Ten Brontë courses for 2006

Several weeks ago we presented an on-going course on the Brontës. A couple of days ago Brontëana also introduced us to a seminar for the next semester. Well, here at the BrontëBlog we'd like to contribute to the Brontë scholarship cause introducing you to this list of courses (mainly scheduled for Spring 2006) and seminars about or in which the Brontës play an important role. The list is by no means complete and, of course, it's open to the contributions of the readers.

1-Major British Authors: The Brontes and Their Legacy

Naomi Jacobs.

University of Maine.

The works and lives of the Bronte sisters have continued to fascinate new readers and to provoke new works of art -- as well as endless objects of kitsch -- in the more than 150 years since they died. We will explore this unusual dialogue between authors and their fans by pairing Bronte works with novels, films, poetry and music written in response. Course assignments will include the opportunity for students to write their own Bronte spin-offs, prequels, or sequels. Texts: Lucasta Miller, The Bronte Myth, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre and selected juvenalia, Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (which tells the story of Rochester's mad wife), Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights and selected poetry, Jane Urquhart, Changing Heaven (in which one character is the wandering spirit of Emily Bronte, offering sardonic commentary on life, love and books), Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Possibly another spin-off novel such as Lin Haire-Sargeant's H: The Story of Heathcliff's Journey Back to Wuthering Heights, Films: most likely Wuthering Heights by Hollywood and by Luis Bunuel (Abismos de Pasion) ; perhaps, if available, the 1979 "Les Soeurs Brontes" or Truffaut's "Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent"Music: Kate Bush, "Wuthering Heights"; selections from the Broadway musical of Jane Eyre, Poetry: Sylvia Plath, "Wuthering Heights," other works in homage to the Brontes or in dialogue with Bronte poetryMonty Python, the semaphore version of Wuthering Heights, the Jacobs collection of Bronte ephemera (posters, postcards, cartoons, book bags etc.) Papers, creative projects, class participation.

2-Those OTHER Victorian Poets and Artists

Tutor: Robert Woodings MA

Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford

If you compare poetry anthologies of Victorian writers published up to, say, 1920, you discover substantial agreement as to who are the significant figures. And the same is true for Victorian artists. But in the last thirty or so years the picture that emerges is very different, as Emily Brontë, William Barnes and Alfred Hunt, for example, are newly recognised and appreciated. Is this just a matter of a change of taste? Or is there a realisation that the Victorian scene was much more varied? And might it be that their Victorian contemporaries were censoring who was acceptable? This is the core of this investigation which has to introduce much that is new, and much that will challenge our contemporary assumptions and even what we assume that we like and dislike. Four poets and artists will be studied, including Emily Brontë and William Barnes and Alfred Hunt and Aubrey Beardsley.

Their work will be assessed alongside that of their Victorian contemporaries and through comparison with more recent critical assumptions.

3-Writers: The Brontes.

The Department of English

Dedman College- Southern Methodist University, Dallas

A study focusing on the best-known writings of the Bronte sisters and some of the less well-known work, with attention to continued popular and scholarly interest in their lives, the resulting growth and perpetuation of the Bronte "legend," the cultural contexts in which their work intervened, and the importance of their work for feminist and other modes of contemporary literary and cultural criticism. We may also consider some of the twentieth-century films inspired by their novels. Writing assignments: one short essay, one longer essay, one class presentation followed by short paper posted to Blackboard, final examination.

Texts: C. Bronte, Jane Eyre; Shirley, Villette; E. Bronte, Wuthering Heights, selected poems; A. Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; selected critical essays.

4- Brontë Disseminations.

INSTRUCTOR: M. Stone

Dalhousie University, Halifax

This class focuses on a close study of works by the Brontës, with particular attention to the ways in which their texts have been disseminated in both high and low culture.

5- The Brontës: Self and Society

The University of Texas-Austin.

This course will critically examine the literary outpourings of the Bronte sisters, comparing and contrasting their works from a variety of different viewpoints. We will begin by studying the two most popular novels, Emily's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte's Jane Eyre (we will see film versions of these two classics as well). Then we will move on to Anne's Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which should illustrate some of the strengths and weaknesses of the story-telling impulse. Finally, we will read Villette, adjudged by many modern critics as Charlotte's masterpiece, and Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. At each point, we will try on different readings of the novels, primarliy psychological (sometimes auto-biographical and hence likely to be family systems oriented), Marxist, and feminist.

