ENGL 455

Spring 2023 Part of Term 1

Part of Term 1
Jan 17-May 3

Major Authors

SHOW FINAL EXAM SCHEDULE

Credit: 3 OR 4 hours.

Intensive study of the work of one or two major authors.

3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. May be repeated with permission of English advising office to a maximum of 6 undergraduate hours if topics vary. May be repeated for graduate credit if topics vary. Prerequisite: One year of college literature or consent of instructor.

My Favorites

My Schedule

Section Status updates every 10 minutes.

ENGL 455 class schedule data for spring 2023
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	32205	Online Lecture	1G	12:30PM -1:45PM	TR	n.a.	Nazar, H	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 01/17/23-05/03/23 Credit: 4 hours Section Info: SP23 ENGL 455 Major Authors, HIna Nazar TOPIC: Jane Austen and Feminism The politics of Jane Austen’s fiction continues to spark lively debate within the vast scholarly industry that has sprung up around all things Austen since the 1980s. For some, Austen was a quintessentially conservative novelist, seemingly untouched by the revolutionary changes taking place in Europe during her lifetime—a staunch defender of tradition and propriety over individual rights, and an upholder of oppressive gender norms over women’s agency. For others, Austen was a novelist ahead of her time, whose commitment to gender equality is implicit in her novels’ call to women to cultivate good judgment and seek “rational happiness,” and in her consistently satirical depictions of patriarchs and other pillars of society. Outside of academia, we see a similar division of opinion about Austen’s fiction’s politics, with her work celebrated on Alt-Right websites, on the one hand, and lovingly invoked, on the other hand, by the ever-growing ranks of “Janeites”—predominantly young women who view themselves as liberal in their gender politics. This course invites you to enter these debates and equips you with the tools to do so. It situates five (Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion) of Austen’s six major novels (as well as some minor works) in two intersecting historical contexts: (1) such key political and social developments of their time of composition as the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, the growing inclusion of women in the literary marketplace, and the burgeoning norm of companionate marriage; and (2) a wider history of feminist thought, extending from Mary Astell’s Some Reflections upon Marriage (1700) to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s reflections on women in the law. We will consider how Austen’s fiction participates in both contexts by foregrounding its treatment of gender, liberty, and tradition, and their intersections with race, class, and nationhood. In exploring the gender politics of Austen’s novels, we will, importantly, not neglect our own, as revealed, for example, in how we approach the cultural appropriation of Austen as a cult figure. Further, in highlighting the politics of Austen’s fiction, we will not ignore the formal and stylistic innovations attributed to this fiction. This course proposes that form and content are closely connected. Accordingly, Austen’s methods of characterization, her development of free indirect discourse, and her striking use of satire will be important themes of this course. Restriction(s): Restricted to Graduate - Urbana-Champaign.
	32202	Online Lecture	1U	12:30PM -1:45PM	TR	n.a.	Nazar, H	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 01/17/23-05/03/23 Credit: 3 hours Section Info: SP23 ENGL 455 Major Authors, HIna Nazar TOPIC: Jane Austen and Feminism The politics of Jane Austen’s fiction continues to spark lively debate within the vast scholarly industry that has sprung up around all things Austen since the 1980s. For some, Austen was a quintessentially conservative novelist, seemingly untouched by the revolutionary changes taking place in Europe during her lifetime—a staunch defender of tradition and propriety over individual rights, and an upholder of oppressive gender norms over women’s agency. For others, Austen was a novelist ahead of her time, whose commitment to gender equality is implicit in her novels’ call to women to cultivate good judgment and seek “rational happiness,” and in her consistently satirical depictions of patriarchs and other pillars of society. Outside of academia, we see a similar division of opinion about Austen’s fiction’s politics, with her work celebrated on Alt-Right websites, on the one hand, and lovingly invoked, on the other hand, by the ever-growing ranks of “Janeites”—predominantly young women who view themselves as liberal in their gender politics. This course invites you to enter these debates and equips you with the tools to do so. It situates five (Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion) of Austen’s six major novels (as well as some minor works) in two intersecting historical contexts: (1) such key political and social developments of their time of composition as the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, the growing inclusion of women in the literary marketplace, and the burgeoning norm of companionate marriage; and (2) a wider history of feminist thought, extending from Mary Astell’s Some Reflections upon Marriage (1700) to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s reflections on women in the law. We will consider how Austen’s fiction participates in both contexts by foregrounding its treatment of gender, liberty, and tradition, and their intersections with race, class, and nationhood. In exploring the gender politics of Austen’s novels, we will, importantly, not neglect our own, as revealed, for example, in how we approach the cultural appropriation of Austen as a cult figure. Further, in highlighting the politics of Austen’s fiction, we will not ignore the formal and stylistic innovations attributed to this fiction. This course proposes that form and content are closely connected. Accordingly, Austen’s methods of characterization, her development of free indirect discourse, and her striking use of satire will be important themes of this course. Restriction(s): Restricted to Undergrad - Urbana-Champaign.