[In Progress] Reading The Satanic Verses with Randy Boyagoda | Virtual Course

Registration

• Tuition for this course is $250. 10% off for Rosenbach members and the Delancey Society. Not a member? Learn more.
• This course is limited to participants who are 18 years of age or older.
• Please check your spam folder for your email confirmation. If you have questions, please call (215) 732-1600 or email [email protected].
• Registration opens for Delancey Society members on November 14, for members on November 21, and for the general public on November 28.

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Course Description

Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses is the best known least read novel of our time. Dating from its 1988 publication and punctuated by the declaration of a fatwa against the author in 1989, the novel has long been the object of geopolitical controversy, religious strife, freedom of expression defenses, and acts of violence committed against people around the world, including, most recently, the author himself. Throughout this time, the meanings and textures of the novel itself have long been diminished by its fraught public reputation. This is unfortunate. In its ideas, themes, characters, plot and structure, The Satanic Verses poses a profoundly important question: How does newness come into the world? In multiple settings, moods, and storytelling modes, the novel explores answers to this question, focused, particularly on acts of personal migration and the creation of a new world religion. Also, the novel is really funny. In this seminar, novelist and professor Randy Boyagoda will guide students through a sequenced reading of the novel across five class meetings.  

Satanic Verses syllabus

About the instructor

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto. He is the author of six books including, most recently, the novels Original Prin and Dante’s Indiana, and contributes essays and reviews to a variety of publications including The Atlantic and the New York Times. 

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