2019ll elevate by calling \u201cganache.\u201d It is neither chocolate nor vanilla. It is a Zebra Cake and, for all I know from reading the ingredients, made from zebra meat.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Podcast Interviews<\/h3><\/div>
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2017<\/div>

The South and the City<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a><\/h4>

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About South<\/em> with Gina Caison<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arpents, acres, memory culture, and floodlines<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Feb. 2, 2023<\/div>

James Dickey’s Deliverance<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a><\/h4>

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The Projectionist's Lending Library<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nature, wounds, mountains, rivers, and dams<\/p>\n<\/div>

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Public Writing Jennie Lightweis-Goff\u2019s teaching and scholarship challenge the centrality of nation and periodization to literary studies, exploring minor spaces \u2013 smaller than nations or regions \u2013 as literary archives with vast temporal boundaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-18","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennielightweisgoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennielightweisgoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennielightweisgoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennielightweisgoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennielightweisgoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/jennielightweisgoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":379,"href":"https:\/\/jennielightweisgoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18\/revisions\/379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennielightweisgoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}