The American College Novel

John E. Kramer, Jr. with the assistance of Ron Hamm & Von Pittma, The American College Novel An Annotated Bibliography. The Scarecrow Press.

This second edition of The American College Novel cites and describes 648 novels that are set at American colleges and universities, from Nathaniel Hawthorne's Fanshawe (Bowdoin College, 1828) to William Hart's Never Fade Away (University of California, 2002). This revised and updated edition contains 225 new entries, most new novels published since 1981. The annotations provide information about the novels' plots, settings, and central characters, as well as brief biographies of the authors. The bibliography is divided into two sections: student-centered and staff-centered novels, both cited in chronological order by publication year. A "starter list" of 50 American college novels is included, to help the novice reader distinguish classics within the genre, as well as indexes by author, title, college and university, and academic discipline.

Intended for scholars as well as the layperson, this is a useful reference work for studying the portrayal of American higher education over time in popular fiction, as well as helping a casual reader locate a pleasurable read.

Review Campus Life Revealed

Christian K. Anderson and John R. Thelin, ‘Review: Campus Life Revealed: Tracking down the Rich Resources of American Collegiate Fiction’. The American College Novel: An Annotated Bibliography by John E. Kramer. The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 80, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 2009), pp. 106-113. Source.

This cynical yet limited impression needs to be tempered with the reminder that, in fact, we also are heirs to a rich tradition of thoughtful, perceptive writing about higher education. John E. Kramer's The American College Novel (2004) itself may not be "great literature"--but it certainly is a great guide to the great and not-so-great fiction about American colleges and universities. For scholars who wish to understand the portrayal of American higher education in popular culture it is a prodigious, indispensable resource. This second edition, an update to his 1981 book, reviews 648 academic novels published through 2002, adding 223 novels to the 425 he annotated in the first edition. The book's annotations are divided almost evenly by student- and staff-centered novels (319 of the former, 329 of the latter). Kramer's purpose in compiling this annotated collection is twofold: for those who enjoy reading college novels for pleasure and for scholars who use college novels as a tool for understanding how higher education is perceived in American culture and as part of the serious, systematic analysis of higher education. This essay primarily focuses on how to utilize the book for the latter purpose.

Acamedic Freedom

William G. Tierney, Academic Freedom and Tenure: Between Fiction and Reality. Journal of Higher Education, v75 n2 p161 March 2004. Eric.

This article examines how tenure and academic freedom are portrayed in novels about academic life. The novel provides unique opportunities to explore philosophical questions and allows readers to examine meaning rather than truth, existence as opposed to reality. Thus, the novel suggests what is possible, which reality forecloses insofar as from a realist position reality is definite, describing what the author believed actually happened, rather than what might have happened. What do academic novels tell us about academic freedom and tenure? What messages do these novels convey to the broad public? This article attempts to answer these questions by analyzing academic novels that have been written over the last century, paying particular attention to novels written in the last twenty-five years in order to assess current portrayals of academic life. It begins with a brief discussion about how the author defines and studies the academic novel and then analyzes how academic freedom and tenure have been portrayed.

The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones. Global comment:

Our dead narrator Susie is friendly, awkward and talented; she longs to become a photographer, attends her school film club (where she hates Lawrence Olivier’s “Othello”) and dreams about her first kiss with the new boy in her school, Ray. Jackson deliberately smears the camera with extra sugar, giving Susie’s life a “Brady Bunch”-like quality, not perfect, but damn near as close as a teenage girl is likely to get

This is a slice of middle class heaven Americana style. The house is full of books and the parents full of love. Even the Salmons’ boozy Grandmother is just a lush rather than a drunk. And when her brother Buckley chokes on a twig, Susie saves the day by doing a Steve McQueen in her dad’s Mustang, racing to the hospital. That and wearing her mum’s knitted hats are as bad as it gets for the Salmon family. As Susie says, “We weren’t those people, those unlucky people who bad things happen to them.”

Helm - In the Place of Last Things

Ylife - Michael Helm looks for answers, In the Place of Last Things:

Like Ulysses in Dante’s Inferno, Russ sets out for the world beyond the sun, travelling southwest from Saskatchewan to Mexico. As he drives further into the continent’s interior and deeper into his own pysche, he begins to unravel Western traditions of thought. Helm also experiments with Western genre by blending elements of the noir detective story, road tale, rural narrative and campus novel, “to bring these together with the execution of a single brushstroke, to create an organism that might not have been seen before but is nonetheless cohesive.

Isherwood - A single man

Ink Quest: A Sinkle Man

Tom Ford's new adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's A Single Man. I think I've recorded my love of the the book in a previous post. Don DeLillo's White Noise may be the finest campus novel ever written, but Isherwood captures better than anyone else the performance, the adoption of a mask, involved in academic life.

