Jane Austen and Popular Culture

Professor Michael Gamer

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Course Syllabus

Class meets: MWF 1-2 pm, 402 Logan Hall

Film screenings: Tuesday evenings, 6:00-9:00 pm, 402 Logan Hall

Course Website: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Teaching/101.

MG's Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays immediately after class. I also am available for appointments at 3600 Market St., 5th floor, suite 501 on Mondays 3:00-5:00 p.m. (call Loretta Williams at 898-7343 for an appointment). I also have weekly walk-ins on Wednesdays 3:00-5:00 p.m. at Hamilton College House in the House Office, Mezzanine Level (just past the elevators, up the stairs, make a right).

Section Leaders: Urvashi Chakravarty (urvashi@english); John Connor (jtconnor@english); Rosemary O'Neill (roneill@english); Joshua Ratner (jratner@english); Tracy Tripp (travestytripp@gmail.com). We'll assign people to sections on Jan. 19 and announce classrooms and office hours. My email is mgamer@english.

Section Classrooms:Josh Ratner's section in Harrison M20; Urvashi Chakravarty's Harrison 102; Tracy Tripp's in Hamilton M30; John Connor's in Hamilton M20; Rosemary O'Neil's in Hamilton 103.

Books: Available at Penn Book Center, 34th and Sansom (215-222-7600)

  • Jane Austen, Catharine and Other Writings (1780s and 1790s: Oxford UP, 1998)
  • Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (1811; Broadview Press edition)
  • Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1812; Broadview Press edition)
  • Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814; Broadview Press edition)
  • Jane Austen, Emma (1816; Broadview Press edition)
  • Jane Austen, Persuasion (1818; Broadview Press edition)
  • Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries (Newmarket Press, 2002).

Coursepack: Available at Wharton Reprographics.

Optional Books: These are also available on reserve at the library.

  • Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas (Oxford, 1975).
  • Claudia L. Johnson, Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1990).
  • Robert Miles, Jane Austen (British Council, 2003)
  • D. A. Miller, Jane Austen, or The Secret of Style (Princeton UP, 2003)
  • Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen: A Life (Random House, 1999).

Films: (See Course Calendar for screening dates. Many will be on PVN during the semester).

  • Pride and Prejudice (1940)
  • Pride and Prejudice (1995)
  • Sense and Sensibility (1995)
  • Persuasion (1995)
  • Clueless (1995)
  • Emma (1996)
  • Emma (1998)
  • Mansfield Park (1999)
  • Kandukondain Kandukondain (2001)
  • Master and Commander (2003)
  • Bride and Prejudice (2005)

Course Calendar:

Unit 1: Opposing Forces, Adaptable Aesthetics

Jan 10: Opening day.

Jan 11: For those of you who've never studied film before, I recommend you read the selection from A Short Guide to Writing about Film (in opening day coursepack) before you see the film. You'll find it helpful for providing you with some basic vocabulary (about such things as different kinds of shots), as well as in providing you a kind of guide for how to take notes when you're watching a film. I've also provided a short essay, called "Short Takes," that summarizes the various positions film critics take on Austen adaptations. Film: Sense and Sensibility (1995), shows in 402 Logan Hall at 6 p.m.

Jan 12: For today, read the Handout on Aesthetics (in opening day coursepack) and the first 9 chapters of Sense and Sensibility (1811). Please also read Uvedale Price On the Picturesque ( selections; in opening day coursepack) and Appendices C and F from the Broadview edition. We'll be concentrating on these readings in relation to chapter 9 of Sense and Sensibility, and in relation to the film. My aim is simply to get you familiar with these words and the differing aesthetics that go with them.

Jan 14: (Unlike other Fridays, we will meet today in 402 Logan Hall. We'll begin our recitation sections January 21st). Sensibility and Performance (see handout): Please read through Chapter 23 of Sense and Sensibility, and read Appendix B of your edition. Read the handout on On Close Reading; we'll concentrate on the conversation between Elinor and Lucy Steele that closes volume one.

Jan 17: MLK Day. You should continue reading Sense and Sensibility; if you're on a roll, try to finish the novel by the end of this week. Begin reading over the Emma Thompson screenplay of the film. Her diary at the back is interesting.

Jan 18: Film: Sense and Sensibility (commentary); Kandukondain Kandukondain (2001: selections)

Jan 19: Sections assigned today. Read Emma Thompson's introduction to Sense and Sensibility: A Screenplay (1996). Today we'll be talking about the film and Thompson's commentary.

