Culture and identity : the academic setting in Philip Roth's The Human Stain and Francine Prose's Blue angel
The academic novel is a genre that continues to expand in both scholarship and 
critical review. The Human Stain by Philip Roth and Blue Angel by Francine Prose are 
examples of the evolution of this genre. Both novels are set on Northern New England 
college campuses and look at the absurdities and hypocrisies present in contemporary 
American society. 
In the introduction to this study, I look at the history and background of the 
academic novel and investigate some of the literary characteristics associated with the 
genre. I go on to give brief background information on novelists Philip Roth and 
Francine Prose and conclude with a synopsis of The Human Stain and Blue Angel. 
The first chapter explores some of the comments and observations about modern 
American culture articulated by each of these novels. I give particular attention to the 
issues of sex and sexuality, collegiality, family, racism, feminism, and political 
correctness. I view each issue in terms of how it affects various characters and discuss 
the role of the academic setting. 
In the second chapter I examine identity and the role of the college campus in 
identity construction. I specifically focus on Roth’s characters Coleman Silk, a professor 
of Classics and his lover Faunia Farley, a college janitor and on Prose’s character Ted 
Swenson, a professor of fiction writing. In each chapter I draw conclusions as well as 
form personal opinions resulting from research I have done for this study. I conclude with my thoughts on where the genre of the academic novel is headed 
and whether I believe that these two academic novels by Roth and Prose are effective 
vehicles to provide commentary on contemporary American society.
Tragedy and Farce in Roth's: The Human Stain
Abstract Philip Roth has called his recent three novels “a thematic trilogy.” They all deal, he explains, with the “historical moments in postwar American life that have had the greatest impact on my generation”: the McCarthy era, the Vietnam War, and 1998, the year of Bill Clinton's impeachment (McGrath, “Interview” 8).1 In American Pastoral (1997), a handsome, honest, hardworking businessman and Jewish athletic hero, Seymour (“Swede”) Levov, is ruined by the actions of daughter Merry, an anti-Vietnam War activist, who “brings the war home” to folks in New Jersey by setting off a bomb in the local post office.
THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE AND COLONIALISM: REASONS FOR AFRICA’S UNDERDEVELOPMENT?
It is probably an understatement to assert that Africa, the world’s second largest continent, is underdeveloped compared with other continents. Two major exogenous factors often cited for Africa’s development crisis are the so called ‘dual historical injustices’ – the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism. It is often pointed out that while the former almost completely arrested and retarded Africa’s demographical growth for more than three centuries, evoked a perennial state of acrimony and warfare and created a tense and unprecedented atmosphere of insecurity which hindered economic activities and stifled local entrepreneurship and technological drive and dislocated Africa’s socio-economic and political structures and institutions; the latter tied African countries to the apron strings of western imperial powers thereby rendering the pre-conditions necessary for socio-economic and political transformation unachievable. This paper contends that while the history of Africa’s underdevelopment may be traceable to the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism, African leaders had made enormous contributions to the continent’s underdevelopment and backwardness. The paper concludes that irresponsible and irresponsive leadership, vampirism and prodigality, corruption, lack of respect for democratic ideals, insecurity, endemic civil wars, nepotism, etc are the fundamental causes of Africa’s underdevelopment.