In an age of internet dating, conspiracy theories, anti-tobacco ads, and fierce politicking, the line between fact and fiction often blurs and the notion of truth becomes problematic at best. Google “truth” and you receive, at last count, 230 million results in return. This blog, in compliment to a course I am teaching at Loyola University, New Orleans, will respond to how and why contemporary literature manipulates truth to formulate a story. Through this blog, students will raise questions about why truth in storytelling matters--we will examine texts in which falsity is to be believed; in which biographical details invade what is claimed by the author to have no relation to himself or his text; in which the reader is also a character; and in which historical or literary fact is altered or invented.
The very fact that this blog has a multitude of authors speaks to the complexity of searching for the/a 'truth.' There will be no single voice spoken here; rather, it will be a cacophony.
As the Fall 2009 semester rolls on, I invite any reader of this blog to contribute his/her comments, helping to broaden the scope of our class perspective and perhaps challenge us further than we challenge ourselves.
We'll be reading the texts listed below to ground our discussions, should you be interested in following along. But I certainly invite you to suggest additional texts (be they novels, essays, articles, images, lyrics, etc. etc.)... and then tell us why!
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bierce
Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
Kindred, Octavia Butler
Man in the High Castle, Phillip K. Dick
Aura, Carlos Fuentes
If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino
Fables (Vol. 1), Willingham and Klein
Stay tuned... the semester starts 1 September 2009!
