This is the second entry in a series on teaching the literature of 9/11. Dr. Erin Templeton, Assistant Professor of English and the Anne Morrison Chapman Distinguished Chair of International Study at Converse College, answered a few questions about her experiences teaching 9/11 fiction.
Hetland: What 9/11 texts do you teach?
Templeton: I teach both Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (ELIC) by Jonathan Safran Foer and selections from an American literature anthology.
Hetland: What classes do you use the texts in?
Templeton: ELIC is part of an upper-level contemporary American novels course; the anthology pieces are for the second half of our American Literature survey (1865-Present; 9/11 is as close as we get to the Present).
Hetland: Why have you chosen to teach Safran Foer’s novel?
Templeton: Because 1) it is a terrific novel and teaches well, and 2) because it also presents us with other issues that jive well with other books on the syllabus, specifically with issues of textual materiality and form, narrative perspective, and relationships between past and present and between older and younger generations. Continue reading “Teaching the Fiction of 9/11: Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”