Freedom Jonathan Franzen
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David Foster Wallace on the Good Life
10/31/2014Forthcoming in Freedom & Self: The Philosophy of David Foster Wallace 124 6 David Foster Wallace on the Good Life Nathan Ballantyne and Justin Tosi Dostoevsky wrote fiction about the stuff that’s really important. He wrote fiction about identity, moral value, death, will, sexual vs. spiritual love, greed, freedom, obsession, reason, faith, suicide. And he did it without ever reducing his characters to mouthpieces or his books to tracts. His concern was always what it is to be a human being—that is, how to be an actual person, someone whose life is informed by values and principles, instead of just an especially shrewd kind of self-preserving animal. —David Foster Wallace, “Joseph Frank’s Dostoevsky” David Foster Wallace thought that the point of writing fiction was to explore what it is to be a 1 human being. In this essay, we argue that his writings suggest a view about what philosophers would call the good life . Wallace’s perspective is subtle and worthy of attention. We’ll contrast what Wallace says with some popular positions from moral philosophy and contemporary culture. Wallace said much about ethical matters even though he didn’t write on them formally or systematically. How then shall we distill views from his writings? Our strategy is to present Wallace’s reactions, as found in his fiction and some essays, to three positions about the good life. We will ask what Wallace would make of those positions and thus try to triangulate his own view by reference to them. The first position we’ll explore is sometimes called ironism . -
Eastern and Western Promises in Jonathan Franzen's Freedom
ATLANTIS Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies 37.1 (June 2015): 11-29 issn 0210-6124 Eastern and Western Promises in Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom Jesús Ángel González Universidad de Cantabria [email protected] This essay examines Jonathan Franzen’s novel Freedom (2010) and explores the symbolic way in which this novel uses the urban and regional spaces/places of the United States. Franzen’s use of space/place is related to Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925), as well as to Franzen’s previous novels, his well-known Harper’s essay (1996), and other writings like “A Rooting Interest” (2012) or his memoir The Discomfort Zone (2007), where he scrutinizes his own position as a writer and his attitude towards nature. Franzen’s environmental concerns in the novel are also considered from the perspective of ecocriticism. The conclusion is that following Fitzgerald’s example, Franzen uses the East and West (and the urban locales of the inner city and the suburbs) as a backdrop to explore not only the meanings and interpretations of the word freedom (as has been repeatedly pointed out) but also the hopes and aspirations shared by the people of his country, the different dimensions and contradictions of the amalgam of promises and myths known as the American Dream. Keywords: Jonathan Franzen; Freedom; American Dream; space; place; F. Scott Fitzgerald; The Great Gatsby . Promesas del Este y del Oeste en Freedom, de Jonathan Franzen Este artículo analiza la última novela de Jonathan Franzen, Freedom (2010), y explora el modo simbólico en que esta novela usa los espacios regionales y urbanos de los Estados Unidos. -
Degrees of Freedom
February 2015 D of F EXPANDING COLLEGE OPPORTUNITIES for Currently and Formerly Incarcerated Californians Stanford Criminal Justice Center Chief Justice Earl Warren Stanford Law School Institute on Law and Social Policy UC Berkeley School of Law DEGREES OF FREEDOM: Expanding College Opportunities for Currently and Formerly Incarcerated Californians February 2015 A report of the Renewing Communities Initiative Acknowledgements This report was co-written by Debbie Mukamal, Rebecca Silbert, and Rebecca M. Taylor. This report is part of a larger initiative – Renewing Communities – to expand college opportunities for currently and formerly incarcerated students in California. Nicole Lindahl was a contributing author; Nicole Lindahl and Laura Van Tassel also provided research assistance for this report. The research and publication of this report has been supported by the Ford Foundation. The authors thank Douglas Wood of the Ford Foundation for his vision and leadership which catapulted this report. The authors are grateful to the many people who provided information, experience, and guidance in the development of this report. These individuals are listed in Appendix A. Any errors or misstatements in this report are the responsibility of the authors; the recommendations made herein may, or may not, be supported by the individuals listed in Appendix A. Founded in 2005, the Stanford Criminal Justice Center serves as a research and policy institute on issues related to the criminal justice system. Its efforts are geared towards both generating policy research for the public sector, as well as providing pedagogical opportunities to Stanford Law School students with academic or career interests in criminal law and crime policy. -
