I’m always dreaming of courses I’d like to teach but will never get the chance to. Today, as I finished “The Known World,” I thought of a new class: an introduction to historiography taught mostly through literature:

Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose (to discuss the use of sources)

Edward Jones, the Known World (to discuss agency vs. structure)

Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (to discuss family/diaspora)

Madison Smart Bell, All Souls Rising (to discuss what’s known and what’s ignored)

Short story: Randall Kenan, Let the Dead Bury The Dead