Literary Washington
Christopher Griffin
Dates: Four Mondays, Sept. 10, Sept. 24, and Oct. 1, Oct. 8, 1-3 p.m.
*No class on Sept. 17
Price: $100 ($80 members)
Books:
Literary Capital, Christopher Sten
Dickens described the Capitol in 1842 as “a fine building of the Corinthian order, placed upon a noble and commanding eminence.” Of the capital itself he wrote: “It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent Intentions. . . Spacious avenues, that begin in nothing and lead nowhere. . .” We have come a long way, Charles!
"Literary Washington" will be based on Literary Capital: A Washington Reader edited by Christopher Sten of George Washington University. This wonderful 2011 anthology includes 75 varied writers ranging from Abigail Adams to Gore Vidal. We will enjoy a variety of writings about Washington, DC, in literary genres that include short stories, poems, essays, letters, memoirs, and novels. Authors include Dickens, de Tocqueville, Douglass, Hawthorne, Melville, Alcott, Adams(es), Black Hawk, Whitman, Cooper(s), Twain, James, Du Bois, Cather, Dunbar, Toomer, Hughes, Ellison, Mailer, Heller, and Bishop. There are contemporary authors and P&P favorites like Ward Just, Edward P. Jones, Joan Didion, Marita Golden, Ethelbert Miller, George Pelecanos, Thomas Mallon, and Susan Richards Shreve. Many of these writers are still based in the DC area.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Christopher Griffin grew up in Galway and Dublin, but was in Washington the night President Nixon resigned. Since President Reagan’s inauguration he has taught at five colleges in Washington. Since the first Clinton administration he has taught classes at Politics & Prose on topics including Irish drama, Ulysses, film, Shakespeare, Yeats, Shaw, Kavanagh, and Heaney. He is delighted to be exploring Chris Sten’s Literary Capital in the capital’s most literary bookstore.
