Classics of Modernism (NWL)

This course is a unique opportunity to really deconstruct the nuances and implications of influential texts; to debate what things mean and hear other perspectives in discussions guided by the questions and suggestions of a university professor. It is essentially the best elements of a classic, idealistic university class (intellectual debate, and contemplating ideas that never would've been thought of while reading casually and individually). It's a rare chance to search deeper into the classic texts and authors (Oscar Wilde, D.H. Lawrence, Vladimir Nabokov, Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf) that so many people have heard of, but so few have ever had the chance to really study and consider.

Books that we will be reading include:

• 2/6: Wilde-The Picture of Dorian Gray

• 2/20: Lawrence-Sons and Lovers

• 3/5: Nabokov-Lolita

• 3/19: Wharton-The Age of Innocence

• 4/2: Hemingway-For Whom the Bell Tolls

• 4/23: Woolf-To the Lighthouse

Literature discussions will be led by Professor Joseph Reynolds. Professor Reynolds is the Founder and Director of The Sancho Panza Literary Society, and Editor in Chief and Fiction Editor of New Square. His debut novel, Make Dust our Paper, was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Fiction. He teaches college in both New England and Ireland. As an undergraduate, he was a speechwriter and intern in the United States Senate office of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. 

PARKING: There is ample library event parking in the nearby Isham Garage. Please bypass the garage kiosks and come directly to the Noah Webster Library Meeting Room, 20 South Main Street, where you may validate your parking with your license plate number.

Supported by the West Hartford Library Foundation, Thomas F. Kilfoil Bequest.