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Literature and History: Pierre

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When:

Mondays
4 weeks: October 23-November 13
6:00-8:00pm

Admission:

$220 for 4 Weeks

Details:

Course title — Herman Melville’s Pierre: A Hudson Valley Story
Instructor — Patrick Tonks, PhD

Have you been missing college-level, discussion-based courses about literature and history in your life? Does reading and discussing a text with a small group of people sound like an enjoyable evening activity? Come join us at Boscobel for a four-week mini-course (no final paper!), where we will read Herman Melville’s Pierre; or, the Ambiguities in the context of Hudson Valley history. Part Gothic romance, part satire, part psychological investigation, the novel—set in a bucolic river valley in upstate New York—takes on themes just as thorny today as in the 19th century: class privilege, gender roles, and race. The course will include a private tour of Boscobel’s period rooms, where objects such as the Dyckman family portraits and New York-made period furniture illustrate the novel’s setting in a uniquely material way.
Image: Portrait of Peter Corne Dyckman. New York ca. 1805. Oil on canvas. Purchase,1961
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