How does a 100-year-old novel feel fresher than ever? F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was first published in April of 1925. Though it initially sold poorly in comparison to Fitzgerald’s previous novels, it has since come to be considered his masterpiece. Not only is the novel frequently cited as a cornerstone of American literature, but it also continues to appear on best-seller lists in the 21st century. It is also regularly adapted for stage and screen and has been one of the most assigned novels in American high schools for decades. How did a Jazz Age novel become such a lasting work of literature? What is it about Fitzgerald’s tragic story of lost love and the dark side of the American Dream that has kept the novel so relevant to generations of readers?

In the six lectures of The Great Gatsby at 100, you will join Sheila Liming of Champlain College to revisit the context and culture of the Roaring ‘20s, which inspired the story of the mysterious Jay Gatsby and his disastrous pursuit of Daisy Buchanan. As you’ll discover, while Gatsby is framed as a love story, it’s also a story of the American experience, revealing the unspoken rules of wealth and class and the false promises of self-made success in a world of Old Money privilege.

As you explore Gatsby’s complex view of money and class, you’ll also dive into the way the novel interrogates gender and sexuality and the popular culture of its day—a time that, much like our own, was rapidly changing thanks to technological innovation and social movements. While the trappings of jazz music, bobbed hair, and bootleg gin may set The Great Gatsby firmly in the past, you’ll find that many of its themes and ideas remain as relevant today as they were a century ago.