Reading & Composition

They say you can pick your friends, but can you pick your family? In this course, we’ll be reading about families of various kinds, from those who are stuck with each other because of biology, to those who end up together by accident or fate, and those who choose each other for their own reasons. We’ll consider what makes a family, and why the family unit—elective or not—is such a powerful setting for drama, fiction, and film. We’ll also consider how tensions and divisions arise within families, and whether a non-biological family is subject to the same forces as a biological one.