Jan 21: First Recitation: Read through Volume 3, chapter 2 by today -- to page 290 in the Broadview edition. Be sure also to read Emma Thompson's Golden Globe speech (first page of the screenplay, just inside the front cover) and Imogen Stubbs's letter from Lucy Steele to Elinor Dashwood (pp. 281-3). Today we'll be discussing the epistolary novel and how letters work both in the novel and in the film. It would help if you read about the epistolary novel in the Encyclopedia Britannica (go to www.library.upenn.edu and select "E-resources" and then "Encyclopedias"; Britannica will be at the top of the list; just enter "epistolary novel"; you might want to look at associated articles as well).

Jan 24: Finish Sense and Sensibility. For today's class I'd like you to focus on two parts of the book: Willoughby's big scene (volume 3, chapter 8) and the ending of the novel. How does the former produce the latter? Are you satisfied with the ending? What would you have to believe about duty and marriage for you to think this a perfect, happy ending? Then, have a look at the two reviews of Sense and Sensibility (Appendix A). How do your assumptions about what makes a good novel differ from the reviewers'?

Unit 2: The Romance of the Estate -- and its Undoing.

Jan 25: Film: Pride and Prejudice (1996; first half).

Jan 26: Questions of character: Reading: Pride and Prejudice (1812), chapters 1-4. For today's class, I'd like you to think about "character"; and to that effect I'd like you to look up the word (both as a noun and a verb) in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Online (just go to the www.library.upenn.edu and select "E-resources," and then select "Dictionaries and Thesauri." The first one that comes up will be the OED. Just enter the word in the upper right-hand space and start reading.

Jan 28: Recitation: Finish Volume 1 of Pride and Prejudice. Your section leader will be writing to you with questions to focus and set up the class session.

Jan 31: For this week, finish Volume 2 of Pride and Prejudice. For this class, I'd like you to think about reading, and to look back through volume one at who reads and what kind of book. For today, read through Volume 2, chapter 6, and read Appendix B. Read also the article by Edward Jacobs, "Anonymous Signatures." I'd like to focus on Lady Catherine and the question of reading, music, and women's education.

Feb 1: Film: Pride and Prejudice (1996; second half). Focus especially on the differences between the film and the book. Ask yourself the following questions: (1) what general belief about Pride and Prejudice are the makers of this film version trying to dispel? (2) What interpretation are they putting in its place? (3) On what episodes in the novel do they lean the hardest? (4) What episodes do they ignore or appear to misread?

Feb 2: For today, keep reading Pride and Prejudice, and read Appendix E of your edition. I'd like to come back to landscape again today -- particularly in the film version.

Feb 4: Recitation: Finish Volume 2 of Pride and Prejudice. Your section leader will be writing to you with questions to focus and set up the class session. Today I'd like us to begin reading critical articles, and so please read the chapter by Marilyn Butler from Jane Austen and the War of Ideas (1975). Please bring to class your short written answers to these questions: (1) what general belief about Pride and Prejudice is Butler trying to dispel? (2) What interpretation is she putting in its place? (3) On what passages and episodes in the novel does she depend the most? (4) What passages and episodes does she ignore or appear to misread?

Feb 7: This week finish Pride and Prejudice. As an alternative to Marilyn Butler's reading of Pride and Prejudice, please read the chapter by Claudia Johnson from Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel (1990), as well as Samuel Johnson, Rambler #4 (1750). Please bring to class your short written answers to these questions: (1) what general belief about Pride and Prejudice is Butler trying to dispel? (2) What interpretation is she putting in its place? (3) On what passages and episodes in the novel does she depend the most? (4) What passages and episodes does she ignore or appear to misread?

Feb 8: Film: Pride and Prejudice (1940).

Feb 9: I'd like to spend our session today thinking about the film as an interpretation (or "reading") of Pride and Prejudice -- every bit as much of an interpretation as those of Butler and Johnson. Ask yourself the same questions as you did Monday: (1) what general belief about Pride and Prejudice are the makers of this film version trying to dispel? (2) What interpretation are they putting in its place? (3) On what episodes in the novel do they lean the hardest? (4) What episodes do they ignore or appear to misread, whether willfully or not?

Feb 11: Recitation: Finish Volume 3 of Pride and Prejudice. Your section leader will be writing to you with questions to focus and set up the class session.

