SEMINAR PROFILE

H29 -
Problem Children: Romeo and Juliet, A Catcher in the Rye, and Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You

Adolescent rebellion is a ripe subject for literature, in part because it is so ambiguous. As much wisdom as folly, as much noble as ridiculous and as much liberating as it is destructive, the uprising of adolescence against authority is always a battle for and against tolerance. This last ambiguity generates the most confusion in critical responses to these three stories about "problem children" by William Shakespeare, J.D. Salinger and Peter Cameron. One way out of the confusion is to see how the works don't merely call for tolerance, but question that stance's value, and in some ways oppose it, radically.

Scholar:

Theo Theoharis

Location:

Harvard Hillel

Dates:

3/3/2009, 3/12/2009, 3/19/2009

H29 -	Problem Children: Romeo and Juliet, A Catcher in the Rye, and Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You

	Adolescent rebellion is a ripe subject for literature, in part because it is so ambiguous. As much wisdom as folly, as much noble as ridiculous and as much liberating as it is destructive, the uprising of adolescence against authority is always a battle for and against tolerance. This last ambiguity generates the most confusion in critical responses to these three stories about "problem children" by William Shakespeare, J.D. Salinger and Peter Cameron. One way out of the confusion is to see how the works don't merely call for tolerance, but question that stance's value, and in some ways oppose it, radically.

		Scholar:	Theo Theoharis
		Location:	Harvard Hillel
		Dates:	3/3/2009, 3/12/2009, 3/19/2009