DL: Discover Literature

“Discover Literature in Boston” is both an introduction to the literary past and present of the Boston area and a great way to learn about the city and surrounding towns that will be your backyard for the next four years. Your academic life at MIT will be more than Science and Engineering and there is more to see and do in this area than just the city of Cambridge. During these four days you’ll get to see some of the cultural and historic sites that make the Boston area a great place to live and an exciting place to visit. You’ll also have a chance to get to know some fellow freshmen before classes begin, get oriented to Cambridge and Boston and meet some of the outstanding members of the Literature faculty. You don’t have to be a literature major to enjoy this experience, just open to new adventures and insights.

DL Specifics

• Dates: Tuesday, August 25 through Friday, August 28.
  
• Place: Freshmen will be housed in their assigned dormitory.
  
• Available Spaces: 16
  
• Cost: $100. The Literature Department will be covering the remainder of the costs.
  

What will we do?

• Tuesday, August 25 - Orientation and Book Discussion: We will meet and give you a brief overview of the plans for the rest of the week, and get to know each other over dinner. In line of our theme of visiting homes of famous New England writers, Professor John Hildebidle will provide readings on dwellings and manners. He will lead a discussion about the writings and places you will see. Writings as yet undetermined, but may well include selections by Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost and others. (Reading materials will be sent to you upon registration). Professor Hildebidle specializes in American and Irish literature, with a special interest in contemporary poetry.


• Wednesday, August 26 - Cambridge: Eight years after the city of Boston was founded, the first slaves arrived. But Boston eventually became a center for abolitionist politics. This tour begins on the Black Heritage Trail, tracing the places and events that shaped a free black community in Boston during the 19th century. We will have a chance to tour America’s first black public school and its oldest existing black church, the African Meeting House. Our next stop will be Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, a vast eating and shopping mall and an important political site during the Revolution. After our chowder, pizza, etc., we’ll head up to the North End, Boston’s oldest neighborhood, and first home for many Irish, Jewish, and later Italian immigrants. Today, it is a charming Italian neighborhood, famous for its restaurants (100 places to eat!) and street festivals celebrating saints’ feasts. Winding up the tour, we’ll visit the Boston Public Library, America’s first public lending library, founded in 1848. Here at Copley Square, we will be near many other places of interest, including Old South Church, Newbury Street (more shopping!) and the South End, a cool area for theater, restaurants, art galleries and cultural diversity. Your tour conductor: Anne Fleche, Lecturer in Film and Drama, and fan of the arts, eating well, and walking in cities.


• Thursday, August 27 - Boston: Today’s tour will focus on the charming small town of Salem, MA, most famous for its trials of supposed witches in the seventeenth century, but also important to American literature as the birthplace of Nathaniel Hawthorne. These will constitute the focus of the guided aspects of the day’s tour: we will explore the house of Jonathan Corwin, one of the judges at the Salem Witch Trials, as well as Hawthorne’s birthplace and the house popularly thought to be the inspiration for his House of Seven Gables. But there will also be plenty of time for independent walks down Chestnut Street, with its beautifully preserved Federalist mansions; to the gardens of the Ropes Mansion; or down to Derby Wharf for views of the old harbor. Today’s tour will be led by Professor Arthur Bahr, whose specialty in medieval literature makes the Colonial focus of the day’s sightseeing seem almost modern. He promises not to wear armor, though.


• Friday, August 28 - Concord HOW CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS SAVED CIVILIZATION!: On this excursion, we’ll head over to Concord, Massachusetts -- a quaint little town which, while only about 40 minutes west of here, is also the place where American individualism was foregrounded and great American literature was born. We’ll visit the Old Manse and then walk over to Orchard house (homes of such literary greats as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne). We’ll take a break and have lunch at the Minute Man National Historic Park. Finally, we’ll do some “saving” ourselves and save Walden Pond -- the site of Henry David Thoreau’s writing retreat -- for last (and possibly for swimming too)! Professor Sandy Alexandre, who specializes in 19th and 20th-century American literature, will lead this trip.