Course Overview

Austen’s Worlds will explore the regency dramas represented in the novels of Jane Austen and the screen adaptations of her works. We will read some of Austen’s masterpieces, such as Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Mansfield Park (1814), and study her representations of romance, of class, and of the political concerns of her age. We will discuss the nature of the novel, and why this particular genre offered Austen, and other women writers of her era, a convenient medium for artistic, emotional, and political expression. We will also watch film and television adaptations of Austen’s novels and consider how the stories are reshaped for 20th and 21st century tastes and interests. This course promises lively discussion, learning, and entertainment for admirers of Austen’s writing. Austen’s Worlds is the first of a pair of self-contained but related short courses on the works of Jane Austen: an optional further course on Austen’s remaining novels will be available in the Autumn semester.

Course Schedule 

Classes will be delivered online on Mondays 10.30am-12.30pm for eight weeks from 25 January to 15 March

1. Introduction: Life in Regency England; Jane Austen’s world; conventions of the novel and film.

2. Sense and Sensibility: Elinor and Marianne Dashwood – Austen’s archetypes.

3. Film adaptations of Sense and Sensibility (Emma Thompson’s screenplay).

4. Pride and Prejudice: A 200-year old masterpiece.

5. Pride and Prejudice film adaptations (television and film versions of Mr. Darcy’s Pemberley).

6. Mansfield Park: Austen’s subversive text.

7. Mansfield Park film adaptations (Patricia Rozena’s Fanny Price).

8. Austen’s endurance 

Course Lecturer

Dr. Emma Bidwell has a Ph.D in English. She is the Director of “Screening Ireland”, a programme offered by the University of Limerick. She also lectures on a Women’s Studies MA programme. Dr. Bidwell teaches for University College Cork, the University of Limerick, and for her own West Cork College.

Dr. Bernadette McCarthy has a Ph.D in English. She specializes in late nineteenth and early twentieth century art and literature. Dr. McCarthy teaches in the University of Limerick and in her own West Cork College. She has published on W. B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde, and Virginia Woolf.

Entry Requirements

Applicants must be at least 18 years old at course commencement.

Assessment

Short courses are not assessed. Students will receive a UCC Certificate of Attendance upon completion.

Closing Date for Application

Monday 18 January

Contact Details for Further Information

Regina Sexton, Phone: 021-4904700, Email: shortcourses@ucc.ie