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Proust in Time: Sodom and Gomorrah is unfortunately unavailable

Thankfully we have 6 other Literature Classes for you to choose from. Check our top choices below or see all classes for more options.

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Proust in Time: Sodom and Gomorrah

Explore the intricate themes of desire, identity, and societal change in Sodom and Gomorrah, the fourth volume of Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Through rich analysis and critical perspectives, this class examines Proust’s portrayal of love, sexuality, and modernity against the backdrop of belle époque France. Engage with timeless questions about memory, art, and human connection.

  • All levels
  • 21 and older
  • $335
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  • Online Classroom
  • 12 hours over 4 sessions

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  • $335/person
  • 12 hours over 4 sessions
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Class Description

Description

What you'll learn in this literature class:

Sodom and Gomorrah, the fourth volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, pivots on the question of desire: what is it to want a form of life, another person, adulation, social success, the destruction of a rival, a glimpse of a painting, the sound of a song? And what happens when these desires are either futile, morally ambiguous, or considered to be evidence of inherent vice? In Sodom and Gomorrah, the question of homosexual desire is, for example, a secret so open it’s barely a secret. Proust’s novel takes its title from the Biblical cities destroyed for their sexual deviance: for Proust, “Sodom” comes to stand for love between men and “Gomorrah” for love between women. Throughout the novel, the strange politics of desire play out against the momentous turning of the “social kaleidoscope” as the decadent society of belle époque France at the turn of the twentieth century starts to confront its imminent extinction.

As we read Sodom and Gomorrah, we’ll consider the following questions: How should we understand Proust as queer literature? What does his exploration of “deviant” desire have to tell us about the history and theory of sexuality? How and why does Sodom and Gomorrah treat desire between men and desire between women differently? And what do we make of the currents of erotic attraction—often fluid—that charge encounters across genders? What are Proust’s debts to Darwin and evolutionary theory? Why does Proust’s narrator recur to the disturbing ambition for jealous, total possession of another person? What does it mean to consider these questions in context with the novel’s continued explorations of class, Jewishness, the Dreyfus Affair, modern technology, time and memory, art, aesthetics, and literary form? In what ways does Sodom and Gomorrah, looking back on a lost world after the shocks of the first World War, show the marks of modernity? What does it mean to read Proust now? And, as ever, what does it mean to read Proust in time?

The translation of record will be the Modern Library edition (Moncrieff, Kilmartin, and Enright). Supplementary materials will emphasize selections from Proust’s critical tradition as well as entries in the history and theory of sexuality. These are likely to include: Adorno, Beckett, Benjamin, Bersani, Bowie, Darwin, Foucault, Kristeva, Jameson, Said, Sedgwick, et. al..

Remote Learning

This course is available for "remote" learning and will be available to anyone with access to an internet device with a microphone (this includes most models of computers, tablets). Classes will take place with a "Live" instructor at the date/times listed below.

Upon registration, the instructor will send along additional information about how to log-on and participate in the class.

Refund Policy

  • Upon request, we will refund less 5% cancellation fee of a course up until 6 business days before its start date.
  • Students who withdraw after that point but before the first class are entitled to 75% refund or full course credit.
  • After the first class: 50% refund or 75% course credit.
  • No refunds or credits will be given after the second class.

In any event where a customer wants to cancel their enrollment and is eligible for a full refund, a 5% processing fee will be deducted from the refund amount.

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Brooklyn Institute for Social Research

The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research was established in 2011 in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. Its mission is to extend liberal arts education and research far beyond the borders of the traditional university, supporting community education needs and opening up new possibilities for scholarship in the...

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