Feb 14: Read the first eleven chapters of Mansfield Park (1814) and Appendix D. For this class we'll focus on the Sotherton Episode (chapters 8-10). I'd like you to think about two things in these chapters. First, does landscape function differently here than it has before? How does Austen want us to think of the Sotherton estate, both inside the house and outside on the grounds? What is the relation between the health of an estate and the (moral, spiritual, intellectual) health of the owner? How then are we supposed to think of what's been going on at Mansfield? Second, I'd like you to think about the set scene in chapter 10 in terms of theater; imagine what it would be like to see this scene on a stage. What kind of play would it be?

Feb 15: Film: Mansfield Park (1999). In your coursepack, I've included Patricia Rozema's screenplay to this film. I'm hoping you'll find it useful in writing your own screenplays. The introduction by Claudia Johnson is excellent.

Feb 16: Keep reading Mansfield Park. For this class, I'd like you to read the short selection of Austen's Juvenilia in your coursepack. We'll be talking about Rozema's decision to make Fanny Price the author of Austen's Juvenilia.

Feb 18: Recitation: Read through chapter 21 of Mansfield Park, and read Appendix A. For this class we'll focus on the private theatricals. Your section leader will be writing to you with questions to focus and set up the class session, but I do have one myself! Why does Austen place so much stress, and the film so little, on the Sotherton and Lovers' Vows episodes?

Feb 21: This week, try to read through chapter 37 of Mansfield Park. Read the selection from Franco Moretti, Atlas of the European Novel (1998). I'd like in this class to ask you whether Moretti's observations make you change the way you're reading the the novel. Does it change how you think of Maria and Julia going away, for example? What about Mary and Henry Crawford's proximity to Mansfield?

Feb 22: No Film: Please instead come to the Susan Gilman reading at Hamilton College House in the rooftop lounge at 7:30 pm if you'd like. It should be excellent.

Feb 23: For today, read Claudia Johnson's introduction to Mansfield Park: A Screenplay; Edward Said, "Consolidated Vision" (focus on the section called "Jane Austen and Empire"); and the short extract from the "Mansfield Decision" (all in coursepack). Today we'll be discussing the film, particularly the moments it diverges from the novel. Which of these are most interesting to you? Do they amount in sum to an interpretation of the novel?

Feb 25: Recitation: For this class, your section leader will be writing to you with questions to focus and set up the class session

Feb 28: Finish Mansfield Park. We'll focus on the Portsmouth scenes.

Mar 1: Film: Mansfield Park (1999; director's commentary).

Mar 2: We'll either talk about the Rozema commentary or about the ending of Mansfield Park.

Mar 4: No class today. Screenplays due to your Section Leader by 4 p.m. Please e-mail a copy of your paper to me as well. Enjoy Spring Break! Read as much of Emma as you can.

SPRING BREAK, March 5 to March 13.

Unit 3: Desire, Misreading, and Narration.

Mar 14: Read Emma (1816), introduction and chapters 1-18. For this class I'd like to focus on questions of sexuality and androgyny. In your own reading, think about how Emma is described compared to Harriet Smith; now think about Mr. Woodhouse and Mr. Knightly.

Mar 15: Film: Emma (1996).

Mar 16: Discussion of film in relation to Volume 1 of Emma.

Mar 18: Keep reading Emma, and try to get well into volume 2. Recitation: Read the chapter from Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas. Your section leader will be writing to you with questions to focus and set up the class session.

Mar 21: For this class, read the chapter from Claudia Johnson on Emma from Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel (1988). I'd like to focus on the Frank Churchill chapters, and particularly on the way in which Austen is playing with romance expectations. What does it mean that Emma does not fall in love with Frank Churchill? What happens to the script she's been writing for herself?

Mar 22: Film: Clueless (1995).

Mar 23: We'll be talking about Clueless on Friday. For this class, I'd like to focus on the episode of the ball and its aftermath (Volume 3, chapters 2-3).

Mar 25: Recitation: Discussion of Emma and Clueless. Your section leader will be writing to you with questions to focus and set up the class session.

Mar 28: Read through Volume 3, Chapter 10. We'll focus on the Donwell and Box Hill episodes. Read each closely, and ask yourself: What happens at each party? How does your answer to this question change once you understand that Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax have been all this while engaged? How is reading Emma -- especially these chapters -- different from rereading it?

Mar 29: Film: Emma (1999)

Mar 30: For this class, we'll be discussing the differences between the various Emmas we've seen.

Apr 1: Recitation: Finish Emma, and read through the various appendices at the end of the book. Your section leader will be writing to you with questions to focus and set up the class session. Paper Proposal Due to your Section Leader's mailbox. Please send a copy to me via e-mail attachment.

Unit 4: After the War, after the Proposal.

