Julia Chiappe

For the last four years, whenever a bCourses page is posted at the start of the semester, the first thing I do is view the syllabus. I’m drawn to classes where the book list is either familiar or totally outside of my scope, nothing in between. I’m appreciative of a well-constructed book list, one that inspires greater contemplation and weaves a semester-long tapestry. Some book lists have a thematic or era-driven goal in mind, and understanding a professor’s intentions for curating it in this way has contributed significantly to my literary education. Sometimes, the more time I spend with a book, the more I love it. Maybe it’s forced proximity, but poring over pages to study or derive an essay topic often produces some beautiful, slow-burn appreciation. I’ve gained insight from each and every book I’ve ever read (positive and negative!), but some of them have been more upfront in their meaningful impact. Here are a few of my favorite syllabus-prompted reads. 

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Assigned in: English R1A/Madwomen

This was essentially the very first piece of literature I read at Cal. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening had the power to either move me or scare me away—it accomplished the former. I was a reserved freshman, learning my reading and note-taking style as I prepared for my first small-group discussion course: “Madwomen.” Edna Pontellier, the story’s protagonist, is complexly controversial. She’s contemplative and connected to the water, seeking companionship and an escape from her non-autonomous reality. Edna Pontellier’s nontraditional mindset, unsettledness, and sexual liberation that “disturbed” critics upon its publication in 1899 are now the basis of literary feminism consideration. 

After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives by Edward W. Said, Photographs by Jean Mohr

Assigned in: Contemporary Hybrid Forms/Introduction to Comparative Literature

In After the Last Sky, you can spend thirty minutes analyzing one word and an hour dissecting one photo. While most English or literature courses prioritize text analysis, sometimes a mixed-media piece makes its way to the syllabus, prompting a new, thought provoking form of artistic exploration. Edward Said has curated and narratively enveloped the photos of Jean Mohr in such a way that requires reflection. This book felt like an embodiment of my comparative literature “Contemporary Hybrid Forms” course, in which we looked at a wide variety of genres while considering the throughlines of archival work and mixed media. Both the written and visual aspects of this book emphasize balance and perspective in such a pertinent and important way. Our exploration of After the Last Sky provided an opportunity to analyze two mediums in conversation with each other and taught me about form and purpose in the process. Other books by Edward Said have been referenced in subsequent courses I’ve taken, so I’m grateful to have had this small-group, discussion-based introduction to his work. 

Inferno by Dante

Assigned in: Italian Studies 130A/Dante’s Inferno: Love and Justice

Dante’s Inferno is arguably one of the most famous works of all time. It has been recommended to me since childhood (seriously, even my eye doctor told me to read it when I was 11), but I never pursued reading it by myself. Literary classics are often daunting, but they stand the test of time for a reason. I’m glad I never embarked upon the journey solo because my esteemed Virgilian guide was waiting for me in Italian Studies 130A. Over the course of a semester, we unpacked each canto of Dante’s Inferno, zeroing in on themes like desire, politics, and mythology. Dante’s narrative poetry style, and more generally, epic poetry, are not necessarily accessible from a contemporary perspective, so this guided introduction was a great way to break it into more approachable pieces. As a result, I am able to appreciate Dante’s reverberations across literature and media. His impact is undeniably everywhere, from notable quotations to the structure of his imagined inferno-scape. I’m finishing up the third and final poem, Paradise, from The Divine Comedy in Italian Studies 130B this semester, and Inferno remains my favorite. 

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates

Assigned in: English 90/Growing Up Wrong

This 1966 short story is every bit as chilling and resonant today as it was at the time of publication. From the professor of my “Growing Up Wrong” seminar course, I learned the beauty of positioning your prose in tandem with an author’s style. In my first essay for the class, a short contemplation of a sunlit moment in the Joyce Carol Oates story, I got to exercise this skill for the first time. It’s something I’ve never forgotten and have had the opportunity to implement several times since in my own writing. I remember being interested in this syllabus pick from the title alone: a pair of questions that capture a parent’s ascending fear when it is already too late for inquiry. I later learned that this story was inspired by Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” thus prompting Oates to dedicate the story to the singer-songwriter himself. In a Wall Street Journal article from 2015, Oates noted the song’s “surreal quality” and theme of impending mortality, two aspects explored in the short story. The story was also loosely adapted into a 1985 film, titled Smooth Talk, which follows the same plot of 15-year-old Connie being coerced by the ironically-named predator Arnold Friend. 

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Woolf’s use of free indirect discourse and stream of consciousness style are revolutionary, and allow for the story to be confined to one singular day.

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The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

Assigned in: English 190/Liminal Lives in Chicanx/Latinx Literature

I spent a lot of time with this book while writing my English 190 research paper. I never expected for my initial analytical assignment to grow as much as it did, but it was rewarding to develop such a profound familiarity with a book. I’m a Joan Didion fan and a general admirer of essay collection-style memoirs, so I was immediately intrigued by Cornejo Villavicencio’s use of a Didion quote to initiate her book. Each chapter of The Undocumented Americans is appropriately named after cities across the United States and illuminates the people that inhabit them. Given the current state of immigration-related matters in the United States, this book is even more relevant and important than it was during the first Trump administration responsible for its inception.  

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Assigned in: English R1B/Reading the Self in and out of Time and English 45C: Mid-19th through the Mid-20th Century

Mrs. Dalloway is an inescapable hallmark of UC Berkeley. Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts bookstore is a 22-year-old feature of College Ave, with the store’s concept derived from the novel’s famous opening line: “Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” Every hour on the dot, we’re reminded of the passage of time by our very own bell tower, just two meters short of Mrs. Dalloway’s Big Ben, the central ticking landmark of her day. Woolf’s use of free indirect discourse and stream of consciousness style are revolutionary, and allow for the story to be confined to one singular day. I’ve written three academic essays on this novel while at Cal, each covering distinctly different stylistic and plot features. The city of London is a character in and of itself, and Woolf embodies the concept of sonder as she aims to capture the diverse cast of characters that walk through it. While the novel’s representation of time emphasizes its restrictive and inevitable nature, it also manages to create space for expansive and unrestricted thought in its encouragement of each character’s unique perspective. Mrs. Dalloway, in particular, is a fitting literary memory as I prepare to graduate. The leaden circles of Sather Tower may dissolve in the air, marking the passing moment, but I’ll never forget the books that occupied so much of my mind, my time, and my notebooks.

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