Fall 2022 Courses
ENGL 5310-110 The Fitzgeralds
It is remarkable that the Fitzgeralds – “Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. The Fitzgerald’s,” Tom Hiddleston as Scott emphasizes – are the first iconic figures of 1920s expat Paris whom we meet in Midnight in Paris (2011). Our cultural memory lionizes the figures of the Fitzgeralds as repositories of the Jazz Age. But only “F. Scott” became synonymous with the high modernist canon alongside his pals Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and T.S. Eliot. Zelda is often forgotten, cast as the mere “wife of” her famous spouse even though she was a writer and painter in her own right. Who were the Fitzgeralds? As writers, as artists, as individuals, and as a couple? In this course, we will read the published novels, short stories, and essays of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (including The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, Save Me the Walz, “Babylon Revisited” and “Winter Dreams,” and Zelda’s “girl” stories). We will also read the couple’s letters and watch films that further historically and biographically contextualize their lives.
ENGL 3357-125 Writers in Exile
What are the conditions that lead a person to be exiled or to exile themselves? When, how, and why do American writers like Washington Irving, Margaret Fuller, Edith Wharton, Djuna Barnes, and James Baldwin leave the United States to live permanently abroad? (And why do they often go to Paris?) In this class, we will study works of literature written by American writers while they were living in exile. They’re subjects are often political, written during an era of trauma or upheaval, and address the social effects of war, social marginalization of one’s sexuality identity, or disenchantment with American values.