Has anyone else been assigned to read a novel or short story for a class that wasn’t specifically studying literature, either in English or another language?
I remember having to read Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow for U.S. History I. It was about the turn of the twentieth century and was brilliant. I also remember having to read Joshua, Son of None by Nancy Freedman for a course about ethics called Science and Society. It was science fiction about the cloning of JFK. It was not brilliant.
We read a trashy historical fiction novel, SPQR II, for my Latin class in high school.
For my high school U.S. History class, we read The Jungle and The Ugly American.
All Quiet of the Western Front, for a college freshman history class.
Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, for a government class. (Although that was arguably a political tract, thinly disguised as a novel.)
I would have the kids read short stories in math. I found some that were really on topic.
1984 in junior high history or social studies. Most of us had no clue what was going on.
Do you remember any titles? My husband specifically wonders if one of these was “A Subway Named Moebius”, or something like that.
For a public speaking class (Persuasion), we had to read Animal Farm, 1984, All the King’s Men, Lord of the Flies, and The 480. I also managed to slug through most of Mein Kampf for my final presentation.
Best damned course I took as an undergrad!
The 480, BTW, is a gem. If you can find a copy, I highly recommend it!
I also remember having to read Heart of Darkness for a course on the history of imperialism.
As a senior, I took a course called “Russian History through Russian Literature.” The title is self-explanatory.
I remember that from when I was a teenager! I liked it. IIRC Freedman is very careful never to identify JFK by name, but the circumstances of the cloning leave you in no doubt as to who she had in mind.
As a senior in high school, I took a course on Russian History. For that class, we were required to read Ivan Turgenev’s ***Fathers and Sons ***(which is still one of my favorite novels ever) and Solzhenitsyn’s ***One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. ***
Since historical fiction seems to be game, we read Falls the Shadow, about Simon de Montfort, in British history class.
In high school, I had to read When the Legends Die for a “history” class (it was nothing of the sort).
The class sucked, but the book made a huge impression on me.
Also read my senior year in college for a course on Tsarist Russia.
Never mind.
In college, I read Madame Bovary in a western civilization class that I hated. The book itself was OK.
We read an excerpt from The Jungle in our US History class, but the shocking details in that one little excerpt convinced me to borrow the book from the library.
In high school US History class, we had to read a period novel each quarter of the year. We got to choose a novel from a list. I chose The Last of the Mohicans from the first quarter list. That was an unfortunate choice. Later on I read Frank Norris’ mostly unremembered The Octupus, which I did enjoy, probably because the setting was similar to the John Steinbeck books/stories I enjoyed from English class.
It seems fairly common to assign novels or other fiction for university history courses.
As I kept my history course books, my shelf includes
Uncle Tom’s Cabin - Stowe
Babbitt - Lewis
Fathers and Sons - Turgenev
The Death of Artemio Cruz - Fuentes
The Underdogs - Azuela
A Hundred Years of Solitude - Garcia Marquez
Who Would Have Thought It - Ruiz de Burton
And maybe others; however, I can’t think of any examples that did not come from a history course.
In my freshman year of college, we had a required course titled “Freshman Seminar”, or something like that. It was mostly a philosophy course (I think all the profs were from the philosophy department), but also had a decent helping of history and literature mixed in, and some required fiction reading (off the top of my head, at least some Shakespeare).
My mom recently took a course on history of the Middle East, which had a couple of novels required.
I just put down his novel McTeague after 50 pages. Hated it.