Freshmen to read Arcadia

The play Arcadia by Tom Stoppard has been selected for this year's Penn Reading Project. According to Academic Programs in Residence Director Christopher Dennis, the text was chosen because of the wide range of topics it addresses. Dennis described Arcadia as "a play about the intersection of two groups of people separated in time by almost two centuries, but connected by blood, culture, science, mathematics, literature and even landscape into a common human situation." "It is a very fresh, very compelling text and one that I think our new students will find lively and interesting," he said. He added that the play is similar to some of the works chosen for the project in previous years. "Like Einstein's Dreams, it combines sort of a good vibrant narrative with some interesting approaches of science and issues of the time," he said. The book was chosen from a pool of approximately 200 works. William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Albert Camus' The Stranger and Charles Dickens' Hard Times were among the works that made the final cut. The Residential Faculty Council formed the core of the project's planning group, according to Dennis. There were also two student representatives from the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education involved in the decision. "The group met and narrowed selections," Dennis said. "And finally we got a book that we thought offered a lot of different attractions ? to people of many different disciplines." Arcadia was published two years ago, and was first produced in London. Dennis said the play "is widely identified as the most important work of one of the world's most distinguished living dramatic artists." The Penn Reading Project was introduced four years ago as an intellectual gateway for incoming students to the University. It is intended to introduce students to faculty members and each other. Previous years have featured such texts as Bacchae and Frankenstein. A copy of Arcadia has been sent to every incoming freshman. These students will be involved in discussion sessions with faculty members on September 3.

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