Grow Up Already: Depictions of Teenage Life in Literature and Film (ENG 199)

Photo of Ellen Page and Michael Cera in Juno. Course Description:

The trials and tribulations of adolescence have long served as the central focus of authors and filmmakers.  Closely analyze contemporary literature and film made for adults but concerned with the teenage experience.  Read two preselected novels and watch two feature films, followed by a movie and film chosen by the class.  Examine why the teenage years serve as such a preoccupation for so many authors and auteurs.  Look at what these depictions tell us about not only our culture’s view of adolescence but of itself as a whole.

Course Details:

  • 3 Credits
  • CRN 22154
  • MW 10-11:20
  • 116 ED

Photo of First-Year Seminar instructor, Miriam Gershow. About the Instructor: Miriam Gershow

As a freshman at the University of Michigan a few decades ago, I found myself overwhelmed by the standard 300-person lecture courses and 40-person discussion sections. Luckily, I was enrolled in a program that allowed for smaller, more personal and interactive seminars held in my dormitory. I still remember how rich and rewarding those seminars were, based on the depth of our discussions and the familiarity and ease cultivated between students and faculty. I am delighted to be able to carry on that tradition through UO’s First-Year Seminar program.

I am particularly excited to venture into the topic of adolescence. Along with being a teacher, I am a fiction writer, and the subject of adolescence has long been a focus of my work. My first novel, The Local News, involves an adult narrator looking back on her sixteenth year. Adolescence is a time that is so rife with emotion, transition and uncertainty, it creates a great canvass for creative exploration. I am curious to examine with you how other authors and filmmakers venture into this territory and to also examine what we, as an adult audience, gain from these explorations of the teenage years.