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Saturday, August 21, 2010

The Brontës and Their Afterlives

We are pretty sure that if Rory Gilmore was still in Yale, she would have chosen this course for this fall:
ENGL 431 01 (12893)
The Brontës and Their Afterlives
Linda Peterson
T 9.25-11.15
Fall 2010
No regular final examination
Skills WR
Areas Hu
Permission of instructor required

The novels of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, with modern adaptations in film and fiction. Additional readings include Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë, Sinclair's Three Sisters, and Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea; films include Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and "biographies" of the Brontë sisters.

Broad Recognition is quite interested too:
Our excite­ment about this class does not just derive from the fact that this is one of few courses devoted entirely to female authors. The syl­labus looks deli­cious: stu­dents will read Jane Eyre, Wuther­ing Heights, Agnes Grey, The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall, Shirley, and Vil­lette. But Peterson’s course deserves a place on this list for its simul­ta­ne­ous focus on both the ways female char­ac­ters are depicted by female authors, and how female authors are depicted by a largely male acad­emy. The syl­labus promises dis­cus­sion of the mythol­ogy sur­round­ing sta­tus of the sis­ters, crafted by crit­ics of both gen­ders. Peter­son has not offered this course before, but her pre­vi­ous courses—including Major Eng­lish Poets, and nobody likes Major Eng­lish Poets—have got­ten good reviews. One stu­dent from her Fall 2009 course on nature writ­ing says that “Pro­fes­sor Peter­son really knows her stuff, and she’s great at lead­ing dis­cus­sion and at ask­ing the right ques­tions.” And hon­estly, Heath­cliff seems a lit­tle sex­ier than leaves. (Alexandra Brodsky)
Linda H. Peterson's surely knows her Brontës as she was the editor of a 1992 (St Martin's Press) edition of Wuthering Heights.

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