ROGER SMITH

Born into a venerable, female-dominated St. Louis family, Katherine O’Flaherty married Oscar Chopin and entered the world of French Creole society. Her Louisiana years fueled her Creole and Cajun stories, while marital disillusionment informed her nascent feminism. Kate Chopin made her living with her pen, winning readers who devoured her stories until she produced a novel they deplored. This course engages the historic Chopin and her critical reception, then and now. It explores her colorful short stories and her controversial masterpiece, The Awakening.

Roger Smith is the founding director of The Learning Center. He began his career in education as a teacher of American literature and deems The Awakening one of the five most important works in the American canon.