"What was the use of my having come from Oakland it was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or any–thing if I like but not there, there is no there there." — Gertrude Stein
"Being Indian has never been about returning to the land. The land is everywhere or nowhere." — Tommy Orange
Welcome to our critical casebook on Tommy Orange's novel, There There. This casebook was crafted by Millikin University students enrolled in Dr. Tony R. Magagna's English 202: Writing About Literature course during the Spring 2021 semester. Although There There has enjoyed incredible critical acclaim since its publication in 2018, at the time of our study, there had been relatively little published scholarship dedicated to the book. Thus, the students whose work is collected here have put together this casebook both to build on the academic conversation about the work, and to showcase their own original critical contributions to the field of literary scholarship. By exploring this website, we hope that you will learn more about Orange's incredible novel and the varied perspectives and themes that it confronts.
In addition to the in–depth academic analyses presented here, you will also find contextual information that we feel is useful to understanding and appreciating There There. All of the resources, information, and scholarship presented in this casebook have been generated and curated by the English 202 students themselves, a feat that was especially significant during Spring 2021, when the Covid–19 pandemic continued to present monumental challenges, including the requirement to work entirely at a distance from each other. Despite these obstacles, There There: A Critical Casebook takes its proud place among several other casebooks produced by students in Millikin University's English department.