ENGL 270 - New York Stories

Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)

“New York had all the iridescence of the beginning of the world.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald. For this intensive, we read stories – novels, short fiction, journalism, memoirs – set in New York City. We visit, and in many cases, attempt to conjure, the vanished places where the stories were set. Only by haunting these physical sites and recreating them through the virtual technologies of history and literature will we get to see not only what the authors saw, but what they saw that wasn’t there, and what was there they didn’t see. Your main mentored assignment entails constructing a walking tour for your classmates based on one of the narratives. Authors might include Walt Whitman, Edith Wharton, Teju Cole, James Baldwin, Chang-Rae Lee, Luc Sante, Patti Smith Paula Fox, Colson Whitehead, and Joseph Cassara. We devise the syllabus together. Heesok Chang.

Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor. To apply please send an email to hechang@vassar.edu stating your name, year, major, and a concise description of your interest in the course.

Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors.

One 75-minute period.

Course Format: INT