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Re: teaching Lolita
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I teach at a smallish Christian liberal arts college, where one might expect to find an extra portion of resistance to Lolita, but this has not been my experience. I have taught it five or six times in the last 15 years, including a course a few years ago entirely devoted to it. This January I will be teaching another iteration of that course—technically a Critical Theory course but using Lolita as the main text. An odd irony may be that my students, being a bit more conservative than the average undergrad at State U, have proven well-equipped to fend off HH’s charms. At the same time, they are often unforgiving towards Lolita herself. As their guide, I try to complicate their natural moralistic tendencies as best I can, while also assuring them that it is okay to ENJOY the novel—to savor its delights—while still retaining one’s skepticism. Beyond the plot, we have a lot of fun discovering the historical context which gave birth to the novel, critical reactions, and Lolita’s pop cultural legacy (Amy Fisher, Lana Del Rey, etc). With the exception of a briefly raised eyebrow from a student’s father, I have not had one complaint. We’ll see if I can say that again come next spring.
Matt Roth
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Matt Roth
Search archive with Google:
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Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,dana.dragunoiu@gmail.com,shvabrin@humnet.ucla.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokov Studies: https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/257
Chercheurs Enchantes: http://www.vladimir-nabokov.org/association/chercheurs-enchantes/73
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Dieter Zimmer Website: http://www.d-e-zimmer.de/index.htm
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