01 CAC MW5 12165 FESTA AB-2250
Why are there so many soldiers stationed in the seemingly sleepy provincial towns where the novels of Jane Austen are so often set? Jane Austen may conjure up images of a circumscribed world of country towns, flowing dresses and decorous manners, but she lived at a moment of immense historical turmoil, marked by famine, political repression, civil tumult at home, and slavery, revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars abroad. This course will explore the novels of Jane Austen and modern adaptions of her works with specific attention to the historical and cultural contexts out of which her writings emerged. We will consider a range of texts, from the scurrilous satiric prints of the period to newspaper reports on the Revolutions in France and Haiti, from picturesque images of a seemingly tranquil British countryside by Gainsborough to images of the devastation of war. Together we will paint a picture of the world Jane Austen inhabited and of the relationships her novels establish to the greater world beyond her immediate grasp. What is at stake in the decision to represent— or to block out— historical events happening elsewhere in the world?