Episode 12 reading list
What is literature for?
Having done two episodes on novels about women, we’re now going meta and reading a memoir all about women reading literature: Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran. Published twenty years ago (2003) and written about Nafisi’s teaching experiences in Tehran during the 80s and 90s, nonetheless, her tales of rioting University students and arguments about what books should be “allowed” seem frighteningly contemporary. If you needed more proof we live in upside-down world, today’s elite college students are rooting for the religious authoritarians that Nafisi herself eventually fled, moving with her family to the United States in 1997. She became a citizen in 2008; in contrast, this summer, Iran-loving leftists are coming to disrupt “Genocide Joe” at the Democratic National Convention.
In addition to this book, we’re recommending this article from 2019 about how the decline of the humanities echoes the decline of Christianity. While Reading Lolita takes place in a different religious and political context, the connection between the two “canons” seems relevant to a discussion about the purpose and meaning of literature.
Happy reading!