Guest speakers are one of the highlights of taking Honors College classes. The Honors College aims to connect students with experts in various fields and often invites them to speak to classes about their work and areas of expertise. They often come with unique experiences that enhance the student’s experience in the class and supplement the knowledge Honors professors share with students. In, there are a multitude of opportunities for students to hear from speakers engaged in multiple fields and connect with them for future professional development.
Young Adult Literature is just one of seven different sections offered under the Honors 122: Reading the Arts course during the Spring 2023 semester. This course is designed to challenge students to look at different art forms, including literature, to examine them within a modern context. Professor Hock, the instructor for Young Adult Literature, says that students “consider all texts on an issue level, looking at issues of race, class, gender identity, and then we look at them at a literary level and how they have merit when matched against what’s widely considered the ‘literary canon,’ ” or a set of work that is considered to be definitive of a time period or style.
Recently, Professor Hock’s section, had the opportunity to hear from Andrew White, Mason alum and author of Hell Followed with Us, which is in its fourth week on the New York Times Best Sellers List for Young Adult Hardcover books. The book was described by The New York Times as, “A long, sustained scream to the various strains of anti-transgender legislation multiplying around the world like, well, a virus.” His work, which includes some of his own lived experiences a young trans boy, fill gaps in young adult literature where representation has historically been overlooked.
Students also had the opportunity to ask questions about his published and forthcoming work. He shared advice and experience with working through writer’s block and how to balance a message within a good story. White discussed with the class his 2021 short story “The Constellations are Unrecognizable Here,” the basics of writing young adult literature, trans rights and inclusion, and the contested issue of book censorship. For Professor Hock, “the students really seemed to like his talk, and helped put some of the context of the meaning and issues of young adult literature that we had been talking about into perspective.”
Although this section of Honors 122 is not being offered for the Fall 2023 Semester, check back later to see if you can take this course!