The Duke class “Modern European Short Fiction” covers a range of foundational European literary works while investigating the title’s overall significance. Students explore authors, like Franz Kafka, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf, that have been central to European fiction syllabi for decades, along with less canonical authors, such as Igiaba Scego, Daphne du Maurier, and Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, to consider what all four elements of the title might mean.
The course, taught by Saskia Ziolkowski, is organized into five units: Animals; Family & Home; Love; Guilt; and the Holocaust. When we can gather in person, at the end of the first unit we visit Duke’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library to see an exciting 3D book cover for Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” and an edition of Leonora Carrington’s The Oval Lady: Six Surreal Stories that includes illustrations by her son Pablo Weisz (translated by Rochelle Holt, 1975). From 2016-2021 Sara Seten Berghausen, Associate Curator of Collections and literary collections specialist, organized materials and provided crucial support. The class now receives the wonderful support of Kate Collins, Research Services Librarian. The students sign up for objects, including Oscar Wilde’s letters, early editions of some of the works, and a scrapbook of articles about James Joyce, that relate to the works we have read. Duke’s Rare Book Library has an extensive collection of materials related to Virginia Woolf, including letters, Hogarth Press editions, and her desk. The students returned to Rubenstein when we read related works to consider the object’s context and how looking at it can help us gain a broader view of the author and her or his short work. Students were able to use their linguistic knowledge to consider, for instance, the German of a first edition of Schnitzler’s Fräulein Else, the Italian of Luigi Pirandello’s essays, or the French of Sartre’s “The Wall.”
Every time I have taught the course the students have produced thoughtful and thought-provoking commentary on both the materials in Rare Books and the literary works. In 2019, with the assistance of an Innovating with Colleagues Grant from the Language, Arts, and Media Program, we decided to make the blog posts public, so you could learn about the literary works and materials in Rubenstein through Duke students’ own writing. In 2020, the students continued to write impressive reflections on these materials and their relationship to our readings, despite the unusual shape the semester took.
In 2020, the pandemic meant that we were not able to visit the library as a group, but some students visited Rare Books on their own and others studied scans. Sara Seten Berghausen and the Duke library staff put in a tremendous amount of work to make the visits safe and possible, as well as making scans accessible to students unable to visit the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript room. While I am always grateful to Duke’s library staff, this year they were heroic. Many of the students who were able to go into Rare Books also mentioned how much seeing and touching the material objects meant to them. The 2020 version of this class emphasized both the power and limitations of digital materials. The class has now returned to visiting the materials in person.
In 2019, Jessica Gokhberg, the course Teaching Assistant, provided vital feedback on the students’ original posts, with an eye to editing them for the public. Jessica is currently a PhD candidate in the Program in Literature, and is writing her dissertation, “Doktor Zhivago‘s Cold War,” on the role of literature in cultural warfare during the twentieth century.
Below are the European author’s and their works, feel free to click on one object or just scroll through and read them all! Some authors have numerous objects, while others have none and are therefore not listed.
Work Read: Oscar Wilde’s “The Nightingale and the Rose” (1888)
Objects: Original Manuscripts: Letters & Books of Oscar Wilde
“The Nightingale and the Rose”
The happy prince, and other fairy stories
Work Read: Renée Vivien’s “Prince Charming” (“Le Prince Charmant,” 1904)
Objects: The Muse of the Violets
At the Sweet Hour of Hand in Hand
Work Read: H.G. Wells’ “A Dream of Armageddon” (1901)
Objects: H.G. Wells,The Door in the Wall and Other Stories
H.G. Wells, The War and Socialism
H.G. Wells, La Guerre des Mondes
Work Read: Luigi Pirandello’s “The Trip” (“Il viaggio,” 1910)
Object: Pirandello, Arte e scienza
Works Read: James Joyce’s “Araby,” “Eveline,” “Clay,” and “The Dead” from Dubliners (1914)
Object: Clippings and Articles on James Joyce
Works Read: Virginia Woolf’s “The Mark on the Wall” (1917), “The Haunted House” (1921), “Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street” (1923), “The Widow and the Parrot: A True Story” (1920s), “The Lady in the Looking Glass: A Reflection” (1929)
Objects: Virginia Woolf, Haunted House and Other Stories (Hogarth Press)
A Letter to Mrs. Virginia Woolf, by Peter Quennell (1932) Hogarth Press
Work Read: Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party” (1922)
Object: Katherine Mansfield in Atalanta’s garland; being the book of the Edinburgh university women’s union, 1926.
Work Read: Arthur Schnitzler’s Fräulein Else (1924)
Object: First Edition (German) of the work
Work Read: Jean-Paul Sartre’s “The Wall” (1939)
Object: Le mur (Éditions Lidis, 1965 with lithographs by Walter Spitzer)
Work Read: Albert Camus’s “The Adulterous Woman” (“La femme adultère,” 1957)
Object: Albert Camus, Speech of Acceptance upon the Award of the Nobel Prize for Literature (December 10, 1957)
