The UCLA Departments of Comparative Literature and English invite you to attend a public lecture by Visiting Professor and 2016 Van Dyck Chair Luc Herman (University of Antwerp).

The typescript of V. at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin is an early version of Thomas Pynchon’s first novel, which would be published in 1963. When rewriting his novel in the Spring of 1962, Pynchon decided to cut an entire family sitcom episode, in which men of two generations try to activate their self-proclaimed freedom to go where they want. An early illustration of Pynchon’s often assailed gender politics, the sitcom also reinforces the controversial notion of female agency central to V.