Cullman Center Institute for Teachers: Gatsby’s Inglorious World of Inequality with Shamus Khan

Gatsby’s Inglorious World of Inequality with Shamus Khan

Relevant for history as well as English teachers, this seminar will focus on the social world portrayed in The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald set his novel at a time of staggering new wealth, staunchly-held prejudices, deep underlying inequalities, and a heady sense of promise. Will the bubble of the 1920s collapse? Will anything ultimately change?

Shamus Khan is the author of Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School, which explores a year in the life of one of America’s most elite boarding schools; The Practice of Research; and the forthcoming Exceptional: The Astors, Elite New York, and the Story of American Inequality. Professor Khan teaches in the sociology department at Columbia University. He was a Cullman Center Fellow in 2011-2012. 

This seminar is not open to the public. It is only for teachers who have applied and been accepted into the class.