Discuss major new work by today’s top writers, including emerging novelists, award-winners, and established favorites, all of whom are central to today's cultural conversation. We will investigate a variety of inventive narrative strategies, explore the psychology of numerous fascinating characters, and examine important topics within a context of changing times, changing lives and a changing world. Together we will explore: a catty philosophy teacher and his loving/annoying mother in war torn Beirut; two motherless girls from Honeysuckle, Louisiana who take two starkly different paths but are united by a devastating tragedy; a global epic featuring a pair of lonely young Indians and the families that shape their lives; two couples and points of no return during a profoundly harsh winter in the early sixties in England; a young expat husband and wife struggle to find the perfect life in 21st century Berlin; a complicated college love triangle that takes decades to resolve; fraudulence, fatherhood, and the struggle to remain a person in an age of digital triumph; a family curse in Nigeria; an Afghani family and the American dream.
Readings: Ben Lerner, Transcription; Oyinkan Braithwaite, Cursed Daughters; Patmeena Sabit, Good People; Kiran Desai, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny; Andrew Miller, The Land in Winter; Tayari Jones, Kin; Lily King, Heart the Lover; Rabih Alameddine, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother); Ben Markovits, The Rest of our Lives; Vincenzo Latronico, Perfection.
Students should read Lily King’s Heart the Lover for the first class.
Continuing Education Units (CEU) : 0
You'll walk away with
- Increased cultural literacy, including intercultural knowledge and competence
- An understanding of current contemporary fiction, including its themes, meanings, and historical and cultural contexts
Ideal for
- The curious and creative
- Professionals who use critical thinking