Dr. Zaslavsky has gathered together forty essays that represent the fruits of his lifetime of reading and teaching. The essays exemplify a method of reading substantive works that has been called Talmudic. The essays examine works by Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Moses Maimonides, Kant, DeQuincey, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Keats, Poe, Melville, Dickinson, Frost, Sherwood Anderson, Fitzgerald, cummings, Neruda, Arthur Miller, and Faulkner. In addition, there are essays on the Bible, the Constitution, and detective fiction. In every instance, the examined author is treated as a highly deliberate, conscious craftsperson whose intention it is the reader's task to discern.
About the Author: Dr. Robert Zaslavsky received his BA in Philosophy and English from Temple University, and his MA and Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. In addition, he has done graduate work in English at New York University and in education at Cabrini College. At Cabrini College, he served as interim Secondary Education Advisor (observing and evaluating student teachers). In addition to his two decades of teaching Latin and Greek in private and public middle and high schools, he has taught courses in Literature, Religion, Psychology, Philosophy, History, Film, and Art History on the university level and in secondary private and public schools. He is the author of An Introductory Latin Course: A First Latin Grammar for Middle Schoolers, High Schoolers, College Students, Homeschoolers, and Self-Learners; Answer Key to Exercises for Zaslavsky's An Introductory Latin Course; Cornelii Taciti, De Vita Iulii Agricolae Liber, student text, edited with introduction, notes, and literal translation; Platonic Myth and Platonic Writing: A Philosophico-Literary Exploration, revised and corrected second edition; The Latin and Greek Roots of English Words Keyed to Selected and Targeted Vocabulary For Use by High Schoolers, Middle Schoolers, Elementary Schoolers, Homeschoolers, and Self-Learners; and Literate Philosophy and Philosophical Literacy: Collected Academic Essays, 1963-2015. In addition, he has published scholarly essays on Plato, Aristotle, classical philology, detective fiction, Shakespeare, and Homer. He has been a guest columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Fort Worth Weekly. He has contributed a regular column to the Atlanta (GA) weekly The Sunday Paper, writing on politics, technology, and education. He has made presentations to the Southwest Conference on Language Teaching, the Texas Foreign Language Association, and the Florida Foreign Language Association on methods of teaching an inflected language for today's students and on teaching students learning and translation strategies. Furthermore, he has been a guest lecturer on Greek philosophy, on poetry, on methods of textual study, and on the Bible, Maimonides, Shakespeare, and Milton. He has been a theater judge for the Suzi Bass Awards (Atlanta, GA). He resides in Decatur, GA (USA). His web site is www.doczonline.com.