The Classical Southern Novel

July 11, 2009

Please note: This seminar has sold out. To be placed on a waiting list for a sold out seminar, please send an email with your name(s), address, and daytime phone number to human@unc.edu or contact us by phone at (919) 962-1544.

The Southern novel exerts a powerful force on our collective imagining and understanding of what it means to be Southern. Southern novels also transcend their time and place to explore enduring themes of loss and redemption, intolerance and inclusivity, as well as identity and belonging. In this seminar Joe Flora, Lucinda MacKethan, Jill McCorkle and Victor Strandberg will consider four different Southern novels: Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter, and Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind.

Topics and Speakers

To Kill A Mockingbird: An Essential Southern Classic
Joseph Flora, Professor of English & Comparative Literature

Putting Humpty Together Again: The Dialectics of All the King’s Men
Victor Strandberg, Professor of English, Duke University

The Optimist's Daughter: Creating Woman's Voice in Southern Story
Lucinda MacKethan, Alumni Distinguished Professor of English, Emerita, North Carolina State University

Scarlett O’Hara and Southern Belles: An Author Looks Back at Gone With the Wind
Jill McCorkle, Lee Smith Visiting Professor in Creative Writing, North Carolina State University

Defining the South, Defining Literature: The Southern Novel
A Panel Discussion with Our Speakers

Time and Cost

9:15 a.m. - 5:15 p.m., Saturday, July 11, 2009.  The tuition is $120 ($105 by May 27). The optional lunch is $15. Tuition for teachers is $60 ($52.50 by May 27). 10 contact hours for 1 unit of renewal credit.

For information about lodging click here.

Co-Sponsored by the General Alumni Association.
For information about GAA discounts and other scholarships available to Humanities Program participants, click here.

Register for this seminar.