I'm leading a college class discussion on Nabokov's L-olita and would like help with ideas?

Song:

"Don't stand so close to me" by The Police

listen carefully.........

also the first short story in Umberto Eco's "Misreadings" will be of great interest....

Compare L-olita with some of Nabokov's earlier work. Maybe read an excerpt from Pnin - a VERY different story written at the same time as L-olita. Draw attention to the use of symmetry in both works and the humanization of the alien (i.e. both Pnin and Humbert are emigres whose integrations are stifled by a linguistic and emotional malformation).

The original title (Kingdom by the Sea) may be in reference to Edgar Allen Poe's Annabel Lee. Explore any connections between Poe's poem and other works and the story (notably that the presumably adult narrator of the poem is still obsessed with a dead sweetheart from childhood and how that obsession drives him - also the character Annabel Leigh).

You could also discuss whether Nabokov had inspiration, there's a German short story also called "L-olita" that focuses on a similar relationship. This may be risky, especially if people become obsessed with plaigirism rather than inspiration (perhaps pointing out that Shakespeare drew from histories and other plays such as Plautus' Menaechmus and so on would be useful).

I just happen to be reading the book now and I know there's a piece of it in a collection called "Drinking, Smoking and Screwing: Great Writers on Good Times, "* which, as the name suggests, has all kinds of prurient selections from famous authors.

Also, the Annotated Lolita might help a lot. Actually, buy it regardless because you're gonna want to read it again just to soak in the masterful writing, and there's no way you can understand all the italicized french without it. You'll sound like an expert, trust me.