Back To School

Critic Julia Keller never liked Jonathan Swift back in college, when his “lofty sarcasm [and] misanthropic superiority” seemed at odds with her vision of what literature ought to be. The wonderful thing about graduating from college, of course, is that you’re no longer required to delve into the work of writers you hate. But Keller is diving back in, auditing a Swift course at a Chicago university in order to “engage in an intellectual arm-wrestling match with Swift, my old nemesis, and report on the results.” Vegas oddsmakers are currently laying 3-to-2 odds on Swift.