Harvard course pairs Faulkner with ‘Scandal’
Linda Chavers’ knowledge of William Faulkner is encyclopedic. The lecturer in African and African American Studies, who first read the Nobel Prize-winning novelist when she was 19, owns four different editions of “Absalom, Absalom!” and can recite huge chunks of the narrative from memory. If you want to check, she can even point you to the correct page. “I’m Faulkner all day, every day — maybe not the man, but the works,” said Chavers, who paired the white Southern writer’s work with that of African-American writer-producer Shonda Rhimes for her course “Faulkner, Interracialism and Popular Television.” “Whenever I read something and it resonates, it stays with me the rest of my life,” Chavers added. “Absalom, Absalom!” is “a difficult novel to read, but for a really good reason. I think it helps students with their worldview, and develops an interdisciplinary type of mind.” For the TV part of the class, Chavers turned to...