Civil Rights in Brooklyn Primary Source Packet
CIVIL RIGHTS IN BROOKLYN PRIMARY SOURCE PACKET Student Name Civil Rights in Brooklyn Primary Source Packet INTRODUCTORY READING Murphy, Brendan. “Civil Rights Professional Development Packet for Teachers.” Brooklyn Collection, Brooklyn Public Library. The Civil Rights Movement in Brooklyn The Civil Rights Movement is typically associated with the Black Freedom Movement from the mid- 1950s through the 1960s. However, the movement started much earlier than that. In the early twentieth century, African Americans organized groups such as the Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Though these groups were incredibly important, it was the experiences of African American men and women during World War II that reshaped how they viewed their opportunities and rights. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panthers were among the important civil rights organizations born from that experience. CORE played a major role in transforming what began as a movement for racial equality just in the military into a broader social movement for racial equality. CORE was a national, interracial organization with a commitment to nonviolent direct action, which became a major force in the struggle to end discrimination in the United States from 1942 through the 1960s. While the group raised awareness of civil rights campaigns in the south to end segregation, CORE also made clear that the problem of discrimination was equally a northern problem. Chapters of CORE were established in New York including: Bronx CORE, Harlem CORE, Lower East Side CORE, Queens CORE, and Brooklyn CORE. Ministers from black churches and local Brooklynites also joined the effort. -
Jonathan Franzen: the Comedy of Rage
Swarthmore College Works English Literature Faculty Works English Literature 2015 Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy Of Rage Philip M. Weinstein Swarthmore College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-english-lit Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Let us know how access to these works benefits ouy Recommended Citation Philip M. Weinstein. (2015). "Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy Of Rage". Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy Of Rage. https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-english-lit/294 This work is brought to you for free by Swarthmore College Libraries' Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Literature Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Introductory who is Jonathan Franzen and what is the comedy of rage? The first question is easy. Franzen is perhaps the best-known American novelist of his generation, all but uniquely capable of reaching both highbrow sophisticates and less demanding mainstream readers. A visual answer to the first question is even easier. Seen by untold numbers, the image of Franzen that filled the cover of the August 23, 2010 edition of Time Magazine (“Great American Novelist” plastered on his chest) is mesmerizing. (In case you missed it there, it reappears in this books inset sheaf of photos and images, as well as—slightly stylized—on its dust jacket.) Tousle-headed, bespectacled, looking away from the camera (guarding his privacy), the fifty-year-old Franzen wears a gray shirt and three-day beard. His face and body look outdoorsy, rough-hewn, vaguely all-American. -
Writing the Nation: a Concise Introduction to American Literature
Writing the Nation A CONCISE INTRODUCTION TO AMERIcaN LITERATURE 1 8 6 5 TO P RESENT Amy Berke, PhD Robert R. Bleil, PhD Jordan Cofer, PhD Doug Davis, PhD Writing the Nation A CONCISE INTRODUCTION TO AMERIcaN LITERATURE 1 8 6 5 TO P RESENT Amy Berke, PhD Robert R. Bleil, PhD Jordan Cofer, PhD Doug Davis, PhD Writing the Nation: A Concise Introduction to American Literature—1865 to Present is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This license allows you to remix, tweak, and build upon this work, even commercially, as long as you credit this original source for the creation and license the new creation under identical terms. If you reuse this content elsewhere, in order to comply with the attribution requirements of the license please attribute the original source to the University System of Georgia. NOTE: The above copyright license which University System of Georgia uses for their original content does not extend to or include content which was accessed and incorporated, and which is licensed under various other CC Licenses, such as ND licenses. Nor does it extend to or include any Special Permissions which were granted to us by the rightsholders for our use of their content. Image Disclaimer: All images and figures in this book are believed to be (after a reasonable investigation) either public domain or carry a compatible Creative Commons license. If you are the copyright owner of images in this book and you have not authorized the use of your work under these terms, please contact the University of North Georgia Press at [email protected] to have the content removed. -
