FWS: Phoniness and Awkwardness

3.0 credits · Undergraduate

What does being “genuine to oneself” mean? Can one really know what is authentic, or is all self-presentation a form of pretense? This course delves into the tension between phoniness and awkwardness as it appears in narrative fiction. If one rejects phoniness, one may appear awkward or out of sync with social norms. Yet embracing pretense erodes authenticity. What is the “self” to which one is genuine? Writing in this class is inseparable from critical reading. Assignments include weekly short responses and five 5-page essays. From sentimentalism to satire, readings include presentations of “phoniness”, e.g. Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther” and Nabokov’s “Pnin”. We will explore how phoniness implicates aesthetic, moral, and economic values.