Biography

You’ve seen the headlines: “College Students Can’t Read Long Novels, Professors Weep”; “High Schools No Longer Assign Full Books, Adults Weep”; “Adults Themselves (esp. Men) Don’t Read Fiction - Reese Witherspoon’s Weeping Wins Oscar.” The diagnosis that novel-reading is waning is largely true. Maybe, the longest novel you have read is either 870 or 896 pages, depending on whether you had the hard- or paperback edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

This course is designed to teach you how to not only read, but become immersed in a big, complex story. As a class we’ll tackle a novel none of us (including me!) has read and figure out what we need to know and what skills we need to sharpen to experience it in its fullness. Clocking in at a mere 864 pages, this year’s triple-decker is Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (2004), the Hugo-award-winning fantasy/historical novel by Susanna Clarke. We will engage with historical context and literary theory and even film (Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige); and you will actively help construct the syllabus and assignments: presentations, and writing in many different genres, from the essay to film criticism to fiction.