How Great Is Gatsby?

Because it is so familiar, The Great Gatsby is little known. There would be no Great Gatsby without F. Scott Fitzgerald’s trip to France. Revisit the masterpiece with Dr. Charles Riley, PhD, the director of the Nassau Museum and the author of Free as Gods, and consider the influence of the vortex of young geniuses gathered in Paris in the Twenties.

What began as another short story about flappers became, in that context, a philosophical elegy for an era only half over, the Jazz Age, for which Scott and Zelda were the living emblems. By virtue of an existential “double consciousness,” Fitzgerald manages to write his own demise. And then he lived it.


Teacher: Charles Riley

Charles Riley II, PhD, is an arts journalist, curator and professor at Clarkson University. He is the author of thirty-two books on art, architecture and public policy. Upcoming books include Free as Gods (University Press of New England) and Rodin and his Circle (Chimei Museum, Taiwan).











When: Fri., Jun. 8, 2018 at 7:00 pm
Where: The Strand
828 Broadway
212-473-1452
Price: $20, includes complimentary beer
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Because it is so familiar, The Great Gatsby is little known. There would be no Great Gatsby without F. Scott Fitzgerald’s trip to France. Revisit the masterpiece with Dr. Charles Riley, PhD, the director of the Nassau Museum and the author of Free as Gods, and consider the influence of the vortex of young geniuses gathered in Paris in the Twenties.

What began as another short story about flappers became, in that context, a philosophical elegy for an era only half over, the Jazz Age, for which Scott and Zelda were the living emblems. By virtue of an existential “double consciousness,” Fitzgerald manages to write his own demise. And then he lived it.


Teacher: Charles Riley

Charles Riley II, PhD, is an arts journalist, curator and professor at Clarkson University. He is the author of thirty-two books on art, architecture and public policy. Upcoming books include Free as Gods (University Press of New England) and Rodin and his Circle (Chimei Museum, Taiwan).

Buy tickets/get more info now