The Classical Bildungsroman As an Ontological Dimension of the Novel of Counter-Development in England from Jane Austen to Ford Madox Ford (1813–1924)
City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2020 The Remnants of Harmonious Bildungs: The Classical Bildungsroman as an Ontological Dimension of the Novel of Counter-Development in England from Jane Austen to Ford Madox Ford (1813–1924) Anne E. McFadden The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3579 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] THE REMNANTS OF HARMONIOUS BILDUNGS: THE CLASSICAL BILDUNSROMAN AS AN ONTOLOGICAL DIMENSION OF THE NOVEL OF COUNTER-DEVELOPMENT IN ENGLAND FROM JANE AUSTEN TO FORD MADOX FORD (1813-1924) By ANNE E. MCFADDEN A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2020 ©2020 Anne E. McFadden iii The Remnants of Harmonious Bildungs: The Classical Bildungsroman as an Ontological Dimension of the Novel of Counter-Development in England from Jane Austen to Ford Madox Ford (1813-1924) By Anne E. McFadden This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirements for the degree in English ____________________ ___________________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee ____________________ ____________________________________ Date Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Richard Kaye Alan Vardy Tanya Agathocleous The City University of New York iv ABSTRACT The Remnants of Harmonious Bildungs: The Classical Bildungsroman as an Ontological Dimension of the Novel of Counter-Development in England from Jane Austen to Ford Madox Ford (1813-1924) By Anne E. -
The Domestic Bildungsroman and the American City, 1830-1900
Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2016 Idling Women: The omesD tic Bildungsroman and the American City, 1830-1900 Jordan L. Von Cannon Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Von Cannon, Jordan L., "Idling Women: The omeD stic Bildungsroman and the American City, 1830-1900" (2016). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 1677. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/1677 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. IDLING WOMEN: THE DOMESTIC BILDUNGSROMAN AND THE AMERICAN CITY, 1830-1900 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Jordan L. Von Cannon B.A., Palm Beach Atlantic University, 2008 M.A., University of Kansas, 2011 August 2016 “When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse.” “She gazed and gazed, wondering, delighting, longing, and all the while the siren voice of the unrestful was whispering in her ear.” - Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Throughout this dissertation, I have found myself to be an idling woman at various points. -
Pathways to Freedom: Brooklyn Stories of Struggle and Protest
Prof. Bokor/Campbell/Mutnick English Composition 16C.001, 002, 003 Office: MW 10-11:15; 11:15-12:50* Email: Fall 2011 Office Hours: Room H Pathways to Freedom: Brooklyn Stories of Struggle and Protest Course Description Welcome to English 16C, a composition course that will introduce you to key aspects of academic writing (inquiry, analysis, synthesis, and argument); critical thinking (abstract reasoning, evaluation, thesis development); information literacy and research skills (use of library resources, electronic databases, and MLA-style documentation); and various rhetorical elements and strategies (purpose, audience, voice) that help constitute effective writing. Throughout the course, you will develop reflective writing processes and knowledge of technical aspects of writing such as quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, citing sources, and crafting good, cohesive sentences. You have opted to register for a special section of English 16, which is part of a learning community called Pathways to Freedom and a larger project sponsored by the Brooklyn Historical Society called Students and Faculty in the Archives (SAFA). In English 16C, you will work with primary sources and archival materials in the BHS library; conduct oral history interviews; and gain digital literacy skills. This fall, you will also be taking History 1 and Orientation Seminar as part of Pathways to Freedom; next spring, you will take Core Seminar 50, History 2, and Coop 1. These courses will be linked and 60 students altogether will participate throughout the year. We hope you will get to know one another, the LIU faculty, and the BHS staff over the next several months and that Pathways to Freedom will be a rich entrée for you into your college career. -
Jonathan Franzen