Apr 4: Begin Persuasion (1818). We'll focus on the first several chapters, and especially on the relation between satire and romance as two ways of seeing the world. Also read Appendix C.

Apr 5: Film: Master and Commander (2002). Unlike other films we've seen, this one is to provide you with an answer to the question, "So how has Wentworth made his money?"

Apr 6 For this class, we'll focus especially on the long walk (Chapter 10). Read Appendices G, H, I.

Apr 8: Recitation: Finish volume 1 of Persuasion. For this class, I'd like us to focus on the chapters that focus on Wentworth and the navy, especially chapters 3, 8, and 11-12. Your section leader will be writing with questions to focus and set up the class session. Read also Appendix F.

Apr 11: Continue reading Persuasion. For this class, I'd like us to focus on the character of Mrs. Smith, and on the ways in which goods and gossip circulate in the city of Bath.

Apr 12: Film: Persuasion (1996)

Apr 13: Open forum on Persuasion. Bring your questions. Read Paulette Richards, "Regency Romance Shadowing in the Visual Motifs of Roger Mitchell's Persuasion."

Apr 15: Recitation: Finish Persuasion, and read Appendix A. Your section leader will be writing to you with questions to focus and set up the class session. Essay Draft Due to your Section Leader's mailbox. Please send a copy to me via e-mail attachment.

Apr 18: For this class, we'll begin to sum up. Read Rudyard Kipling, "The Janeites" (from his book Debits and Credits, 1926), and spend at least one hour surfing the "Republic of Pemberley" (http://www.pemberley.com) site. Is there any relation between the Janeites of Kipling's story and Janeites now?

Apr 20: Summing up: read Deidre Lynch, "Sharing with Our Neighbors," from Janeites (2000). For this class, I'd like you to take 30 minutes, whether alone or with friends, to surf the net for Jane Austen sites. We'll talk about Lynch's article and what you found.

Apr 22 No recitation section today. We'll be meeting in 402 Logan Hall, talking about the final exam, and finishing the course.

May 2nd: Portfolios due at 4 p.m. to your Section Leader. Please send a copy to me via e-mail attachment.

Course Requirements:

Your Section Leader:
Ultimately, your Section Leader will be your primary instructor -- i.e., the person who evaluates your work and who handles questions about participation, absences, revising work, etc. The policies below will remain consistent across all sections. While I also will be reading your written work, you should discuss your essays first with your Section Leader. Ideally, you should come to see me in my office hours to discuss readings and course materials, or if you want to bounce ideas for essays or other assignment.

Participation:
We've set up the course so that you will have considerable freedom to come into lectures and recitations with your own questions and concerns. Obviously, with this freedom comes responsibility. On the one hand, as a class, we must agree to honor each other's interests and intellectual tangents, and respect what each other thinks is important; on the other hand, it is every seminar member's responsibility to be succinct, and not to waste the rest of the members' time by flogging a personal hobby-horse. Participation isn't simply speaking; real participants are the ones who make a class work, who respond to one another rather than talking at one another. While participation counts for no set percentage toward your grade, in a few cases we will lower or raise your final grade based on your level of engagement in the course.

Absences:
Since we know that disasters happen unexpectedly during the semester, we allow you three absences. Since there's no such thing in this class as an "excused" absence, we do not want to know why you miss class. Please do not write saying "I know you don't want to know about why I've missed class, but I still wanted to let you know" etc. You'll drive us insane by doing so. Your three absences are your business. Missing more than three classes is equally your business, but it will significantly lower your grade. You should count on 4-5 absences lowering your grade by 1/3 (B to B-, for example), 6-7 by 2/3 (B to C+), 8-9 by one full grade (B to C), etc. On the other hand: please DO notify me and your section leader if you are experiencing a major illness (missing more than a week of class); and do get a note from your doctor.

GRADED WORK FOR THE COURSE:

1) The Portfolio (70% of your grade). The portfolio is due in on May 2nd at 4 p.m. in your section leader's mailbox. It will consist of revised versions of your OED assignment, your Austen's Contemporaries assignment, your mid-semester screenplay assignment, and your longer essay.

  • i) Your OED Assignment and Austen's Contemporaries Assignment (total: 20% of grade):

  • ii) Your Screenplay Assignment (25% of grade): This assignment will have a creative and an analytical component. A full description of the assignment is on the course website at http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Teaching/101.

