Mark Danner
We will focus on reading and analyzing long nonfiction: how it is reported, how it is structured, how it is written. We will do some writing but the emphasis will be on close reading and plenty of it. Authors will include, among others, V.S. Naipaul, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Janet Malcolm, Bruce Chatwin, George Orwell.
Syllabus
January 22: Introduction, The Nonfiction Novella
January 22: Introduction, The Nonfiction Novella
January 30: Erich Auerbach, “Odysseus’ Scar,” Mimesis Homer, The Odyssey, Book XIX “Elohim,” Genesis, Chapter 22, V.S. Naipaul, “The Return of Eva Peron”
February 5: George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” “Marrakech,” Homage to Catalonia, The Road to Wigan Pier
February 12: Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down Ridley Scott, “Black Hawk Down” (Sony Pictures) [CNN Presents, “Black Hawk Down”]
February 19: Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness” Sven Lindqvist, Exterminate All the Brutes Sven Lindqvist, A History of Bombing
February 26: Henry Adams, Democracy H. Adams & C.F. Adams, Chapters of Erie
March 5: Mark Danner, The Massacre at El Mozote
March 12: Janet Malcolm, The Journalist and the Murderer, “The Silent Woman” [In the Freud Archives]
March 19: Ryszard Kapuscinski, The Emperor, Shah of Shahs
April 2: John McPhee, A Sense of Where You Are (“Lists of Ingredients” Due)
April 9: Thomas Whiteside, Twiggy and Justin George W.S. Trow, Within the Context of No Context [Daniel Boorstin, The Image]
April 16: Joan Didion, Salvador, Democracy
April 23: Ian Jack, “Gibraltar,” The Granta Book of Reporting, Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier (Long Piece Openings Due)
April 30: Truman Capote, In Cold Blood
May 7: Truman Capote, In Cold Blood [along w/ Robert Brooks’ film, In Cold Blood] (Final Papers Due)
May 14: Primo Levy, A Man’s A Man (aka, Survival in Auschwitz) [Louis Begley, Wartime Lies, Gitta Sereny, Into That Darkness, W.G. Sebald, The Emigrants] Other Recommended Texts: Lawrence Weschler, Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder, Calamities of Exile; William Styron, Darkness Visible; C.S. Lewis, Grief Observed