Friday, April 29, 2016, 8pm Zellerbach Hall Jonathan Franzen In Conversation with Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks Cal Performances’ ><=?–><=@ season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. BERKELEY TALKS BERKELEY TALKS is a new series of conversations that brings together international thought leaders, public scholars, creators, and innovators to examine the distinctive issues of our time. These luminaries will engage in dialogue at the sometimes surprising nexus between their area of expertise and the University’s core mission, celebrating the Chancellor’s vision of a vi - brant, engaged, and forward-looking campus culture. When The Corrections was published in 2001, graduated from Swarthmore College in 1981. Jonathan Franzen was probably better known His most recent novel, Purity, was published in for his nonfiction than for his two earlier September 2015 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. novels— The Twenty-Seventh City (1988) and Strong Motion (1992). In an essay he had writ - Nicholas B. Dirks be - ten for Harper’s in 1996, Franzen lamented the came the 10th chancellor declining cultural authority of the American of the University of novel and described his personal search for Cali for nia, Berkeley, on reasons to persist as a fiction writer. “The novel - June 1, 2013. An interna - ist has more and more to say to readers who have tionally renowned histo - less and less time to read,” he wrote.“Where to rian and anthropologist, find the energy to engage with a culture in crisis he is a leader in higher when the crisis consists in the impossibility of education and is well- engaging with the culture?” known for his commitment to and advocacy Five years later, Franzen became fully engaged for accessible, high-quality undergraduate edu - with his culture. -
READING GROUP GUIDE Freedom a Novel by Jonathan Franzen
READING GROUP GUIDE Freedom A Novel by Jonathan Franzen ISBN-10: 0-312-57646-3 ISBN-13: 978-0-312-57646-2 . About this Guide The following author biography and list of questions about Freedom are intended as resources to aid individual readers and book groups who would like to learn more about the author and this book. We hope that this guide will provide you a starting place for discussion, and suggest a variety of perspectives from which you might approach Freedom. About the Book In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Walter and Patty Berglund as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time. About the Author Jonathan Franzen is the author of three novels—The Corrections, The Twenty-Seventh City, and Strong Motion—and two works of nonfiction, How to Be Alone and The Discomfort Zone, all published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He lives in New York City and Santa Cruz, California. Discussion Questions 1. Jonathan Franzen refers to freedom throughout the novel, including the freedom of Iraqis to become capitalists, Joey’s parents’ attempt to give him an unencumbered life, an inscription on a building at Jessica’s college that reads use well thy freedom, and alcoholic Mitch, who is “a free man.” How do the characters spend their freedom? Is it a liberating or destructive force for them? Which characters are the least free? 2. -
Middlebrow Modernism: Britten's Operas and the Great Divide
CHOWRIMOOTOO | MIDDLEBROW MODERNISM Luminos is the Open Access monograph publishing program from UC Press. Luminos provides a framework for preserving and rein- vigorating monograph publishing for the future and increases the reach and visibility of important scholarly work. Titles published in the UC Press Luminos model are published with the same high standards for selection, peer review, production, and marketing as those in our traditional program. www.luminosoa.org The publication of this book was made possible by generous subventions, awards, and grants from the Institute of Scholarship in the Liberal Arts in Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters; the University of California Press; and the AMS 75 PAYS Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Middlebrow Modernism CALIFORNIA STUDIES IN 20th-CENTURY MUSIC Richard Taruskin, General Editor 1. Revealing Masks: Exotic Influences and Ritualized Performance in Modernist Music Theater, by W. Anthony Sheppard 2. Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement, by Simon Morrison 3. German Modernism: Music and the Arts, by Walter Frisch 4. New Music, New Allies: American Experimental Music in West Germany from the Zero Hour to Reunification, by Amy Beal 5. Bartók, Hungary, and the Renewal of Tradition: Case Studies in the Intersection of Modernity and Nationality, by David E. Schneider 6. Classic Chic: Music, Fashion, and Modernism, by Mary E. Davis 7. Music Divided: Bartók’s Legacy in Cold War Culture, by Danielle Fosler-Lussier 8. Jewish Identities: Nationalism, Racism, and Utopianism in Twentieth-Century Art Music, by Klára Móricz 9.