The Boarding School in Fiction and Fact

From Tom Brown's School Days to Prep, writers have commemorated the boarding school experience. Through studying novels, short stories, memoir excerpts, and films, we will identify recurring archetypes and consider how these have changed over time. We will examine the reciprocal relationship between these schools and society. Do these schools have an agenda beyond their professed ones? How do they contribute to the formation of social power structures? We will look at not only the traditional Anglo-American experience but also that of Native Americans, Chinese, Indian, and others. Readings will include works by John Knowles, P. G. Wodehouse, Curtis Sittenfeld, Anita Shreve, and Han Han. (This course is not open to students who have taken ENAM/EDST 1019)