If

Watch If… Movie Online « karl808963

As it stands, “If…” isn’t only a grand Malcolm McDowell film, it’s also a gigantic movie about the 60s in both Western society and more specifically Britain in its post-imperial hangover (one of the last British imperial dramas before the Falklands, the conflict in and evacuation of Aden–present-day Yemen–reached completion in 1967, probably while “If…” was filming) . The title itself apparently comes from the distinguished Kipling poem which embodied the highest ideals of imperial Britain. College House, the school attended by Mick Travis–McDowell–and his two friends, is dominated by prefects, or “whips,” seniors who control the student body in the name of the weak-willed headmasters and teachers, who recount the 60s radical understanding of liberal democracy. The coercive actions–cold showers, beatings–administered by the whips to Travis and his fellow rebels prefigure the punishment that would be delivered by the Chicago police, Parisian CRS, and Red Army to student demonstrators and the Czech people in May and August 1968 (in both capitalist and communist regimes the punishments are justified in the name of “society” or “the people”)

An Education

An Education. Website.


Plot. Metacritic

In the post-war, pre-Beatles London suburbs, a bright schoolgirl is torn between studying for a place at Oxford and the more exciting alternative offered to her by a charismatic older man.

Wikipedia:

An Education is a 2009 British coming-of-age drama film based on an autobiographical memoir of the same title written by the British journalist Lynn Barber. The film was directed by Lone Scherfig, with screenplay written by Nick Hornby.

Coen Van Zwol, An Education. NRC. 10.2.2010

Het schoolmeisje en de oude charmeur. Je weet hoe het afloopt, die dreiging hangt steeds in de lucht. Toch is An Education zo’n rijke karakterstudie dat je erin wilt geloven en dat het demasqué droevig stemt.

Peter Bradshaw, An Education. The Guardian. 29.10.2009.

A very unsentimental education it was, too. Nick Hornby has adroitly adapted and given a dramatic shape to the bestselling memoir by Lynn Barber, telling the true story of how, in the early 1960s, she was seduced as a 16-year-old schoolgirl by an older man. This sociopathic charmer's seduction crucially extended to her poor old mum and dad, dazzling them into being complicit in the arrangement; along with their daughter, they went into a clenched denial about what was happening.

Sanshiro - Soseki

Soseki - Strange bird Sanshiro
The Japan Times Online

A Japanese campus novel:

Soseki's view is a detached one, clinical, sometimes cynical, with hints of satire. His main characters illuminate and darken each other, their light and shadow — Soseki is a sublime sketcher of people — creating a three-dimensional support cast. "Sanshiro" embodies all of the doubt, excitement and paranoia of the Meiji Era. This is a campus novel 50 years ahead of its time, a coming-of-age story and a study of love in a changing world, commenting on the shifting social mores and morals of 20th-century Japan. With "Sanshiro" and the comedy of manners "I Am a Cat," Soseki may be Japan's Jane Austen.

Haruki Murakami's introduction is thoughtful and places "Sanshiro" as an early inspiration for his "Norwegian Wood." The translator's notes provide interesting background to the politics behind Lafcadio Hearn's departure from Tokyo Imperial University and Soseki's subsequent hiring. Rubin's new translation of this modern classic is fresh and invigorating, totally reworking his earlier 1977 translation and establishing him as the pre-eminent Japanese- to-English translator.

The Grasshopper King - Jordan Ellenberg

The Grasshopper King
Novel by Jordan Ellenberg
Coffee House Press.

A profoundly absurd campus satire about immortality, obsession, obscurity, and true love.
In this debut novel about treachery, death, academia, marriage, mythology, history, and truly horrible poetry, Jordan Ellenberg creates a world complete with its own geography, obscene folklore, endless games of checkers, and wonderfully endearing characters. Welcome to Chandler State University-the one thing keeping the dusty, Western town of Chandler on the map. Now that its basketball program has fallen apart, CSU's only claim to fame is its Gravinics Department, dedicated to the study of the most obscure and difficult language on earth and the unlucky writers who had to use it. Chief among these is the bizarre and infamous poet Henderson, who is either a no-talent hack or the secret key to world history. Samuel Grapearbor, a congenitally disaffected undergraduate, and Stanley Higgs, a professor who hasn't spoken a word in fifteen years, circle helplessly around Henderson like satellites around a disagreeable planet; this novel, called "genuinely funny" by Kirkus Reviews, is the story of their attempts to escape his strange gravity.

Professors or Proletarians?

Professors or Proletarians? A Test for Downtrodden Academics - NYTimes.com

Where could one go to forget the sad lives of poor migrant professors and downtrodden grad students trudging from college to college with no office and no money?

Luckily, the BBC's production of David Lodge's campus novel, ''Nice Work'' (1989), was running on an endless loop at the hotel. In the movie, the feminist part-time professor, Robyn Penrose, and the factory manager, Vic Wilcox, shadow each other in their careers, learning to admire and pity each other. Somehow, though, the movie wasn't quite working its magic.

