Teaching Palahniuk: The Treasures of Transgression in the Age of Trump and Beyond

While much has been written about Chuck Palahniuk and his body of work, next to nothing has been written about when, where and how it is necessary to teach Palahniuk. This collection will reveal that teaching Palahniuk’s work and the discursive dynamic of the classroom interactions create new opportunities for scholarship by both the faculty member and his or her students. Despite early critical success with ‘Fight Club’, ‘Invisible Monsters’, and ‘Choke’, Palahniuk’s novels are increasingly dismissed for the very transgressive content that makes them essential pedagogical tools in the Age of Trump where “truth isn’t truth,” and tribalism is stoked with claims of “fake news”. This collection aims to broaden the scholarship by examining under-represented and unrepresented works from his oeuvre and situating them in the context of their pedagogical implications. In both form and content, the transgressive nature of Palahniuk’s work demands critical thought and reflection, capacities that are necessary for the preservation of a democratic society. Contributors take various approaches to address what students can learn about writing, literature, and society by reading and analyzing Palahniuk’s texts. The collection will discuss the value of teaching Palahniuk, innovations and various disciplinary contexts for teaching his works, and reflections on some of those pedagogical opportunities. Through its multi-faceted discussion of Palahniuk and pedagogy, this collection will legitimize efforts to bring his work onto syllabi and into the classroom, where it can enhance student engagement, create new avenues for inter-disciplinary scholarship, and re-invigorate an expansion of the canon. It will also provide diverse frameworks for incorporating and interpreting Palahniuk’s writing across disciplines. Finally, the collection will offer post-mortems from faculty members who have found the “guts” to teach Palahniuk and will offer insight into what students have gained and stand to gain from a more intensive Palahniuk pedagogy.