Class Description
When Joan Didion died in 2021, she was one of America’s most celebrated writers, especially noted for her early-career essays and her bestselling memoir The Year of Magical Thinking (2005). But Didion’s carefully cultivated “cool girl” image often obscures the many shifts in perspectives, politics, and methods that changed over her career as she found new ways to depict the ruptures of her personal life and of the late twentieth century.
Explore Didion’s influential body of work through discussion and close reading of both some of her famous and lesser-known essays and fiction—including the novel Democracy (1984) and the memoir Blue Nights (2011)—alongside film clips, critical voices, and fashion magazines. With and against her sharp eye, we’ll gain a better understanding of Joan Didion’s many eras and our own.
Dylan Zavagno is an award-winning humanities educator at the Deerfield Public Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast, where he interviews authors of all genres from Chicagoland and around the world.
Materials List
Required
- Joan Didion, Democracy. Vintage, 1995. ISBN: 9780679754855
- Joan Didion, Blue Nights. Vintage, 2012. ISBN: 9780307387387
- Digital Course Packet
Recommended (excerpts included in Digital Course Packet)
- Joan Didion, The White Album. FSG Classics, 2009. ISBN: 9780374532079
- Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem. FSG Classics, 2008. ISBN: 9780374531386
First Reading
- Read the following essays from the course packet: “A Preface,” “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” “On Self Respect,” and “Goodbye to All That,” all of which are found in Joan Didion's 1968 essay collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem.
Cost and Registration
This class is full, but you can still register for the waitlist on Learning Stream.
4 Sessions, $200 ($180 for Newberry members, seniors, and students). Learn about becoming a member.
We now offer our classes at three different price options: Regular ($200), Community Supported ($190), and Sponsor ($210). Following the models of other institutions, we want to ensure that our classes are accessible to a wider audience while continuing to support our instructors. You may choose the price that best fits your situation when registering through Learning Stream.
To register multiple people for this class, please go through the course calendar in Learning Stream, our registration platform. When you select the course and register, you’ll be prompted to add another registrant.
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