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March 31, 2025

Gatsby's New York

Event Series: Cultural Encounters: Books that Have Made a Difference

New York City in the 1920s

Written 100 years ago by a writer who died believing himself a failure, The Great Gatsby (1925) is now considered by many readers and critics to be the “Great American Novel.” In this talk, Maureen Corrigan explored The Great Gatsby's status as the first "Great American Urban Novel." The 1920 census was the first census that recorded more Americans living in cities than in rural areas. Gatsby reflects this seismic shift: the novel is both fascinated with and wary of the mixing of classes, races, and ethnicities that a crowded and compact city like New York offers. As we celebrate Gatsby's centennial on April 10, 2025, Corrigan also invited us to take note of the many instances in Gatsby where Fitzgerald warns about the limits of the American dream of egalitarianism and possibility.

This event was sponsored by the Future of the Humanities Project and the Georgetown Humanities Initiative at Georgetown University with Blackfriars Hall, Oxford. It is part of the series Cultural Encounters: Books that Have Made a Difference.

Participants

Maureen Corrigan

Maureen Corrigan

Maureen Corrigan is the Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University. She is also a book critic for NPR's Fresh Air, a reviewer and columnist for the Washington Post's Book World, and an associate editor of and contributor to Mystery and Suspense Writers (Scribner). She is the winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Criticism, presented by the Mystery Writers of America, and the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle. Her publications include So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came To Be and Why It Endures (2014) and her literary memoir, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading! (2005).

Michael Scott

Michael Scott

Michael Scott is senior dean, fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, college advisor for postgraduate students, and a member of the Las Casas Institute. He also serves as senior advisor to the president of Georgetown University. Scott previously served as the pro-vice-chancellor at De Montfort University and founding vice-chancellor of Wrexham Glyndwr University, where he is professor emeritus.