CCU MAW ENGL 628 SP 2022 Dashboard

Leader

Kate Oestreich

Description

Jane Eyre, Re-writing the Gothic Bildungsroman for 21-st Century Popular Culture:

Jane Eyre: An Autobiography (1847) by Charlotte Brontë is a seminal text in the Western feminist literature canon, published fifty-five years after Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and a year before the Seneca Falls convention launched the feminist movement in Western culture. But more impressively, it is a popular novel that has never once gone out of print in one-hundred and seventy-four years. And scores of authors, directors, and digital producers have adapted, revised, and modernized Bronte’s most famous novel because the narrative still has something to teach us. What better text could a class of writers study in order to explore what makes a story not only timeless but also popular and highbrow? As bell hooks—the recently deceased, trailblazing Black feminist scholar and activist—declared, “Whether we're talking about race or gender or class, popular culture is where the pedagogy is, it's where the learning is.”

As writers, we will explore the creative and rhetorical choices select twentieth- and twenty-first-century authors and directors have made when appropriating Jane Eyre’s narrative, paying attention to how each Jane is a positive (or negative) role model of physical, emotional, and spiritual growth. In other words, we are going to explore how this piece of classic literature remains relevant because of Jane’s didactic appeal within 21st-century popular culture. Additionally, we will read (and proofread and correct) Charlotte’s sister Anne Brontë’s novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall—a wildly successful novel about a woman’s struggle to escape addiction and abuse—whose reputation Charlotte successfully tarnished in the Victorian popular press, leading it to go out of print. Anne’s novel is being rediscovered today as we seek role models on how to maintain poise and rise above the ubiquity of addiction, immature anger, and undeserved violence within our culture. In this course, we will also leverage the COVE’s (Collaborative Organization for Virtual Education) digital tools in order to create a collaborative “flipped classroom” learning experience.

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Individual Entries

Place

Jamaica

Posted by Sean Forte on Sunday, January 23, 2022 - 15:03

A Special Gleaner Feature on Pieces of the Past - The Road to Freedom -The first 500 years in Jamaica

In Jane Eyre, Jane often refers to a feeling of servitude and submissiveness when succumbing to the will of predominantly male charters in the text. When she is unsure or willing to give in to her perceived masters, her ties to Jamaica often free her of the bondage that she fears. This is evident in three different times of the text. The first is the acknowledgment of Jane's uncle when Mrs. Reed dies. The second is the appearance of Mr. Briggs, who stops the wedding between Jane and Mr. Rochester, and the third is receiving the news of her uncle's death and the accompanying money of her inheritance. All these instances represent a breaking point from Jane's perceived oppressors. For example, when Jane Receives the...

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Chronology Entry

The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 Makes Divorce Legal in England

Posted by Selena Mendoza on Sunday, January 23, 2022 - 11:05
Place

Venice, Italy

Posted by Hope Smith on Sunday, January 23, 2022 - 10:21

Photo taken by me, Hope Smith.

Venice, Italy. Image taken by Hope Smith.

Something that most people don't know about Venice unless they are travel seekers is that Venice is a city which has no roads, only canals. It's a city built on water, many islands, in the Adriatic Sea. It's a place that many people travel from around the world to see because there are rumors that it will not be accessible in the next 30 years as it's been a fight to keep it afloat since 1973. With one of the world's narrowest streets, it is still a destination that people dream of exploring. Although gondolas are popular and a tourist attraction, many of them and those who steer are lessening each year. (Local)

Amid one of the most climactic moments within Jane Eyre, Jane and Mr. Rochester have expressed their love for one another, made the...

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Chronology Entry

Victorian Era Insane Asylums

Posted by Alyssa Conner on Friday, January 21, 2022 - 14:50
Place

Paris, France

Posted by Andrew Hadaway on Wednesday, January 19, 2022 - 21:09

Les Grands Boulevards. Photo taken by me, May 2019.

Les Grands Boulevards. Photo taken by me, May 2019.

Paris is the capital city of the French Republic. Located in the Île-de-France region in the northern portion of France, Paris has been the center of French culture and government for many centuries and has been the epicenter of its many revolutions. The city today retains its importance in French culture and government and has a reputation for being one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and is a frequent destination for tourists from around the world. The city has a well-deserved nickname, La Ville Lumière or the City of Light. Paris gained this nickname due to the wide avenues and abundant streetlighting that was built beginning in the mid-nineteenth century under Emperor Napoleon III and his prefect of Seine, Georges-...

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Chronology Entry

Gytrash

Posted by Colin Katchmar on Wednesday, January 19, 2022 - 17:30
Chronology Entry

Brunel’s Great Britain

Posted by Sean Forte on Tuesday, January 18, 2022 - 12:58
Chronology Entry

Ivory and Miniatures

Posted by Hope Smith on Monday, January 17, 2022 - 19:01
Place

Milcote

Posted by Melanie Schlesser on Sunday, January 16, 2022 - 23:11

Milcote, spelled as Millcote in Jane Eyre, is a village in Warwickshire, England. Prior to 1894, Milcote was included in the Weston-upon Avon civil parish; Milcote became its own civil parish--or county, as is equivalent in America--with a small population of about 50 people with its borders reaching 2 miles in length and a little over 600 acres of land. It runs along the rivers Avon and Stour, just south of their junction. It saw a boom during the mid-1800s when the railway ran through and created a small bustle from the industry. The railway is no longer operating and its old rail lines, from the Great Western Railway, have since been repurposed as a greenway for recreational use. This account varies from the Millcote portrayed in the novel, in which it seems lively and bustling as a town; this is an interesting contrast that separates the fictional from the real.

That still isn't an overabundance of information. At least, it doesn't say anything in neon...

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Place

Connacht, Ireland

Posted by Lilith Yurkin on Sunday, January 16, 2022 - 19:27

Connacht is a province of western Ireland, made up of the five contemporary counties “Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim, Galway, and Roscommon” (Encyclopedia Britannica). Prior to English colonization, it was one of the five major Gaelic kingdoms. Notably, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, “most of the province remained loyal to the English crown during the Tyrone uprising (1595–1603) and also remained the most Gaelic…part of Ireland” (Encyclopedia Britannica). Geographically speaking, the area is mountainous, with its “eastern boundary” marked by the River Shannon (Encyclopedia Britannica). Around the same time as the first publication of Jane Eyre, Ireland was at the beginning of what would be known as “The Great Famine” (Thom). 

In the context of Jane Eyre...

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