The course will conclude with a series of oral reports based on independent reading: each student will select for study a complete work or collection by or about the Brontes and relate it to the overall concerns of the course. Representative "works" include: poetry by Emily, Charlotte, and/or Anne; reprinted juvenilia (many of the originals are here at UT's Humanities Research Center); Anne's Agnes Grey; Charlotte's Professor or the unfinished Emma (both published posthumously) or her "historical" novel, Shirley; the poetry and/or sermons of their father, the Reverend Patrick Bronte; possible sources in the Romantic poets and journals such as Blackwood's and Fraser's; the controversy surrounding Elizabeth Gaskell's "life" of Charlotte; various other biographical accountings of the sisters and their unpublished (in his lifetime) brother, Branwell; critical/theoretical studies, such as Helene Moglen's Charlotte Bronte: The Self Conceived, Terry Eagleton's Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontes, Robert Keefe's Charlotte Bronte's World of Death, Cynthia A. Linder's Romantic Imagery in the Novels of Charlotte Bronte, and Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's Madwoman in the Attic.

Our extended reading list may well include another title such as May Sinclair's The Three Sisters, Rachel Ferguson's The Brontes Went to Woolworths, Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca, and Robert Barnard's The Case of the Missing Brontë.

6- Writing Women In(To) Literature and History In Victoria’s England: Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot and Their Contemporaries

Rutgers University, New Jersey. English Department.

In this course, we will examine various documents--women's conduct books, cookbooks, pamphlets on women's rights, narrative and avant-garde paintings--as a context for the representation of women in novels written by the two major women writers of the period, Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot. We will examine Bronte's relation to Jane Austen; Brontë's use of the "condition of England" novel; and Bronte's self-conscious writing of fiction about a "new" woman (long before the term was used). We will look at George Eliot's loathing of "silly novels" by women writers; at the sensation novel which critics thought Brontë had provoked and which George Eliot worked to escape; and at George Eliot's attempt to revise contemporary fiction into epic histories.

Tentative reading list: Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Shirley, and Villette George Eliot: Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Geraldine Jewesbury, The Half Sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton.

7-Women and the Church, Women and Marriage, and Women and Work: Life and Literature South of the River Tweed

Interdisciplinary Study of Sexualities Minor at University of North Texas.

This course will be taught in England and will focus on women's experiences beginning with Saint Hilda, abbess of Whitby in the 7th century, and ending with Joss, a woman who lived her life as a male jazz musician featured in Jackie Kay's Trumpet set in the 20th century. Between these two remarkable women, we will study the role of women in the Brontë and Gaskell novels, see how women lived if they were upper class or lower class in the 19th century as we visit a manor house, a workhouse, and a lace factory. The course will end in the Lake District, home to William and Dorothy Wordsworth, where we will discuss Dorothy's journals and William's poetry. Jackie Kay will read to us and discuss her novel Trumpet, and we will discuss the impact of gender on women's lives in the church, at work, and in love relationships.

8- Women in Literature, Culture, and Society
Prof. Meyer

Wellesley College

Topic for 2005-06: The Brontë Family. A study both of the imaginary world Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë created along with their brother Branwell in their childhood stories and poems, and of the novels they wrote in close contact as adults.

9- Selected British Authors: Charlotte and Anne Brontë

The University of Iowa. English Department

But the best one, without doubts... is this one (just check the link, and you will know why)

Reading in Paradise

Paradise Regained: Exploring passionate English classical writers

Susannah Fullerton

Paradise Regained will focus on 8 great English writers: Austen, the Bronte sisters, Dickens, Wilde, Elizabeth Gaskell and Trollope. There will also be a dip into some of the poets of the period. The joy of reading is that it can be done anywhere – and the joy of a reading holiday is that you can wallow in lots of time to talk about the books you’ve read. And the particular joy of this course is that it’s lead by an experienced professional teacher and lecturer who will guide you through the discussions and talk about the author’s background and works.

At the BrontëBlog team we would like to express our desire to establish our headquarters right there. Donations are welcome :P

Categories: Scholar