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Academia in Literature: Fall/Winter Personal Curriculum

ByInes

Objective: To focus my personal and continuing education into organized topics with deadlines, clear expectations, and a final capstone assignment. Starting here, with academia in literature. Don’t call, don’t text!

Guiding Questions 

The following questions reflect my points of curiosity at the beginning of this personal study, and will guide my research and reflective writing throughout:

  • How do writers represent the university (or the classroom/campus), as both an intellectual sanctuary and a site of institutional violence, exclusion, or moral corruption?
  • What recurring archetypes appear in academic fiction (the ambitious student, the failed scholar, the tyrannical mentor, the outsider), and how do they reflect real academic hierarchies?
  • How do issues of class, race, gender, and privilege shape narratives about who belongs in academic spaces and who is excluded?
  • In what ways do contemporary writers critique or celebrate academic life, and how has this shifted over time?
  • How do nonfiction accounts of academic life compare to fictional representations—where do they converge or diverge?

† Indicates titles previously read

OCTOBER: Personal Foundations of the Academic Novel

Objective: Explore children’s and contemporary campus novels that establish key themes: intellectual ambition, moral corruption, elite institutions, and the seductive danger of knowledge and intellectualism.

Texts to read in full:

The Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)†

The Idiot, Elif Batuman (2017)†

Katabasis, R.F. Kuang (2025)

Texts to review:

The Austere Academy, Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 5)†

The Mysterious Benedict Society, Trenton Lee Stewart (2007)†

Babel, or the Necessity of Violence, R.F. Kuang (2022)†

Reflect on how these texts establish “dark academia” aesthetics and gothic themes. 

  • Elite institutions as closed worlds
  • Obsessive intellectual pursuit
  • Mentor-student power dynamics
  • The dangers of forbidden or esoteric knowledge

NOVEMBER: Academic Life in Nonfiction & Critical Perspectives

Objective: Balance fiction with real accounts of academic life, and seek critical essays that illuminate the politics, labor conditions, and social dynamics of higher education.

Nonfiction texts to read:

Stylish Academic Writing, Helen Sword (2012)

The Library: A Fragile History, Andrew Pettegree & Arthur der Weduwen (2021)

Clueless in Academe, Gerald Graff (2003)

Additional nonfiction essays and critical analyses:

The Chairs Are Where the People Go, Misha Glouberman & Sheila Heti (2011)

On Being a Master, Keguro Macharia (2023, if available)

Higher Education?, Kathleen Fitzpatrick (2019)

Katabasis: On the Nature of Scholarship, Johanna Skibsrud (Expected 2024/2025)

Research areas:

  • Academic labor and precarity (adjunctification, publish-or-perish culture)
  • The “crisis in the humanities”
  • Academic memoir as a genre
  • Critical university studies

DECEMBER: Modern and Contemporary Campus Novels & Institutional Critique

Objective: Read contemporary fiction that problematizes the university—examining issues of power, scandal, identity, and institutional failure.

Texts to read in full:

Real Life, Brandon Taylor (2020)

Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov (1957)

Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis (1954)

Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse (1927)

Tom Brown at Oxford, Thomas Hughes (1861)

Villette, Charlotte Brontë (1853)

Focus questions for December:

  • How do these novels depict academia as exclusionary or alienating?
  • What role do scandals (sexual, financial, ethical) play in campus novels?
  • How do contemporary writers address diversity, equity, and inclusion in academic spaces, and how is this accomplished or neglected in the 19th century counterparts?

JANUARY: Academic Bildungsroman & Capstone Preparation

Objective: Read novels that track intellectual and personal development through academic settings, focusing on the formation (or deformation) of scholars. Begin synthesizing findings for capstone project.

Texts to read:

Stoner, John Williams (1965)

Blue Period (manga), Tsubasa Yamaguchi (2017)

Either/Or, Elif Batuman (2022)†

Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers (1935)

David Foster Wallace’s essays on education and intellectual life

David Copperfield, Charles Dickens (1850)†

CAPSTONE PROJECT (due February 13, 2025)

This project will culminate in a video essay (approximately 1 hour) in which I:

  • Summarize my reading journey across fiction and nonfiction
  • Analyze recurring themes: institutional power, intellectual ambition, who belongs in academia
  • Compare fictional representations with nonfiction accounts
  • Explore how contemporary writers critique or reimagine the university
  • Address my guiding questions with specific textual evidence
  • Reflect on what surprised me or challenged my assumptions

Video essay structure (draft):

Introduction: Why academia in literature? Personal connection to the topic

Section 1: The allure of the academy—elite institutions, intellectual communities, mentorship

Section 2: The dark side—exclusion, exploitation, corruption, disillusionment

Section 3: Who belongs?—Class, race, gender, and access

Section 4: Nonfiction vs. fiction—where do they align or diverge?

Conclusion: What these texts reveal about how we imagine (and fail to imagine) intellectual life

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