Stuck in the Suburbs: A Poetics of Everyday Life

Suburbia is where nothing happens: a landscape that cultivates boredom and indulges angst. But it is also a site of repressed horrors, where our deepest anxieties come home to roost. This course examines architecture, tone, temporality, race, and gender in the literature and films of the suburbs. Texts include Eugenides, Perrotta, Lahiri; Blue Velvet, The Stepford Wives, American Beauty . Enrollment limited to 17.