Humanities Reads!

Humanitities Reads!

Faculty teaching courses in the Humanities, or courses with a strong Humanities-related component, are invited to consider adopting this year's common Humanities text as part of their assigned reading and discussion material during Spring 2011. The Center for the Humanities will purchase up to 20 copies of the book per section for student use during the Spring. To request the books for your section(s), please contact the director at humanities.center@drake.edu. Depending on demand and availability, faculty may be asked to schedule the use of the book in their courses to allow for text-sharing between sections.

George Saunders's In Persuasion Nation (2006)

This year, the Center for the Humanities has adopted George Saunder's collection of wry, satirical and sometimes bizarre short stories In Persuasion Nation. Frequently featured in The New Yorker, Saunders's fiction is quirky but strangely true-to-life, speculative as it sometimes is. This collection includes such stories as "My Flamboyant Grandson" and "Jon." 

"My Flamboyant Grandson" recounts the story of a Grandfather, who, having taken his Broadway-musically-inclined grandson to New York City, sometime in the not so distant future, makes the mistake of removing his shoes (his feet hurt), thereby also deactivating the computer-chips in them that would otherwise trigger the appearance of personally-designed holographic advertisements. As a result, he becomes enmeshed in a bureacratic process that requires him to retrace his steps and attend carefully to all the advertisements he missed out on the first time around.

In a similar vein, "Jon" tells the story of a young man who has been implanted with software that registers his reactions as he watches hour after hour of advertising. He and the other denizens of a life-long focus-group/residential-community, must decide if to disconnect, and to try to make a life for themselves in the "real" world beyond the distortions of commercial advertising.

Saunders's mordant vision is tempered by wit and the careful precision with which his observations resonate with contemporary American culture. You can visit Saunders's personal website for more information about his work, including interviews, bibliography, and "Notes from George": http://www.georgesaundersland.com/

Saunders to Appear at Drake

George Saunders will read from his new work and engage in a Q-and-A as part of the Writers and Critics Series on Monday, April 23, 2012 at 7:30 in Sheslow Auditorium. The event is free an open to all members of the Drake community and the public.

Book Discussion at the Spring Symposium

In the week preceding Saunders's visit, professors Megan Brown and Sarah Hogan, of the Drake University Department of English, will host a discussion of In Persuasion Nation. All interested Drake faculty, staff, and students will have access to the book. More details about time, place, and book availability will be coming soon!