Teaching Literature: Course List
What follows is a comprehensive, though not complete, list of Luskin's courses arranged according to the organization, and its thematic programs, under which they were taught.
OSHER INSTITURE FOR LIFE LONG LEARNING
- Jane Austen in the Twenty-first Century (2009)
Jane Austen lived a short, quiet life from 1775 to 1817 in southern England, during which time she completed six novels. Two hunderd years later, the novels are popular around the world. All six have been translated into film, some multiple times. In this course, using both the books and the films, we will try to find the root of Austen’s enduring appeal.
- Northanger Abbey (1818) Austen’s first novel is a spoof of the Gothic.
- Sense and Sensibility (1811) Austen’s send-up of the romantic ideal; originally a novel in letters.
- Pride and Prejudice (1813) Many readers’ favorite, original title: First Impressions.
- Mansfield Park (1814) Austen’s condemnation of Imperialism.
- Emma (1816) Considered one of the most perfect novels ever written.
- Persuasion (1818) Austen’s most powerful defense of education through fiction.
- Cross-Dressed Lovers (2007)
Gender bending has been an integral part of the theater for centuries. In Elizabethan times, women were forbidden from the stage, and men played the women’s parts. While that changed when Charles II reopened the London theaters after the English Civil War, and women were allowed their place in the limelight, cross dressing has remained an integral part of drama, right up to our present time. What do these stories tell us about our own ideas of gender? How do those ideas persist or change over time? We will view three movies in which cross dressing—and undressing--is integral to the plot. Afterwards, we will discuss the questions these films raise about gender, identity and expectation.
- Shakespeare In Love (1998)
- Stage Beauty (2004)
- Tootsie (1982)
VERMONT HUMANITIES COUNCIL: Literature & Justice
(a pilot program developed by Deborah Lee Luskin in conjunction with the Brattleboro Community Justice Center)
- Got Justice? (2009)
- Caste Freeman Jr, All That I Have
- Archer Mayor, Fruits of the Poisonous Tree
- Revenge! (2008)
- Archer Mayor, Open Season
- Castle Freeman Jr., Go With Me
- David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars
VERMONT HUMANITIES COUNCIL: Humanities at the Heart of Healthcare
- Storytelling & Medicine
- “A Poem About Storytelling” by Grace Paley
- “A Conversation With My Father” by Grace Paley
- “Indian Camp” by Ernest Hemingway
- “Quarry” & “Penelope” by Moira Linehan
- “How to Tell A Story (My Method) (Most of the Time)” by Grace Paley
- The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
- “How To Know If You’re Dead” by Mary Roach
- “The Doctors of the Death Chamber” by Atul Gawande
- “The Chameleon: The many lives of Frédéric Bourdin” by David Grann
- Trans-Sister Radio by Christopher Bohjalian
- “Narrative Features of Medicine” by Rita Charon
- “A Vacation Fit for a [Dog]” an essay by Nancy L. Greengold, MD,
- “Using and Misusing Anecdote in Policy Making” An essay by John E. McDonnough
- Grief of My Heart: Memoirs of a Chechen Surgeon by Khassan Baiev, MD with Ruth Daniloff and Nick Daniloff (Walker & Co, 2005)
- “The Route Grief Takes” a poem by Moira Linehan
- Visits from Storytellers
- Moira Linehan, April
- Ruth & Nick Daniloff, June
Good Stories About Tough Subjects
- Access to Healthcare
- Taking Care of Our Own, by Susan Garrett
- “The Eleventh” by Henri Barbusse
- War
- The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
- “The Price of Valor” by Dan Baum
- “Anthem for Doomed Youth” & “Mental Cases” (poems) by Wilfred Owen
- Pandemic
- Kyrie, Sonnets by Ellen Bryant Voigt
- The Cholera Years (excerpt) by Charles E. Rosenberg
- Suicide
- Losing The Garden by Laura Waterman
- “War’s End” by Adam Haslett
- “To be or not to be” (Hamlet’s soliloquy, III, i, 56-88) by William Shakespeare
- Abuse
- The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle
- “Leaving the Island”; “The Clasp”; “His Stillness” (poems) by Sharon Olds
- Being a Doctor
- “The Diagnosis” by Ian McEwan
- “The Child Screams And Looks Back At You” by Russell Banks
- “The Steel Windpipe” by Mikhail Bulgakov
Relationships to Self, Others and Health
- Mothers & Daughters
- Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
- “35/10” by Sharon Olds
- “The Month of June: 13 1/2” by Sharon Olds
- Husbands & Wives
- The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle
- “Leaving the Island” by Sharon Olds
- “The Clasp” by Sharon Olds
- “His Stillness” by Sharon Olds
- Dreams & Mortality
