Humanities
LITERATURE FOUR SHORT FICTIONS BY THREE AMERICIANS MASTERS Gerry Weisenberg | M.A. Harvard University
The overarching achievements of their major iconic novels have obscured, for some, the imaginative power of the shorter stories of Herman Melville, Henry James, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Through close reading and vigorous discussion of Melville’s "Bartleby the Scrivener," James’s "The Turn of the Screw" and "The Beast in the Jungle," and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "The Diamond as big as the Ritz," we will engage their classic creations. COURSE CODE: FOUR Sec. 01: 8 Tuesdays, 11am-12:30pm. Begins Jun. 22 | $240
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE’S SHORT STORIES Susan Glassman | Ph.D., English, University of Rhode Island
Early in his career, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote that he was "the obscurest man of letters in America," but he became a writer who helped shape American literature. Join us in reading his short fiction dealing with essential American history and issues—the Puritan past, the Native Americans, the American Revolution, psychological explorations of sin and guilt. Written early in Hawthorne’s career as a writer, the themes of these stories reappear in his later and longer works. We will analyze themes, characters, settings, symbolism, and style, as well as look at contemporary interpretations. For the first class, please read “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” in Nathaniel Hawthorne: Selected Tales and Sketches ISBN 0-14-039057-X. C O U R S E C O D E : H AW T Sec. 01: 8 Tuesdays, 10:30-11:45am. Begins Jun. 22 | $230 Sec. 02: 8 Tuesdays, 2-3:15pm. Begins Jun. 22 | $230
DRAWING OUTSIDE THE LINES: ASIAN, MIDDLE EASTERN AND DIASPORA GRAPHIC NOVELS Ravi Shankar | Professor
Once considered a pulp genre, the graphic novel achieved new respectability when cartoonist Art Spiegelman won a Pulitzer Prize. In this class, we will study the genre’s history, before delving into work including Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, and more. We will also discuss identity, pictographs, and how this hybrid genre can enact powerful social commentary, and why it is fundamental in any understanding of 21st-century art and culture. COURSE CODE: PULP Sec. 01: 8 Tuesdays, 5:30-7:30pm. Begins Jun. 22 | $270
THE DECLINE OF A FAMILY: THOMAS MANN’S BUDDENBROOKS Petra Bittner | Literature Instructor
Mann’s novel Buddenbrooks, published in Germany in 1901, when the author was only twenty-six, has become a classic of modern literature. It portrays the lives of four generations of a wealthy bourgeois family in northern Germany. In the immensity of scope, richness of detail, and fullness of humanity, Buddenbrooks is unsurpassed. Thomas Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929. Join us in reading and discussing this modern masterpiece. Please obtain: Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family; translated by John E. Woods (ISBN 9780679752608). For our first class please read part 1, 2 and 3. COURSE CODE: BROO Sec. 01: 4 Mondays, 1:30-3pm. Begins Jul. 19 | $115
GRIMM BROTHERS' MAGICAL YET VERY REAL WORLD Olga Turcotte | Jungian Consultant and Instructor
Brothers Jacob and Wilhelm got along well enough to work together harmoniously most of their lives and compiled over 200 folk tales from across the globe which were originally meant for us, the adults. Over the years, we have asked the young and the innocent to read and understand them, while we have been a little busy living out sundry parts of the tales ourselves. Join us to read and interpret these age-old stories. Please acquire The Complete Grimm Fairy Tales (ISBN 978-0394709307) by Pantheon. C O U R S E C O D E : B R OT Sec. 01: 4 Thursdays, 1-2:30pm. Begins Aug. 5 | $115
HENRY JAMES AND "THE TURN OF THE SCREW": A CASE FOR THE PARANORMAL Howard Bernstein | Literature and Culture Specialist.
Do ghosts exist? Are they figments of the imagination? If, in a given situation, some see ghosts, and others don’t, are ghosts real, a product of mass delusion, or perhaps it depends on the circumstance? We will read Henry James’s enigmatic novella “The Turn of the Screw” to see if it has clues to answer these questions and analyze it with these themes in mind. What does this novella have to tell us about the paranormal, if anything? In the first session, we will analyze the novella. In the second session we will put it into the context of the time where belief in spiritualism was somewhat popular, and also watch movie clips of some of the many films based off of the novella. Please come to the first session having read “The Turn of the Screw” in its entirety. COURSE CODE: SOUL Sec. 01: 2 Mondays, 7-8:30pm. Aug. 9 & 16 | $100
MONSTROUS FICTION Von Beckford | English Literature Professor UMass Boston
Do you love monsters? Take a break from mundanity with this eight-week course focusing on monstrous short stories by authors like Haruki Murakami and Octavia Butler. What are monsters? Why are we so fascinated by them? What can we learn from them? Ranging from folktales, to modern day dark fiction, this course will teach you to use literary devices as tools for dissecting some of humankind’s worst fears. C O U R S E C O D E : O C TA Sec. 01: 8 Thursdays, 11am-12:30pm. Begins Jun. 24 | $240
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