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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. 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
Posted by Alyssa Conner on Friday, April 8, 2022 - 17:49

(Regent Street in Swindon in 1978)

Not far into the novel, The Eyre Affair, the main character Tuesday Next decides to move back to her childhood town of Swindon, England, and work there. Although she does not tell anyone, it seems to be assumed that Tuesday also moves back to Swindon to work, in order to find the wanted criminal and murderer “Hades,” who everyone believes died in a failed mission, which Tuesday was the sole survivor of.

Swindon is located in the northeastern area of Wiltshire county, which is in southern England (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica). Historically,...

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Chronology Entry
Posted by Melanie Schlesser on Friday, April 8, 2022 - 11:12
Place
Posted by Colin Katchmar on Sunday, April 3, 2022 - 20:01

Itaewon is the international district of Seoul, South Korea. Itaewon has a population of roughly 22,000 people and is popular among tourists and U.S. Military stationed in South Korea. Sometimes known as the "western district" Itaewon is similar to American Chinatowns (Wiki). This makes it an interesting choice for Changhoon to decide to bring Nina to Itaewon. As Jane says, in Patricia Park's novel, Re Jane: A Novel, "Why Nina will want to come to Korea only to see American faces--" (213). Changhoon reasons that Nina will probably feel more comfortable around American faces (213). Park probably included Itaewon because it is the most typical tourist location American citizens would visit. It may even be comparable to New York City. Nina’s book Seoul for New Yorkers gives a fitting description. “This “foreigner friendly” nabe is now chockablock with the latest fusion lounges, clubs and restaurants more multi then a Benneton ad” (Park 218). But aside from Itaewon...

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Chronology Entry
Posted by Kristina Gray on Sunday, April 3, 2022 - 19:44
Place
Posted by Hope Smith on Sunday, April 3, 2022 - 19:40

Brooklyn, New York is an interesting setting in Re Jane because the focus on Jane and her family’s life growing up near New York City considering how bustling the city can be and dense the population is. Although the population is large, Patricia Parks does an excellent job by slowing down and unpacking the life of one individual in a massive area. A specific uniqueness to know about Brooklyn is that “Kings County is the most populous county ...

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Place
Posted by Sean Forte on Sunday, April 3, 2022 - 17:55

Busan, Korea - A short first trip — Barrett

Within the different adaptations of Jane Eyre, there is a recurring event of the protagonist leaving her first love interest under the guise of scandal. Often what happens after her departure is a journey of maturity as she struggles to gain footing in the world and make a living for herself. What usually transpires is at the protagonist’s lowest moment, her lost family comes and saves her. In Re Jane by Patricia Park, a modern adaptation of Jane Eyre set in the early 2000s; Park takes a slightly different approach to the journey of maturity. Park makes a series of decisions to break away from the traditional mold of the Jane Eyre narrative. Instead of reflecting on the family as the savior, it is ultimately Jane herself. Nothing alludes to this...

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Chronology Entry
Posted by Selena Mendoza on Sunday, April 3, 2022 - 12:45
Chronology Entry
Posted by Emma Streberger on Friday, April 1, 2022 - 20:44
Chronology Entry
Posted by Alyssa Conner on Friday, April 1, 2022 - 15:15
Chronology Entry
Posted by Colin Katchmar on Sunday, March 27, 2022 - 21:54

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