School will be back in session before we know it, and this fall, I will be sitting in on a class at the University of Kansas called “The Literature of Baseball.” I won’t actually be taking the class for credit, but I contacted the instructor for the course and managed to get permission to sit in on the class. Naturally, I’ll be reading the material as well.
Suffices to say, I am ridiculously excited about this.
The class is taught by James Carothers, an English professor at KU. He has been teaching the course for decades, and apparently even taught Bill James when James was at KU. I found a great article about Dr. Carothers and the class that was published a few years ago here.
The booklist for the class is as follows:
– Baseball: A Literary Anthology, ed. Nicholas Dawidoff
– The Celebrant, by Eric Rolfe Greenberg
– Eight Men Out, by Eliot Asinof
– The Glory of Their Times, by Lawrence Ritter
– I Had A Hammer, by Hank Aaron
– The Natural, by Bernard Malamud
They have laws prohibiting too much fun, and me thinks once class starts, you will be in violation of them all. 🙂
I let my excitement show too much, didn’t I? I need to get better about keeping that contained, lest the secret police detain me and stuff me full of soma.
What a fabulous treat … going to a class where you “have” to read baseball books. And, they thought Iowa was heaven! You’ll have to share the play by play with the rest of us!
Right? I’m excited, and really looking forward to the awesome class discussions that are sure to happen. And I do intend to share! This kind of venture and the opportunity to pick this prof’s mind are experiences that are meant to be shared.
I was drooling over that and a similar course at Nicholl’s State University this fall! Keep us posted on how it goes!
I definitely will! It’s such an awesome thing to live in a world where these kinds of courses exist. It’s like a mash-up of two of my favorite things: books and baseball!
You mean, my book of short stories is not on the list? (Insert my cheesy self promoting mug shot)
I’ll take it up with the prof 😉
oh please do. why not?