F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1924 novel, The Great Gatsby, remains one of the handful of enduring candidates for the designation “Great American Novel.” For all how Gatsby seems to herald a new, modern world, the novel revolves around its main character’s inability to imagine a future that is not a return to the past. In this course, Michael Van Dyke will consider how Gatsby compels us to reflect on how we, as individuals and as a nation, limit our ability to actively shape the future by clinging to romanticized versions of the past.

Michael Van Dyke received a PhD from Michigan State University and taught at several universities before joining the Hope College faculty last year as a visiting associate professor of English. His areas of scholarly interest are 20th-century American literature, film studies, and the intersection of faith and the arts.