A Novel Time: Philip Roth's The Plot Against America and the Terror of Our Time
H&G5-5b-Thu2
Joshua Frank
This course will take place in person at 60 Turner Street. The room will be equipped with a HEPA air purifier.
April 24 - May 22
“Fear presides over these memories.” So begins The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. Roth imagines the United States in alliance with Nazi Germany in World War II, describing the fearful consequences for the Jewish community in Newark, New Jersey. In each of five sessions we revisit The Plot Against America through the lens of Roth’s vision and through the lens of the terrifying realities of the current political moment. We will explore, both in the novel and today, the fragility of democratic guardrails, and the allure, for some, of ethnic hatred and fantasies of violence. We will consider how taking sides during periods of political unrest consumes members of the fictional Roth family and possibly members of our families today. In the novel, family members are desensitized to the incessant violation of norms, as many of us are now. As violence and antisemitism spread through the United States in the novel, Herman and Bess Roth face a “Cassandra Conundrum.” How do they convince others, who don’t want to believe it, and themselves, that “it can happen here?” In our final session, we will discuss the disorienting experience of political instability. How do they convince others and themselves that “it can happen here?”
More facilitated discussion than lecture.
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth Houghton Mifflin. 2004 ISBN: 0-618-50928-3
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60-80 pages per week.
Joshua Frank is the President of Equity Intersection Inc. where he provides Adult Education in Racial Equity and American History. He worked as an educator for twenty-eight years in public schools--sixteen as a teacher, and twelve as an administrator. He completed his undergraduate education at UMass/Amherst, and received Masters degrees from UMass/Boston and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.