  • iii) Your Longer Essay (25% of grade): This essay should be around 2000 words, or approximately eight pages, and should not be padded. You should consider it to be just like the articles and book chapters that you will read during the semester, and you should write according to their conventions. Ideally, your essay should think of itself as having a project -- i.e., answering a question or solving a problem raised by your reading both of the course materials and current literary and film critics in print out there. You should treat the articles we read during the semester as models for the kind of argument you wish to make, since the aim of this essay is to challenge, transform, and intervene in existing interpretations of your texts. More important, you should think of your audience for this essay as no longer just your classmates but also including the very critics out there whom you are reading, and who are therefore interested in the same issues that you are. Needless to say, we will be helping you to arrive at a viable essay project of which you can be proud.

2) A Final Exam (30% of grade): It will consist of identifications, basic literary history and terms, and an essay.

A Note on Late Work and Extensions: During the semester, we will not accept late work. In the case of the essay deadlines for the mid-semester or longer essays, this will not directly affect your grade; you simply lose that opportunity for us to read your work in draft and provide you with feedback. We do this because we do not want anything to do with the hassles of students asking for extensions, bringing excuses, etc. As with absences, please do not write to us asking for extensions.

While the portfolio is there to give you an opportunity to revise your work and make it better -- as well as modeling how writing is evaluated in the real world -- you should know that we will read only one draft each of your mid-semester and longer essay before you hand in the final versions with the end-of-semester portfolio. However, we are happy to discuss your ideas with you, or your work in progress, during office hours or by appointment. We will also be very happy to talk with you about an essay already commented upon.

Books and Films Placed on Reserve at Van Pelt Library:

Jane Austen, Selected Letters (Oxford UP, 2004). PR4036 .A4 2004.

Jane Austen, Jane Austen's Letters (i.e., the full Collected Letters), ed. Deirdre Le Faye (Oxford UP, 1995). PR4036 .A4 1995.

Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record (Cambridge UP, 2004). PR4036 .L433 2004.

Bharat Tandon, Jane Austen and the Morality of Conversation (Anthem, 2003). PR4037 .T35 2003.

D. A. Miller, Jane Austen, or, The secret of style (Princeton UP, 2003.PR4037 .M55 2003.

Robert Miles, Jane Austen (British Council, 2003). PR4037 .M552 2003.

Clara Tuite and Gillian Russell, eds., Romantic Sociability (Cambridge UP, 2002). PR448.S64 R66 2002.

William H. Galperin, The Historical Austen (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). PR4037 .G35 2003.

Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas (Clarendon, 1975). PR4037 .B88.

Sense and Sensibility [film] . Columbia Pictures, 1995; produced by Lindsay Doran; directed by Ang Lee. VHS PN1997 .S36183 1996.

Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries (New York : Newmarket Press, 1995). PN1997.S36183 T56 1995.

Pride and Prejudice [film]. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , 1940; screenplay by Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin; directed by Robert Z. Leonard; produced by Hunt Stromberg. VHS PR4034 .P722 2001.

Pride and Prejudice [film]. BBC Worldwide, 1996. DVD PR4034 .P722 2001.

Mrs. Steele MacKaye, Pride and Prejudice; A Play (New York: Duffield & Co., 1906). 812 M194P.

Helen Bruton Jerome, Pride and Prejudice; A Sentimental Comedy (Garden City: Doubleday, Doran, 1935. 822 J489P. Anne Coulter Martens, Pride and Prejudice, Adapted from Jane Austen's novel (Chicago: Dramatic, 1942). PR4034.P72 M4.

Mansfield Park [film]. Miramax Films and BBC Films in association with The Arts Council of England, 1999; written and directed by Patricia Rozema. DVD PR4034 .M32 2000.

Patricia Rozema, Mansfield Park: final shooting script (New York: Talk Miramax Books, 2000). PN1997.M2585 R69 2000.

Emma [film]. Miramax Films, 1996; producers, Steven Haft, Patrick Cassavetti; writer/director, Douglas McGrath. DVD PR4034 .E522 2002.

Emma [film]. United Film and Television Production, 1998; screenplay by Andrew Davies; produced by Sue Birtwistle; directed by Diarmuid Lawrence. DVD PR4034 .E52 1999.

Clueless [film]. Paramount Pictures, 1995; produced by Scott Rudin and Robert Lawrence; written and directed by Amy Heckerling. DVD PN1997 .C658 1999.

Persuasion [film]. BBC Films, 1996; screenplay by Nick Dear; produced by Fiona Findlay; directed by Roger Michell. DVD PR4034 .P42 1999.

Master and Commander [film]. Miramax Films, 2003; screenplay, Peter Weir & John Collee; producers, Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., Duncan Henderson, Peter Weir; director, Peter Weir. DVD PR6029.B55 M52 2004.