All Program Dates
November 4, 2025 | 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm ET
November 18, 2025 | 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm ET
December 2, 2025 | 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm ET
December 16, 2025 | 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm ET
Registration
Tuition for this course is $200. Members receive exclusive discounts on our programs and courses. Not a member? Learn more.
Please check your spam folder for your email confirmation. If you have questions, please call (215) 732-1600 or email rsvp@rosenbach.org.
This program is for those 18 and older.
Registration opens for Delancey Society members on Friday, August 22, for Rosenbach members on Friday, August 29, and for the general public on Friday, September 5. Registration opens at 12:00 p.m. ET.
Description (for non-Bokononists)
Best known for his wildly imaginative fiction, accessible style, and unflinching critiques of American culture, Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most beloved and prescient writers of the late-20th century. Focusing on Cat’s Cradle (1963) and his anti-war masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), this four-session course will explore Kurt Vonnegut’s signature literary techniques (dark humor, satire, and innovative, often time-bending narrative structures) along with his examinations of 1960s America. Drawing on her intensive study of his manuscripts at the Lilly Library, Christina will share some of the compositional stories behind the novels and delve into Vonnegut’s World War II experiences and anthropological and scientific background to place the works within his broader career. Participants will have a chance to investigate Vonnegut’s incisive responses to post-World War II technologies, Cold War patriotism, life in an atomic age, the Vietnam War, and other key historical events. More than merely appreciating Vonnegut’s prophetic vision, we will consider how his writings still offer useful wisdom and humor for our own chaotic, increasingly networked, planetary moment.
Description II (for karass members)
“If the accident will,” we will meet in Gerhard Müller’s taxicab and heed some peculiar travel suggestions. Anticipated stops include Ilium, San Lorenzo, Dresden, Tralfamadore, and Kurt Vonnegut’s 1960s America. You better hold onto your hats, though, because we will come unstuck in time and experience chronosynclastic infundibulation. If the moments come together, we will survey key texts and events from Vonnegut’s middle career to discover a portrait of a writer, satirist, public spokesman, pacifist, planetary citizen, and humanist “that is beautiful and surprising and deep.”
Instructor
Christina Jarvis is Professor of English at SUNY Fredonia, where she teaches courses on 20th-century American literature and culture, including several different major author seminars on Kurt Vonnegut. She is the author of the books Lucky Mud & Other Foma: A Field Guide to Kurt Vonnegut's Environmentalism and Planetary Citizenship (2022) and The Male Body at War: American Masculinity during World War II (2004, 2010), and has published numerous articles and book chapters on Vonnegut’s fiction. An award-winning teacher and self-proclaimed “Vonnegut missionary,” Christina has also brought the Hoosier icon’s work to new audiences through the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library’s teacher workshops, lectures, and book discussions at the University of Indiana’s Granfalloon, and through frequent podcast and radio appearances.