A question kept getting in the way: Why had the Modern Language Association decided to show ''Nice Work''? Was it to cheer up the miserable graduate students and Ph.D.'s on the job market? To prove that a person trained to be an English professor, like Mr. Lodge, could just as easily become a novelist or filmmaker? To illustrate how similar business and academic life really are? To give everyone a merry little tune to hum: ''Nice work if you can get it''? (The only problem was how to finish the lyric. There are two endings to the phrase in the song. One goes ''Nice work if you can get it and you can get it if you try.'' The other is ''Nice work if you can get it and if you get it, won't you tell me how?'')

The Secret Life of E. Robert Pendleton - Michael Collins

The Secret Life of E. Robert Pendleton by Michael Collins Orion Books

A tale of murder and literary ambition set on an American university campus from a master of the dark side of human nature

Lijstjes Campus Novel

StephanieVandrickReads: Campus Novels

Campus Novels

Campus novels are strangely compelling. As an academic myself, I particularly enjoy them, but I think anyone who has ever been a student, or worked on a campus, finds them intriguing. Here I list (in order of publication dates) some of the best such novels I have read over the years. (As I am making the list, I am reminded of how many of these books are satirical. I wonder what that says about campuses and academe?)

1. The Professor's House (1925), by Willa Cather. A lovely if sometimes sad book by the wonderful, pioneering Cather.
2. Groves of Academe (1952), by Mary McCarthy. As sharp in tone as McCarthy's work usually is, and great fun to read.
3. Pictures from an Institution (1952), by Randall Jarrell. His fictional college is based on Sarah Lawrence College, where he taught. Scathing in places.
4. Lucky Jim (1954), by Kingsley Amis. Probably the most famous campus novel ever. Satirical and hilarious.
5. The War Between the Tates (1974), by Alison Lurie (1974). As much about the couple's relationship as about the campus, but it is all connected. Also hilariously, if appallingly, candid.
6. Changing Places (1975), Small World (1984), and Nice Work (1988), all by David Lodge. All very funny and great fun to read. Lodge also gets some great potshots in on both sides of the Atlantic, writing about academe in the U.S. and England, especially in Changing Places.
7. Moo (1995), by Jane Smiley. About a midwestern agricultural (thus the title) university. Very funny in parts, if a bit too detailed and sometimes a bit over the top.
8. Straight Man (1997), by Richard Russo. Funny, but also explores the human dilemma. By one of my favorite authors.
9. On Beauty (2005), by Zadie Smith. A British professor, with his multicultural family, comes to the U.S. to teach at an Ivy League university; there they both connect and clash with another professor's family. The British Smith, who spent a year teaching in the U.S. herself, has some very sharp but sometimes affectionate observations to make about race, class, multiculturalism, youth, romance, marriage, pride, and more. She has said that E. M. Forster's novel Howard's End provided a inspiration and a framework to this novel. A "big" novel with many wonderful aspects to savor.

What are your favorite campus novels?

Nemmeno il destino - Daniele Gaglianone

Nemmeno il destino
Regie: Daniele Gaglianone (2004)

Een film over twee schoolvrienden.
Alessandro en Ferdi zijn vrienden van de middelelbare school en wonen in een vervallen industriestad. Beiden zijn ze op zoek naar hun eigen plek in de wereld, naar een oase in het achtergelaten vuilnis van de verlaten fabrieken. Ook hun gezinssituatie is niet bepaald rooskleurig. De alleenstaande moeder van Alessandro wordt ondanks haar pogingen om een normaal bestaan te leiden, steeds meer een gevangene van een pijnlijk verleden. En Ferdi woont samen met zijn vader, een ex-arbeider die ziek is geworden van zijn fabriekswerk en nu zijn dagen slijt met drank. Misschien eerder onbewust dan bewust proberen beide vrienden te ontkomen aan het onaantrekkelijke lot dat voor hen in het verschiet ligt. Maar hun pogingen daartoe lijken uit te lopen op een tragedie.
Regisseur Gaglianone brengt al hun problemen tot uitdrukking door met camera en goed gekozen locaties de uiterst sombere sfeer tastbaar te maken.

de Filmkrant net-versie van mei 2005, nr 266

Junebug - Phil Morrison

Junebug (op Canvas zaterdag 13.2).
Amerikaanse komedie (2005) van Phil Morrison

De pasgetrouwde kunstgaleriehoudster Madeleine maakt kennis met de familie van haar man George: zijn zeer negatief gestemde moeder Peg, zijn teruggetrokken vader Eugene, zijn jongere broer Johnny en diens zwangere vrouw Ashley. De Britse Madeleine voelt zich een echte buitenstaander... Subtiele, contemplatieve relatiefilm met voorbeeldige vertolkingen.

Junebug (Canvas) | Humo: The Wild Site

Junebug (2005) - Memorable quotes

Madeleine: [Madeleine is helping Johnny with his book report on Huckleberry Finn] Their relationship is Huck's gradual love affair with this slave is a major theme...
Johnny Johnsten: Wa-wa-wait, they fall in love with each other? I don't think you're talking about the right book...
[laughs nervously]

Een interessante reflectie: Surfacing Culture’s ‘Unconscious Optics: Film and seeing more of the picture. COASTLINE JOURNAL