- Stones For Ibarra by Harriet Doerr
- “Death At a Great Distance” by Mary Oliver
- “The Promise” by Sharon Olds
- Self & Emotional Health
- You Are Not A Stranger Here: Stories by Adam Haslett
- “Notes to My Biographer”; “The Good Doctor”; “The Beginnings of Grief”
- “Tell All The Truth” by Emily Dickinson
- “Save the Word” by Thom Gunn
- “What the Doctor Said” by Raymond Carver
- You Are Not A Stranger Here: Stories by Adam Haslett
- Community and Disease
- Kyrie: Sonnets by Ellen Bryant Voigt
- Excerpt from The Cholera Years by Charles E. Rosenberg
- Co-workers & Clients
- Taking Care Of Our Own by Susan Garret
- “A Deathplace” by L. E. Sissman
- “The Art of Healing” by W. H. Auden
Stories Under the Skin: The Language of Healing and Health
- Your one wild and precious life
- “On Being a Cripple” by Nancy Mairs (from Plain Text)
- “Stung” by E. S. Creamer (from Vital Lines: Contemporary Fiction About Medicine, Jon Mukand, ed.)
- “The X-Ray Waiting Room in the Hospital” by Randall Jarrell (from The Collected Poems)
- “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver (from New and Selected Poems)
- Truth must dazzle gradually
- Montana 1948 by Larry Watson
- “Crows" by Mary Oliver (from New and Selected Poems)
- “Tell All the Truth” by Emily Dickinson (from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson)
- Bobby’s twenty / And out to score
- “The Beginnings of Grief” by Adam Haslett (from You Are Not a Stranger Here)
- “Going” by Amy Hempel (from Vital Lines)
- “How I Contemplated the World From the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life All Over Again" by Joyce Carol Oates (from Vital Lines)
- “Cheers for Bobby” by Veneta Masson (from Rehab at the Florida Avenue Grill)
- A brick-faced hospital
- Taking Care of Our Own: A Year in the Life of a Small Hospital by Susan Garrett
- “A Deathplace” by L. E. Sissman (from Hello Darkness: The Collected Poems of L. E. Sissman; also available in On Doctoring, Richard Reynolds and John Stone, eds.)
- He said I’m real sorry he said
- “Outpatient” by Rosalind Warren (from Vital Lines)
- “Brute” by Richard Selzer (from The Doctor Stories)
- “An Infected Heart” by John Stone (from Vital Lines)
- “What the Doctor Said” by Raymond Carver (from All of Us: The Collected Poems)
- Powerful rhyme
- “Imagine A Woman” by Richard Selzer (from The Doctor Stories)
- “Dying With Word” by Reginald Gibbons (from Vital Lines)
- “He Read To Her” by Anne Brashler (from Vital Lines)
- “By That I Mean Angina Pectoris” by Gregory Burnham (Vital Lines)
- “Sonnet Fifty-five” by William Shakespeare
VERMONT HUMANITIES COUNCIL: Reading & Discussion Programs
These are programs developed by the Vermont Humanities Council and delivered by their scholars. In several instances, however, Luskin has cherry-picked titles and/or rearranged titles in order to focus discussions on specific themes, such as Preparing to Vote and the Justice programs.
PREPARING TO VOTE: A Year-long reading & discussion series developed by Deborah Lee Luskin and Jerry Carbone, Director of Brooks Memorial Library, Brattleboro, leading up to the 2008 presidential election.
- Presidents & First Ladies (Fall 2007)
- Joseph Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character And Legacy Of John Adams
- Lynne Withee, Dearest Friend (Abigail Adams)
- Adrienne Koch, Jefferson and Madison: The Great Collaboration
- David B. Mattern, et. al., The Selected Letters of Dolly Payne Madison
- Stephen B. Oates, With Malice Toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln
- Jean H. Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography
- Phyllis Lee Levin, Edith and Woodrow: The Wilson White House
- Kendrick Clements, Woodrow Wilson: World Statesman
- Founders & Presidents Of The Past (January - October 2008)
- Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
- Richard Brookhiser, Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington
- Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
- Joseph Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
- David McCullough, Truman
- Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower
- Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963
- Irwin and Debi Unger, LBJ: A Life
- Garry Wills, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man
- Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime
- Seminal Statements of American Values (October 2008)
Founding documents and landmark speeches help us to understand America’s operating principles and values – what they mean, how well we practice what we preach, and what relationship words have to action in good times and bad.
