The premise of Jarett Kobek’s perfectly titled book, I Hate the Internet, is that the novel has become an historical artifact in an age of clickbait, viral content, and social media. One recourse available to writers, he suggests, is to write novels that mimic the network’s “obsessions with junk….[and] irrelevant and jagged presentation of content.” In this seminar we will explore this basic question: how to take account of novels that are themselves trying to take account of ‘the internet,’ by which I mean all that is entailed in the individual and collective experience of being “extremely online.” While this will necessitate some attention to literary representation or documentation, we will be more concerned to trace a new structure of feeling in six contemporary novels, two of which will be published this spring. As befits a junior-senior seminar, this will be a reading intensive, discussion course, with short presentations and one longer essay at the end of the term.

Books for purchase:

Nick Drnaso, SABRINA
Lexi Freiman, INAPPROPRIATION
Jarett Kobek, ONLY AMERICANS BURN IN HELL
Hari Kunzru, RED PILL
Patricia Lockwood, NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS
Lauren Oyler, FAKE ACCOUNTS