Our Common Text: 2003-2004
The Common Novel is a longstanding and beloved RIT tradition upheld
by the Department of Language and Literature. For over twenty
years, Writing and Literature students, faculty, and community
have been united in the common experience of reading a novel and
engaging in lively discussion and debate. Classroom activities
and faculty lectures complement the Common Novel program, which
culminates in a campus visit by the author. Students get plenty
of face time with the author, who fields questions and signs books
in classroom visits, and addresses the Institute at large in a
specially prepared lecture. Past Common Novel authors include
such greats as Toni Morrison, William Kennedy, E.L. Doctorow,
and Michael Ondaatje.
The Department of Language and Literature breaks
new ground this year by venturing for the very first time outside
the novel genre. We are pleased to announce the Common Text for
2003-2004, Anthony Swofford's Jarhead, a raw and
riveting memoir of the Gulf War sure to rouse dialogue, provoke
debate, and challenge intellectual complacency - as any great
book should.
Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of
the Gulf War and Other Battles
by Anthony Swofford
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Anthony Swofford is the author of this year's Common
Text, Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf
War and Other Battles. Mr. Swofford is an Assistant
Professor of English at St. Mary's College in Moraga,
California and is currently working on a novel.
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Jacket photograph by Bruno Barbey/Magnum
Photos. Author photograph by Sarah Elisabeth Freeman.
Used with permission from Simon and Schuster., Inc.
Videostream
of Tony Swofford's lecture at RIT on October 15, 2003.
Transcript of
Tony Swofford's lecture at RIT on February 4, 2004.
- "One of the most articulate, unflinching portrayals of military
service the civilian public has ever seen." Dave Weich, Powels.com
- "Jarhead is some kind of classic, a bracing memoir
of the 1991 Persian Gulf war that will go down with the best books ever
written about military life." Mark Bowden, New York Times Book Review,
March 2, 2003. Read the full article, "The Things They Carried: One
Man's Memoir of the 1991 Persian Gulf War" by doing an article title/author
search at RIT Library's online database, National
Newspapers.
- "By turns profane and lyrical, swaggering and ruminative, Jarhead....is
not only the most powerful memoir to emerge thus far from the last gulf
war, but also a searing contribution to the literature of combat, a book
that combines the black humor of Catch-22 with the savagery of
Full Metal Jacket and the visceral detail of The Things They
Carried." Michiko Kakutani's complete review, ("A Warrior
Haunted by Ghosts of Battle") can be found in the February 19, 2003
issue of the New York Times. Full text of the article is available by
doing an article title/author search at RIT Library's online database,
National Newspapers.
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John Gregory Dunne, in his May 29, 2003, New
York Review of Books, refers to Jarhead as "a
bracing and unforgiving corrective to the spectator patriotism
so prevalent today" and talks about the culture of today's
military as well as the typical profile of today's enlisted
soldier.
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"I've read many books about war and combat,
including The Iliad, (which Swofford read in the desert),
War and Peace, Tolstoy's essays about fighting the
Chechens, and All Quiet on the Western Front. Apart
from actual events in Vietnam somewhat like Swofford's, nothing
about war has affected me like Jarhead. It achieves
what Conrad said is the writer's highest calling: "to
make you see."" Jonathan Mirsky, The Spectator.
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"Swofford's un-sanitized account holds
back nothing and should be required reading for both hawks
and doves." Stephen J. Lyons, Chicago Sun-Times.
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The Lewis and Clark College, Profile:
Anthony Swofford page, provides several additional links
to reviews and commentary on Jarhead as well
as a public radio broadcast interview with Anthony Swofford.
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Interviews with Anthony Swofford:
- Author
Interviews at Powells.Com: Interview with Dave Weich
on February 27, 2003.
- Fresh
Air: Public Radio's daily magazine of contemporary
arts and issues. March 4, 2003.
- Here
and Now: Production of WBUR Boston, March 5, 2003.
- USA Today: 'Jarhead'
Gives Book Club a Window on War, by By Bob Minzesheimer,
4/17/2003.
- USA
Today: Talk Today online chat with Anthony Swofford,
May 8, 2003.
- USA
Today: Talk Today online chat with Anthony Swofford,
April 24, 2003.
Books referenced in Jarhead:
Links to previous Common Novels:
Maintained by Susan Mee
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