- Declaration of Independence
- Constitution of the United States
Other Courses
- Poetry for Lunch
A noon-time program developed to add the nutritive value of poetry to the working lunch, developed with Jerry Carbone at Brooks Memorial Library, Brattleboro.
- Emily Dickinson, Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson
- Langston Hughes, Selected Poems
- Marilyn Nelson, The Homeplace
- Linda McCarriston, Eva-Mary
- From Page to Screen
When is it true that “the movie’s good, but the book is better”? What makes it so? What does a book or the script of a play have to offer that its film version does not? Conversely, what does film offer that print cannot?
- Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep; Film: The Big Sleep, directed by Howard Hawks
- Christopher Isherwood, Berlin Stories; Film: Cabaret, directed by Bob Fosse
- Isak Dinesen, “Out of Africa”; Film: Out of Africa, directed by Sydney Pollack
- W. P. Kinsella, Shoeless Joe; Film: Field of Dreams, directed by Phil Alden Robinson
- Stephen King, “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”; Film: The Shawshank Redemption, directed by Frank Darabont
- Portraits of the Artists: Novels about Painters
What happens when the visual arts and the literary arts meet? How do fiction writers interpret the lives of famous painters, and the canvases they leave behind?
- Harriet Chessman, Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper (about Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas)
- Tracy Chevalier, Girl with a Pearl Earring (about Johannes Vermeer)
- David Huddle, La Tour Dreams of the Wolf Girl (about Georges de la Tour)
- Barbara Mujica, Frida (about Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera)
- Robert Frost: Poetry and Prose
This series invites readers to learn more about Robert Frost's life and the diversity of his writings. See also “Robert Frost: You Come, Too” in the “Bridging the Generations” section.
- Jay Parini, Robert Frost: A Life
- Robert Frost, Poetry and Prose (over two sessions)
- Vermont Reads
Vermont Humanities Council’s statewide community reading program. Since its inception in 2003, more than 110 of Vermont towns and cities and tens of thousands of Vermonters have participated.
- Loung Ung, First They Killed My Father (2004)
- Natalie Bober, Restless Spirit: The Story of Robert Frost (2008)
- The Ties That Bind: Take Two
A rich selection of three novels and one memoir that explores family and deals with some of the most emotional aspects of blood relationships: the generational divide, communication, betrayal, reconciliation, forgiveness, and love.
- Norman McLean, A River Runs Through It
- Reynolds Price, The Promise of Rest
- Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres
- Larry Watson, Montana 1948
- Futures: Utopia and Apocalypse
In this series, participants explore 19th and 20th century visions – utopian to apocalyptic – of the future. Themes include repression, community, socialism, capitalism, feminism, creativity, ethics, and evolution.
- Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward
- Marge Percy, Woman on the Edge of Time
- Julia Alverez
- How The Garcia Sisters Lost Their Accents
- Yo!
- In The Time of Butterflies
- Irish Literature
- Edna O’Brien, Mother Ireland
- Nuala O’Faolian, Are You Somebody?
- Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke, Ha, Ha, Ha
- Seamus Heaney, Poems
- Coming of Age - World War II on the Home Front
The series examines politics, the role of Americans with ancestry in non-allied countries, the sacrifices of personal and family life of those who went and those who stayed behind, and the dropping of the atomic bombs.
- Doris Kearns, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt on the Homefront in World War II
- Ronald Takaki, Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in WWII
- Tom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation
- Bob Greene, Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War
- Meet The Victorians
- Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles
- George Eliot, Daniel Deronda
- Single Book Discussions
- Simone de Beauvoir, The Coming of Age
- H. G. Bissinger, Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream
- John Elder, Reading the Mountains of Home
- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
- Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John
- Yashar Kemal, Memed, My Hawk
- Mary Hays, Learning To Drive
- Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
- Ella Leffland, Rumors of Peace
- Scott E. Hastings Jr. and Elsie R. Hastings,Up in the Morning Early: Vermont Farm Families in the Thirties
- Russell Baker, Growing Up
- Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
In addition, Luskin has taught reading groups how to become self-guided, addressed organizations about the importance of reading, and facilitated public meetings.