Lecture Description
Professor Wai Chee Dimock begins her discussion of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls with an overview of the Spanish Civil War, the historical event at the heart of the novel. She introduces the notion of an “involuntary foreigner” to discuss the fate of Hemingway’s American protagonist Robert Jordan, as well as the Spanish guerillas who are turned into “aliens” within their own country due to their print and technological illiteracies. Professor Dimock concludes by connecting one’s status as an involuntary foreigner to the shape of the future, arguing that these characters have a tenuous claim to a Spain dominated by the Fascists, and to a modernity increasingly dominated by technology.
Course Index
- Introduction
- Hemingway's In Our Time (Part I)
- Hemingway's In Our Time (Part II)
- Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (Part I)
- Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (Part II)
- Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (Part I)
- Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (Part II)
- Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (Part III)
- Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (Part IV)
- Hemingway's To Have and Have Not (Part I)
- Hemingway's To Have and Have Not (Part II)
- Fitzgerald's Short Stories
- Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (Part I)
- Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (Part II)
- Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (Part III)
- Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (Part I)
- Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (Part II)
- Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (Part III)
- Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (Part IV)
- Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night (Part I)
- Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night (Part II)
- Faulkner's Light in August (Part I)
- Faulkner's Light in August (Part II)
- Faulkner's Light in August (Part III)
- Faulkner's Light in August (Part IV)
Course Description
This course examines major works by Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner, exploring their interconnections on three analytic scales: the macro history of the United States and the world; the formal and stylistic innovations of modernism; and the small details of sensory input and psychic life.
Warning: Some of the lectures in this course contain graphic content and/or adult language that some users may find disturbing.