SEMINAR PROFILE

H18 -
Prophets Without Honor: A Confederacy of Dunces, Home Land, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Comedy often combines the incompatible feelings of scorn and empathy, directing them towards protagonists who are admirable and repulsive at once. The combination of satire and heroic adventure in these three novels of the last 30 years not only shows the development of narrative form in the post-modern era, but also shows the continuation of American fascination with failures, misfits, and outcasts who epitomize, paradoxically, success. In these books John Kennedy Toole, Sam Lispsyte and Junot Diaz all go one cracked, liberating step further toward the wisdom Emily Dickinson expressed when she wrote "Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed."

Scholar:

Theo Theoharis

Location:

Harvard Hillel

Dates:

12/1/2010, 12/9/2010, 12/21/2010

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H18 -	Prophets Without Honor: A Confederacy of Dunces, Home Land, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

	Comedy often combines the incompatible feelings of scorn and empathy, directing them towards protagonists who are admirable and repulsive at once. The combination of satire and heroic adventure in these three novels of the last 30 years not only shows the development of narrative form in the post-modern era, but also shows the continuation of American fascination with failures, misfits, and outcasts who epitomize, paradoxically, success. In these books John Kennedy Toole, Sam Lispsyte and Junot Diaz all go one cracked, liberating step further toward the wisdom Emily Dickinson expressed when she wrote "Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed."

		Scholar:	Theo Theoharis
		Location:	Harvard Hillel
		Dates:	12/1/2010, 12/9/2010, 12/21/2010