New York University
The Novel Today Spring 2026 Wednesday: 1:00 PM- 2:40 PM; Thursday 10:00- 11:40 PM Thursday: 1:00 PM- 2:40 PM Margaret Boe Birns
Discuss major new work by today’s top writers, including emerging novelists, award-winners, and established favorites, all of whom are central to today's cultural conversation. We will investigate a variety of inventive narrative strategies, explore the psychology of numerous fascinating characters, and examine important topics within a context of changing times, changing lives and a changing world. Together we will explore a secret agent in a rural commune of French subversives; a health resort in the Silesian mountains in which “otherness watches from the shadows”; the big impact of small decisions in Montana’s Flathead Valley; a New Yorker who believes she is secretly an alien sent to study humans; war, love, friendship and art in a strangely Irish Ancient Greece; a journalist spends two months at sea with a mysterious, shape-shifting engineer; a 42-year old woman disappears just as she was close to completing her journey hiking the entire Appalachian Trail; in the Pacific Northwest, a reclusive grandfather re-enters the world when his grandchildren are kidnapped; the choices and compromises of a film director in Nazi Germany; an antiquarian bookseller trapped in a time warp in a cottage in France. Readings: Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake; Olga Tokarczuk, The Empusium; Eric Puchner, Dream State; Ferdia Lennon, Glorious Exploits; Colum McCann Twist; Jess Walter, So Far Gone; Amity Gaige, Heartwood; Daniel Kehlmann, The Director; Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume I; Marie-Helene Bertino, Beautyland. Students should read Beautyland for the first class
Masterpieces of 19th Century Fiction Spring 2026 LITR1-CE 9031 Course Meets Every Three Weeks Monday 1:00-2:40 PM Margaret Boe Birns
Study five major 19th-century classics that have passed the test of time: a great and haunting story of witch-trials, curses and expiation set in Salem, Massachusetts; a comprehensive look at the condition of Victorian England, raising the question, “what should a woman do with her life?”; an extraordinary English classic by the most enigmatic of a legendary family of literary sisters as considered the apotheosis of stormy romanticism; a story of feminist protest and defiant love from a legendary and controversial Frenchwoman who was in her lifetime also one of the most popular writers in all of Europe; a profound Russian novel of grand estates and radical rebels that introduced the concept of “nihilism” to a troubled world. Readings: George Sand, Indiana; Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights; Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables; Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive her?; Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons. Students should read Indiana, by George Sand for the first class.
The New School
Dark Green: Eco-fiction for the 21st Century
Margaret Boe Birns
Online/Asynchronous
NLIT 3534 A
This course will explore a selection of important novels which center on the environmental crisis or climate change ---the new genre of ecofiction. With narratives populated by scientists, artists, activists, mystics, militants, nature gods and goddesses, psychic trees, seabirds, seeking spirits, everyday heroes as well as the despairing, the distressed, the deniers, the chancers, and the opportunists, our stories will consider the reality of today’s environmental crisis, and the possibility of solutions and pathways to change. Our stories will additionally consider the raising of consciousness with regard to environmental injustice, the probability of a profound generational shift, a post-secular “dark green religion,“ and pathways to a green transition that will avoid a Final Winter. Students will also have an opportunity to consider how our novels contribute to the movement to protect the natural world from harmful practices and help create a future in which the planet can sustain itself. To create space to reflect and consider, we will spend two weeks on most novels, with four weeks devoted to The Overstory. Readings: Jenny Offill, Weather; Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones; Lydia Millet, A Children’s Bible; Ian McEwan, Solar; Richard Powers, The Overstory, Charlotte McConaughey, Migrations.
The Novel Today Spring 2026 Wednesday: 1:00 PM- 2:40 PM; Thursday 10:00- 11:40 PM Thursday: 1:00 PM- 2:40 PM Margaret Boe Birns
Discuss major new work by today’s top writers, including emerging novelists, award-winners, and established favorites, all of whom are central to today's cultural conversation. We will investigate a variety of inventive narrative strategies, explore the psychology of numerous fascinating characters, and examine important topics within a context of changing times, changing lives and a changing world. Together we will explore a secret agent in a rural commune of French subversives; a health resort in the Silesian mountains in which “otherness watches from the shadows”; the big impact of small decisions in Montana’s Flathead Valley; a New Yorker who believes she is secretly an alien sent to study humans; war, love, friendship and art in a strangely Irish Ancient Greece; a journalist spends two months at sea with a mysterious, shape-shifting engineer; a 42-year old woman disappears just as she was close to completing her journey hiking the entire Appalachian Trail; in the Pacific Northwest, a reclusive grandfather re-enters the world when his grandchildren are kidnapped; the choices and compromises of a film director in Nazi Germany; an antiquarian bookseller trapped in a time warp in a cottage in France. Readings: Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake; Olga Tokarczuk, The Empusium; Eric Puchner, Dream State; Ferdia Lennon, Glorious Exploits; Colum McCann Twist; Jess Walter, So Far Gone; Amity Gaige, Heartwood; Daniel Kehlmann, The Director; Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume I; Marie-Helene Bertino, Beautyland. Students should read Beautyland for the first class
Masterpieces of 19th Century Fiction Spring 2026 LITR1-CE 9031 Course Meets Every Three Weeks Monday 1:00-2:40 PM Margaret Boe Birns
Study five major 19th-century classics that have passed the test of time: a great and haunting story of witch-trials, curses and expiation set in Salem, Massachusetts; a comprehensive look at the condition of Victorian England, raising the question, “what should a woman do with her life?”; an extraordinary English classic by the most enigmatic of a legendary family of literary sisters as considered the apotheosis of stormy romanticism; a story of feminist protest and defiant love from a legendary and controversial Frenchwoman who was in her lifetime also one of the most popular writers in all of Europe; a profound Russian novel of grand estates and radical rebels that introduced the concept of “nihilism” to a troubled world. Readings: George Sand, Indiana; Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights; Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables; Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive her?; Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons. Students should read Indiana, by George Sand for the first class.
The New School
Dark Green: Eco-fiction for the 21st Century
Margaret Boe Birns
Online/Asynchronous
NLIT 3534 A
This course will explore a selection of important novels which center on the environmental crisis or climate change ---the new genre of ecofiction. With narratives populated by scientists, artists, activists, mystics, militants, nature gods and goddesses, psychic trees, seabirds, seeking spirits, everyday heroes as well as the despairing, the distressed, the deniers, the chancers, and the opportunists, our stories will consider the reality of today’s environmental crisis, and the possibility of solutions and pathways to change. Our stories will additionally consider the raising of consciousness with regard to environmental injustice, the probability of a profound generational shift, a post-secular “dark green religion,“ and pathways to a green transition that will avoid a Final Winter. Students will also have an opportunity to consider how our novels contribute to the movement to protect the natural world from harmful practices and help create a future in which the planet can sustain itself. To create space to reflect and consider, we will spend two weeks on most novels, with four weeks devoted to The Overstory. Readings: Jenny Offill, Weather; Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones; Lydia Millet, A Children’s Bible; Ian McEwan, Solar; Richard Powers, The Overstory, Charlotte McConaughey, Migrations.