George Orwell’s Enduring Legacy: ‘1984’ and ‘Animal Farm’
Joseph Luzzi (PhD, Yale) is the Asher B. Edelman Professor of Literature and Faculty Member in Italian Studies at Bard College, and he taught previously at the University of Pennsylvania. His work has appeared in The New York Times, TLS, The London Times, the Guardian, Chronicle of Higher Education, and on National Public Radio. Dr. Luzzi’s awards include a Yale College Teaching Prize, Dante Society of America Essay Prize, and Wallace Fellowship at Villa I Tatti, Harvard’s Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. He is the author of five books and recently created The Virtual Book Club: an international community of readers dedicated to exploring major literary works past and present.
Overview
Few works of modern literature have been as influential as George Orwell’s mid-twentieth century classics, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. With his uncanny ability to probe the most lacerating political developments of his time, Orwell created novels that remain shockingly relevant today because of their diagnosis of power, corruption, and misinformation, among many other key issues of the present. In this presentation, we will discover what makes Orwell’s gorgeous prose “tick,” as we also consider how remarkably prophetic he was in understanding the forces and trends that would define global life from his age all the way to our own.
As usual, Dr. Luzzi brings new vision to what may seem to be old literary relics. He has an amazing ability to bring in sources from many decides of writers that give new meaning to the written word.