Spring Elective: Always the Point: A Seminar on Joan Didion

This spring we will examine the work of National Book Award winner, novelist, essayist, screenplay writer, and distinctive American voice, Joan Didion  In discussing the titular piece of one of her most notable texts, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”,  Didion wrote, “If I was to work again at all, it would be necessary for me to come to terms with disorder.” The disorder she confronted ranged from the horrors of Hollywood in “A Star is Born” and the 60’s counterculture to her personal battle with her declining health and grief after losing her husband and daughter. In an effort to honor her recent passing and her innumerable contributions to American letters, this course will tackle much of her writing and the 2017 documentary, Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold. We will build an understanding of how Didion used her language to revolutionize journalism while shaping our understanding of the individual and collective American self.

Possible Texts:

Griffin Dunne, Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold.

Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays

Joan Didion, White Album

Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

Joan Didion, The Source of Self-Regard