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Seminars: Wednesday 9:30-11:00, 11:00-12:30

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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:
Option A: 100% assessed (2 x 3500-word essay)
or
Option B: 50% assessed/50% examined (1 x 3500-word essay and 2-hour examination).

Essays will be written from a list of published questions.

Final Year students:
Option A: 100% assessed (2 x 4000-word essays)
or
Option B: 50% assessed/50% examined (1 x 4000-word essay and 2-hour examination).

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 (on order at bookstore):

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

Term One: Austen and Eighteenth-century Philosophy

Week	Primary Text	Secondary Reading
1	Northanger Abbey	Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas; Barbara Johnson, "The Divine Miss A" Also, my teaching today is going to touch on the Meno; it's not required reading, but you may wish to have a look around before I go into it.
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)
3:	Sense and Sensibility	John Locke, "Book III, Chapter I" and "Book III, Chapter V" (from the Essay Concerning Human Understanding) PLEASE NOTE: SEMINARS NOT RUNNING IN WEEK THREE. TWO SEMINARS IN WEEK FOUR--PLEASE CHECK YOUR EMAIL FOR TIME AND LOCATIONS.
4:	Sense and Sensibility	David Hume, "On the Origin of Ideas" (from the Enquiry)
5:	Sense and Sensibility	Hume, "On the Standard of Taste"
7:	Pride and Prejudice	Adam Smith, from the Moral Sentiments
8:	Pride and Prejudice	Smith, from the Moral Sentiments
9:	Mansfield Park	Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, first half
10:	Mansfield Park	Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1-74

 

Term Two: Austen in "Theory"

Week	Primary	Secondary Reading
1:	Mansfield Park	Postcolonialism: Edward Said, from Culture and Imperialism, particularly "Jane Austen and Empire"; and Gayatri Spivak, "Four Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism"
2:	Emma	Structuralism and high deconstruction: Ferdinand de Saussure, "The Object of Study"; and Jaques Derrida, "Structure, Sign and Play in the Human Sciences"
3:	Emma	Michel Foucault, The Order of Things, Part One
4:	Emma	Michel Foucault, The Order of Things, Part Two
5:	Persuasion	Things and commodities: Arjun Appadurai, "Commodities and the politics of value"; Bill Brown, "The Idea of Things and the Ideas in Them"
7:	Persuasion	Performative feminism: Judith Butler, "Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions"
8:	Persuasion	Postcritique: Sharon Marcus and Stephen Best, "Surface Reading"; Sharon Marcus, "Introduction," from Between Women
9:	Lady Susan	Slavoj Zizek, from The Sublime Object of Ideology
10:	Sanditon	D.A. Miller, Jane Austen; or, the Secret of Style

Sample first paper, 2018/19: