Reading the Modern World through George Orwell's 1984

Workshop for Young Readers & Writers

We welcome anyone who is curious and eager to learn. Participants need to have their copy of the book “1984” as a reference, and the ability/interest to read the book. This class is envisioned as an attempt to lay the foundation for media literacy and liberal-arts thinking.

Register here and we will reach out to you for payment instructions.

Overview

1984 by George Orwell is one of the most commonly prescribed and widely read books in American schools and colleges, and forms an important part of the modern student’s cultural and political literacy. Since its publication in 1949, generations of readers have been inspired by Orwell’s vision to create their own literature, art, and works to reflect on ideas like freedom and truth in the modern world. 

For example, when Apple computers launched its challenge to IBM in the year 1984, it did so with an advertisement that referred to the images and themes from Orwell’s novel. In more recent times, with the rise of concerns about social media manipulation, “fake news,” and AI, people are once again turning to 1984 as a cultural landmark that warns us about how easily we can be lied to, manipulated, and hurt by tyrants. Many words and phrases we use today, such as “Big Brother is Watching You!” (when, for example, we speak about a product and a few minutes later our phone starts to show us ads for it) come from this novel. Orwell was prescient in many ways in describing how a society in which power crushes the individual’s right to his own truth would operate, and later movies like The Matrix, Ready Player One, Get Out, and others barely touch the surface of his dark and ominous vision.

In this course, we will read 1984 carefully at multiple levels. First, as a literary work, we will unpack how a novel works in general, and this novel works in particular with attention to formal elements like language, character, setting and so on (this part will be of particular use for students who enjoy writing and wish to become authors). Second, as a political commentary, with some attention to Orwell’s own ideals as an anti-colonialist writer who believed in socialism but also saw the dangers in its excesses. Third, as a guide to the modern world in which technology has become incredibly sophisticated and dangerous- and is used to enforce conformity and compliance in thought, word and deed by powerful leaders and institutions. We will also try to include and inculcate Indian theories of communication and esthetics in our analysis, so that we can better appreciate the nature of art in today’s interconnected world in which Indian and Western elements are so deeply mixed up.

Our class will involve discussing the novel as well as current events and other media as we go along. It will be like an American liberal arts class (not lecture heavy, but more interactive, and ask you lots of questions about your opinions). In addition to reading 1984, we will also watch some short videos in class. There may be some longer screenings too which I will recommend that may be of interest (such as episodes from the Netflix show Black Mirror).

About Prof. Vamsee Juluri

Vamsee Krishna Juluri is Professor of Media Studies at the University of San Francisco and an author, novelist and columnist. He received his PhD in Communication from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1999.

His books include Bollywood Nation: India through its Cinema (Penguin India), Rearming Hinduism (soon to be republished by BluOne Ink), The Mythologist: A Novel (Penguin India) and The Kishkindha Chronicles, a fictional series inspired by Hanuman. He is currently working on books on the history of propaganda, civilizational conflict and generational change, and other topics.

His articles have been published in numerous scholarly and popular publications including The American Mind, The Huffington Post, The San Jose Mercury News, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Foreign Affairs, and he currently writes regularly in The Indian Express, The Print, and American Kahani.

Professor Juluri also has a long history of activism and service in the area of Hindu children’s education. He was one of the lead petitioners in the California history textbooks movement of 2016, and was described in newspapers as the “Man who Saved ‘India’” for successfully opposing the removal of India’s name from the California history curriculum. He is an active proponent of media decolonization and writes frequently about the need for Hindus to learn to tell their own stories in a way that engages and persuades the global audience and not just remain “frogs in the well.” In 2016, he served as a member of an expert panel appointed by Prasar Bharati to guide it in the matter of starting a global digital news channel for India.

In his course for Hindu Parenting on 1984, Professor Juluri will share his knowledge and experiences not only as a media researcher but also a novelist and creative writer so that children can engage with one of the classics of modern Western literature in a way that helps them understand the global society they are growing up in a little better, and also understand the process of creativity and writing in a professional, contemporary manner. His goal, along with Hindu Parenting, is to help create the next generation of global-Indian story-tellers who will win the world without losing the treasure that exists within them in the form of their Bharatiya cultural soul. He brings to this task a sense of mission not only from his work as a media scholar, but also from the life and legacy of his parents. Professor Juluri’s father was Professor J.V. Ramana Rao, who taught Zoology at Sri Venkateswara University Tirupati and Osmania University Hyderabad, and was a pioneering figure in modern Indian wildlife conservation. Professor Juluri’s mother was the legendary multilingual movie-star and former Member of Parliament, Smt. Jamuna, who acted in over 200 movies in Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Hindi, and is remembered not only for her great pauranika roles, but also for her service in the revival of traditional folk and "subaltern" theater forms in Andhra Pradesh.