UMass MFA candidate and instructor Michael Carolan believes that there has been an unwillingness to examine certain writers' works in light of their rather obvious alcoholism, so he's decided to do it himself and he's going to be teaching all about it this summer:
Carolan has been working to remedy that oversight with his class "Dionysus Hitting Bottom: The Alcoholic Narrative in Film and Literature." He has a 6-week session coming up through the UMass Division of Continuing Education starting June 2.
"The modern American canon would not exist without all this madness and alcohol," he said, "so let's look below the surface with a clear eye and explore the relationship between alcoholic authors and their characters."
The class reflects the relatively new area of inquiry known as "addiction studies," a multidisciplinary field that combines literary criticism with sociological and historical perspectives. It developed in the 1980s with the founding of Dionysus: Journal of Literature and Addiction and the publication of several related books, including "The Thirsty Muse" and "Alcohol and the Writer."
Carolan said his class also brings together fields of addiction medicine, film studies, psychology, sociology, cultural and gender studies.
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