Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged: Teaching a Timely—And Timeless—Novel

By Shoshana Milgram

In this lecture, Shoshana Milgram, who teaches Ayn Rand’s fiction (including Atlas Shrugged) at Virginia Tech, will consider several issues related to the teaching of this challenging text: the genre of Atlas Shrugged (a utopian—and dystopian—novel, a mystery, and an alternative history); the esthetics of “Romantic Realism”; the style, point of view, and characterizations; and the relevance of the book to the lives of teachers and students.