Author: Dr. Mat. Olympia Sibley

For nearly a quarter of a century, Olympia Sibley has worked to convince college students that literature matters, creativity is a higher form of intelligence, and sentences are units of thought. She earned her PhD in English Literature from Texas A&M University (with a minor in Philosophy), graduating summa cum laude. Olympia was born in Iowa, raised in Minnesota, graduated high school in Kenya, and now resides in Bryan, Texas with her husband, A ROCOR priest. When she isn’t chanting, grading, reading, or teaching, Olympia enjoys writing poetry and spending time in the tree house her beloved husband built her in a century-old oak on their 5 wooded acres.

Attention Must Be Paid

· Dr. Mat. Olympia Sibley 1 Leave a Comment on %s
“The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what he saw in a plain way.” –John Ruskin As nearly a year has passed since my last blog post, a year during which both my parents died (among other personal catastrophes), I am not going to attempt a continuity with that post I cannot feel. From where I am now, I cannot muster any confidence in my ability to write a “Part 2” that reasonably maintains the logic and tone of the first installment. Instead, I will attempt…

Books are Technology, Too

· Dr. Mat. Olympia Sibley
In his famous poem, “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” Rainer Maria Rilke writes about the experience of looking at a great piece of art. His point is that great art looks at us, too; we find ourselves observed, questioned and judged. I argue that this is as true of literary art as of sculpture. What will we do after we close the book? The last line of Rilke’s poem tells us, “You must change your life.” The same Orthodox Christians who rightly express concern over the dangers of gaming or the number of hours being spent in…