ENGL1913W: I Don't Want to Grow Up--Coming of Age in Fiction

Adulting is stressful. One day you’re turning somersaults on the lawn, and the next day you’re dealing with job interviews and the interest on your student loans. In this discussion-driven literature class, we’ll read novels and short stories that depict the shift from the teen years to adulthood in a wide range of contexts, from Jane Austen’s 19th-century England to Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam War experience and from the graphic novel to speculative fiction. During the course of the seminar, you'll write a letter to your former (or future) self, meet a renowned local author and ask them questions about their work, dig through a literary archive, and experiment with adopting the persona of a fictional character. This seminar fulfills a Writing Intensive requirement, which means we’ll explore our own and others’ stories of coming-of-age while also spending some quality time on literary exercises and experiments.

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