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Course Description

Summary

Coming of Age: The Open Road

I inhale great draughts of space,

The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought,

I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me.               --Walt Whitman

In this seven-week course we will investigate contemporary plays, films, and television shows in which the protagonists lean into the unknown, survive despite harrowing odds, and allow their identities to unfold in time. They come of age with a difference, giving birth to their own narratives. We will examine stories that focus on the rights of individuals, considering films by Ava DuVernay, Greta Gerwig, Sterlin Harjo, Barry Jenkins, Hirokazu Koreeda, Megan Park, Lulu Wang, and Gints Zilbalodis. We will read plays that challenge older notions of adolescence and adulthood, including selections from the work of KImberly Bellflower, Jocelyn Bioh, Mashuq Mushtag Deen, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Heidi Schreck, and Jen Silverman. We will screen scenes, read aloud from plays, and discuss questions raised by the forms and experiences of the work considered. Students will write exercises inspired by our viewing and reading.

Following the example of Lynn Hernandez, I will be presenting material and activities that respect equity, inclusion, and diversity. This embraces gender identity, sexuality, disability, age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, and culture.