Thursday, August 17th
Course Introduction: Jane Austen’s World
Jane Austen biography (from JASNA)
Chapter 5 from Northanger Abbey
The Jane Austen Society of North America
Film Adaptation site on IMDB and JASNA’s Jane Austen on Screen
Jane Austen merchandise: On Etsy and Cafe Press
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Tuesday, August 22nd
Begin reading Pride and Prejudice, Chapters I through IV (41-52)
Jonathan Culler, from Literary Theory: a very short introduction, “Narrative” (pdf), and class notes (pdf)
Free Indirect Discourse: “the way, in many narratives, that the reports of what a character says and thinks shift in pronouns, adverbs, tense, and grammatical mode, as we move — or sometimes hover — between the direct narrated reproductions of these events as they occur to the character and the indirect representation of such events by the narrator” (from M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms)
“Discourse that is represented, rather than directly related, to the reader . . . in which the thoughts, statements, and even dialogues engaged in by the characters are recounted to the reader” (from The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms)
Thursday, August 24th
Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Finish Volume One (52-141)
Appendix D: from the Conduct Books (367-382)
Terms to know from Culler and class discussion: epistemophilia, story vs. discourse, direct discourse, indirect discourse, free indirect discourse, focalization, narrative variables of temporality, compression and expansion of description, and limitation of knowledge
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Tuesday, August 29th
Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Volume Two (145-224)
Presentations:
Legal Conditions for Women during Jane Austen’s Time / Caroline McQueen
Class in Austen’s England / Rachel Whatley
Thursday, August 31st
Continue discussion of Pride and Prejudice
Presentations:
Women’s Education in the Age of Austen / Bella Rawcliffe
Dancing in the Age of Austen / Nathalie Pagan
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