February 2020
American Pastoral: Philip Roth
In this course we will discuss one of the great works of post-war American fiction, Philip Roth’s American Pastoral. Uncompromising in its exploration of relations between the generations, American Pastoral exposes the dark side of the USA at the apogee of its political and economic power. Set against the backdrop of political radicalism, race riots and the Vietnam War, Roth takes us kicking and screaming through a riot of domestic crises - we want it to end, and we don't, we…
Find out more »March 2020
America in Crisis: Lolita
In February, 1954, Vladimir Nabokov wrote to publisher, James Laughlin, “Would you be interested in publishing a timebomb that I have just finished putting together? It is a novel of 459 typewritten pages.” The novel was “Lolita,” the tale of a pedophile’s exploitation of a twelve-year-old girl. It took Nabokov five years to get his 'timebomb' published and since then it has become a totem of American literature. The subject matter is shocking but the prose is sublime. How can…
Find out more »May 2020
North and South
When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the North of England. Initially repulsed by the griminess of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by her tempestuous relationship with the mill-owner and self-made man John…
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