Bookpacking america

““So it was that I determined to look again, to try to rediscover this monster land.””

— John Steinbeck - Travels with Charley

BOOKPACKING AMERICA is a 15-week ‘on campus’ class exploring the varied regional cultures of America through the portal of classic and contemporary fiction.

The course encourages empathy. Fiction offers us landscapes peopled with characters who think differently to us; reading novels region by region, we come to understand the different mindsets that make up the American whole. In a time of profound division, this emphasis on empathy has never been more relevant or important.

Unlike the other Bookpacking classes at USC, there is no immersive travel component to this class. It’s a seminar class, with the class meeting twice a week for 1.5 hours per session - a total of 45 hours over the course of the Fall Semester. But a core component of the class is the Special Project, an exercise in ‘Bookpacking’ whereby each student explores an American novel of their choice, visiting the location and reporting back on place and people, past and present.

the bookpackers virtual road trip

Numbered Lozenges US

Los Angeles

The course begins in USC’s home city. We look at Southern California’s founding myths, and ask why this Golden Land boasts such a dark literary heritage.

New England

Yankee New England is ‘white and uptight’ - or so says Maine novelist Elizabeth Strout. Is she right? We dig into some classic and contemporary New England novels to find out.

The Appalachia

Appalachian culture has been under the spotlight in the Trump years. We’ll beat a trail through backwoods fiction in search of empathy and understanding.

The South

The South wrestles with the weight of its history. Truman Capote’s brilliant first novel captures the contradictions of this fascinating and troubling region.

African America

'Song of Solomon' traces the African American trajectory backwards, from 20th c. Michigan to 19th c. Virginia. It's a novel with profound relevance in this racially divided nation.

The Midwest

Willa Cather’s nostalgic vision of life on the Plains traces the multiethnic roots of heartland America, a place that celebrates comity through a shared experience of resilience and survival.

Native America

Leslie Marmon Silko chronicles Native American life in the desert Southwest. Her punchy and poetic work looks back to a traumatic past, and forward to the future.

Mexican America

Mexican America fuses European and Native traditions, and pre-dates all other immigrant pathways. Cisneros’ stories celebrate the traditional and folkloric, whilst acknowledging an ongoing struggle for a slice of the American Dream.

The Great West

Annie Proulx’s stories explore contemporary lives in the Great West, a mythic land where the tough conditions pit rugged individuals against the power of capital and corporations.

New York City

New York fiction is a world to itself, and could form the basis for a whole new Bookpackers’ course. We focus on New York as a place of ambition, and as the epicenter of the American ‘melting pot’.