10/21/2024
From the Big Read Lakeshore blog (https://blogs.hope.edu/thebigread):
The official kick-off to the Big Read season is just around the corner! Join us Monday, October 28 from 7:00-8:30pm! It will be held in Maas Auditorium at Hope College on 264 Columbia Ave Holland, MI. There will be two keynote speakers, Drs. Jeanne Petit and Kristin VanEyk, along with a Gatsby-themed performance by the Hope College dance group StrikeTime.
Dr. Kristin VanEyk will discuss reading The Great Gatsby as a teacher of English and dive into some of the moral implications of the text:
"I’ll be talking about Gatsby’s enormous striving, but his striving toward the wrong goals. Gatsby’s goal, to be with a married woman, is corrupt from its inception, and leads to further corruption and decay. Along the way, Gatsby is willing to sacrifice his integrity, to compromise the integrity of those around him, and to sacrifice his well-being (indeed, his very life) for material gain. The willingness to sacrifice one’s life and integrity for goals that are corrupt from their inception is an ancient problem, but it’s also a modern problem. What solutions might we pursue? Sabbath: the ultimate revolt, the radical owning of who we truly are."
