ONCE1016 - Coming of Age in America (book discussion)

Course Description

Join as we read five novels of young people growing up in America, three of them modern classics set in the promise and challenges of the early twentieth century, a fourth set in the prosperous nineties, a fifth in the tumultuous present day. We begin with the beloved, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith’s autobiographical tale of a daughter of Irish and Austrian immigrants. We follow with another classic of the twentieth century, Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, a young newspaperman’s stark and humanizing journey to maturity. We follow with The Long Take, award-winning poet Robin Robertson’s noirish epic of a WWII veteran making his way to Hollywood. From there we travel to prosperous Long Island with Colson Whitehead’s autobiographical Sag Harbor, and then on to another semi-autobiographical tale set in present day Hartford, Connecticut, with Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We are Briefly Gorgeous.

Notes

Section I: 5 Tuesdays, Jan. 28, Feb. 18, Mar. 10, 31 and Apr. 21, 2020 from 10:0 AM to 12:00 PM

Section II: 5 Tuesdays, Jan. 28, Feb. 18, Mar. 10, 31 and Apr. 21, 2020 from 1:00 to 3:00 PM

Both sections take place at the Temple University Ambler campus.