Alumnae Reading Group with Margaret Vandenburg: Déjà Vu
A series of contemporary novels written in response to classic works of literature
Dates: 9 Wednesdays-- 2026: 9/16, 10/21, 11/18, 12/16 2027: 1/20, 2/17, 3/17, 4/14, 5/19
Format: Online on Zoom; 7 - 9 PM ET
Fall Registration Only; Space is limited
Cost: $ 550 (Young alumnae from Class Years 2016 - 2026, please use discount code YNGALM26. Your cost is $250 for the year.)
Modern retellings don’t just revisit literary classics. They reveal how the past informs the present and the present transforms our understanding of the past. A lot is at stake, given the extent to which retellings are constrained by their urtexts, even when they seem to break free.
This academic year, Professor Vandenburg's Reading Group will focus on:
2026:
9/16 Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
10/21 Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North
11/18 Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
12/16 Michael Cunningham, The Hours
2027:
1/20 Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
2/17 Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
3/17 Jamaica Kincaid, The Autobiography of My Mother
4/14 Peter Carey, Jack Maggs
5/19 Ian McEwan, Nutshell
A reminder to veteran Alumnae Reading Group members and some context for new members:over the past few years, we have also read and discussed the following paired classics:
- Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation (with Albert Camus’s The Stranger)
- Percival Everett’s James (with Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)
- J. M. Coetzee’s Foe (with Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe)