Welcome to the Course!

Welcome to the Fall 2012 seminar "Jane Austen in Fiction and Film."  This course is designed for either the devoted fan of Jane Austen’s books or the complete novice (in other words, the two guys in class--kidding).  We will read a few selected novels, as well as her unpublished early fiction, in order to ask a few pivotal questions about Jane Austen: who was the woman we know as Jane Austen?  Why did she only write novels?  What did she think about the major political, historical, and literary events of her life?  Why have her books become such an intractable part of the English canon?  And how do we account for the “Austen boom” in film adaptations in the mid 90’s to the present day?  To do this, we will read her books in their historical and cultural context, trying to see what readers of her own time would have noticed and appreciated.  At the same time, we will use contemporary criticism and theory to help us read her against the grain, stressing that Austen is very much a 21^st century writer, one who continues to speak to us and inform our understanding of literature and society. 

Required Texts: Please be sure to have the correct editions of these books, since each one has supplemental readings that will be assigned for the class.  

Catherine and Other Stories (Oxford UP) 

Pride and Prejudice (Norton) 

Emma (Norton) 

Persuasion (Norton)

Here's the schedule for the next two days (no reading yet, but feel free to read ahead in Catherine and Other Writings):

R 23    Context: Austen’s Life and Portraits

T 28:   Context: What Austen Read: Richardson and Wollstonecraft (handout) 

More posts and assorted links to come!