MMC Selects Marjane Satrapi’s The Complete Persepolis for Learning Communities’ Common Reading Program

During student orientation, faculty panels featuring Professor of Political Science Kent Worcester, Ph.D.; Assistant Professor of Religious StudiesElizabeth Barre, Ph.D.; Professor of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and Chair of the Division of the Sciences Ann Jablon, Ph.D.; and Assistant Professor of English and World Literatures Cecilia Feilla, Ph.D., will discuss The Complete Persepolis, in the Theresa Lang Theatre on Friday, September 3 at 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. 

Learning Communities enrich the Marymount Manhattan experience for both freshmen and professors by connecting in three classes first-year students with common interests. In each of the 32 Learning Communities, students will share their experience with a group of 16 students, three instructors and an upper-class Peer Leader. An initiative of the Learning Communities, the Common Reading Program will provide freshmen with a shared experience as they adjust socially and academically to a new environment and will help students see how various disciplines take different perspectives on a common topic. 

Last year’s common reading was another award-winning book, Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. “I think students learned a great deal about food and the food industry in the United States,” Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty David Podell said about the book. “It’s a powerful book and it raised their level of awareness concerning a topic that is so central to our lives. Most importantly, it was a shared experience for the class of 2013.” 

Satrapi’s graphic memoir was chosen for the class of 2014 because it presents a coming-of-age story that will challenge and engage students from diverse backgrounds and majors, and will expose freshmen to other cultures and issues that they might not normally face. The narrative of Satrapi’s unforgettable childhood and adolescence raises complex questions that will challenge the reader to think about universal struggles involved in growing up, the art of storytelling and the role of religious, social and political systems in the formation of modern identities. 

“At Commencement, the class of 2013 will remember the discovery in reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma that we know so little about what we eat,” Podell said, “while one year later, at the Commencement of the class of 2014, the graduates will remember the discoveries they made about the samenesses and differences across cultures by reading and discussing The Complete Persepolis.” 

Marymount Manhattan College is an urban, independent, liberal arts college. The mission of the College is to educate a socially and economically diverse student body by fostering intellectual achievement and personal growth and by providing opportunities for career development. For more information, visit www.mmm.edu.

Published: July 07, 2010