EN2J3/EN3J3 Austen in Theory
2023-4
Module Convenor: Dr Michael Meeuwis
This module pairs slow and sustained readings of Austen’s primary novels with extended readings in the culture of what we call “theory,” both eighteenth century and contemporary (mostly post-1995). Beginning with Marilyn Butler’s Jane Austen and the War of Ideas (1975), we will situate Austen’s novels securely within intellectual history. A particular focus will be how novels can be sources of freestanding ideas; and then, in turn, how freestanding ideas can give structure to plots and characters within the novel itself.
More information: full-year module, 30 CATS. Seminars meet once a week for 90 minutes.
Assessment:
Intermediate Year students:
100% assessed (2 x 3500-word essay)
Final Year students:
100% assessed (2 x 4000-word essays)
Essays that you develop yourselves as independent research projects.
Outline Syllabus:
Dear students: Please note that you will be responsible for bringing a legible version of these texts to class with you, and on something larger than a cell phone screen. I would also recommend buying your own copies of the Hume and Smith--these are dense books, which you will need to read slowly and carefully. Locke's Enquiry on a bookshelf will impress visitors to your home for years to come: I recommend the stern-looking Nidditch edition.
Mandatory Primary Texts, recommended editions:
Austen, Jane. Persuasion (OUP, 2004).
---. Mansfield Park (OUP, 2008)
---. Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon (OUP, 2008)
---. Pride and Prejudice (OUP, 2008)
---. Sense and Sensiblity (OUP, 2008)
Butler, Marilyn. Jane Austen and the War of Ideas (OUP, 1987).
Term One: Austen in Theory, 1790-1810
Dear 2024/5 students: I'm currently building next year's reading list! So please understand this as very much a work in progress. We will still read all of Austen's novels! I'm just switching things up to keep things interesting.
Term One: Austen and Eighteenth-century Philosophy
Week |
Primary Text |
Secondary Reading |
PowerPoint* |
1 |
Lady Susan (in Oxford Northanger Abbey collection, or online) | ||
2: |
Northanger Abbey |
John Locke, "The Epistle to the Reader" and "Book I, Chapter II: No Innate Principles in the Mind" (from the Essay Concerning Human Understanding) |
T1W2 |
3: |
Northanger Abbey |
John Locke, "Book III, Chapter I" and "Book III, Chapter V" (from the Essay Concerning Human Understanding) |
|
4: |
Sense and Sensibility |
Adam Smith, from the Moral Sentiments |
BONUS HUME! (guest lecture for EuroNovel) |
5: |
Sense and Sensibility |
Smith, from the Moral Sentiments |
|
7: |
Pride and Prejudice |
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1-74 |
|
8: |
Pride and Prejudice |
Elizabeth Miller, Extraction Ecologies, |
T1W8 |
9: |
Mansfield Park |
Postcolonialism: Edward Said, from Culture and Imperialism, particularly "Jane Austen and Empire" Recent readings in Austen and slavery: Tricia Matthew, "On Teaching, but Not Loving, Jane Austen"; Jasmin Malik Chua, "The Battle Over Jane Austen's Whiteness" |
|
10: |
Mansfield Park |
Achille Mbeme, "Of Commandement," in On the Postcolony |
Term Two: Austen in "Theory"
Week |
Primary |
Secondary Reading |
Powerpoint* |
1: |
Mansfield Park |
Kathleen Stewart, from Ordinary Affects: "Ordinary Affects" (1-7), and fragments pp. 9-38 |
|
2: |
Emma |
Lauren Berlant, "Cruel Optimism," from Cruel Optimism | |
3: |
Emma |
Sianne Ngai, "Zany," Our Aesthetic Categories |
|
4: |
Emma |
Structuralism and high deconstruction: Ferdinand de Saussure, "The Object of Study"; and Jaques Derrida, "Structure, Sign and Play in the Human Sciences"; William Galperin, Emma chapter, The Historical Jane Austen |
|
5: |
Persuasion |
Catherine Malabou, The Ontology of Accident, 1-38 | T1W5 Handout |
7: |
Persuasion |
José Esteban Muñoz, "Race, Sex, and the Incommensurate: Gary Fisher with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick", in Cruising Utopia | T1W6 |
8: |
The Watsons |
Kadji Amin, "We Are All Nonbinary" | Handout |
9: |
Juvenilia (as much as you wish) |
Jane Bennet, "The Force of Things" and "The Agency of Assemblages" |
|
10: |
Sanditon |
D.A. Miller, Jane Austen; or, the Secret of Style |
*A note on PowerPoint: these are teaching aids, rather than in any sense a transcript or summary of the class session. Please use them for your review--but the class experience, summary videos, and interactions with the instructor in office hours are paramount.
Sample first paper, 2018/19: