Course details
Name: ENGL - 494
Title: SEMINAR IN JANE AUSTEN
Section: 01
Semester: Fall - 2013
Credits: 3
Description:
Known as a classic author, canonical novelist, and the grandmother of “chicklit,” Jane Austen is arguably the most famous English author after Shakespeare. Her novels are at once about nothing and everything, the minutiae of lives lived by the landed but untitled and the implications of national movements. The author and her narratives inspire an array of responses from boredom to admiration, and she has been assigned labels that, at first, seem mutually exclusive: traditional/radical, subversive/conservative and feminist/patriarchal. In this seminar, we will explore how Austen’s work invites all of these labels by the way it depicts courtship rituals, familial relationships, class structures, and other recurring themes. We will consider how gender “works” in the novel and pay careful attention to the political undercurrents that resonate in these stories. This course will focus on her writing, the culture and writing of her times, and our adaptations of Austen’s work in novels and in films. We will also read other narratives produced during her life time (in some case excerpts from longer works), examine film adaptations of her work and read modern texts clearly indebted to her themes and narrative techniques. Students will write a mid-term essay and a final essay for the course along with a shorter bibliographic assignment.
Last updated on 2013-04-16 By
Isaacs Emily (isaacse)
Schedule: Tuesday,Thursday From 11:30 am To 12:45 pm
Graduation requirements:
- Genre Study (Fiction)
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- Pre-1900 (1c)
- Women and Gender Studies (3c)
Teaching Faculty: Matthew Patricia (matthewp)
Is course canceled: No