First-Year Writing Seminar (101-8-24)
Topic
The Many Faces of Jane Eyre
Instructors
Lingyi Xu
Meeting Info
University Hall 418: Tues, Thurs 12:30PM - 1:50PM
Overview of class
Who is Jane Eyre? As one of the most iconic figures of modern womanhood in Western literary history, Jane Eyre has captivated many generations of readers around the world. A novel of brilliant idealism and forbidden love, Jane Eyre has also encouraged readers of different cultural, national, and racial identities to imagine themselves as like her, or not. How do we read this novel today, and why should we care about her almost two hundred years after her invention? How have adaptations of it over the years addressed its problematic feminism and its subtly racialized romance? In addition to Charlotte Brontë's original Jane Eyre, we will look at two novelistic adaptations of the novel, Jean Rhys's postcolonial classic Wide Sargasso Sea and Patricia Park's contemporary trans-Pacific novel Re Jane. We will also look at one film adaptation of the novel: Carey Fukunaga's brooding Jane Eyre.
Teaching Method
Discussion, Short Lecture.
Evaluation Method
Analytical Writing.
Class Materials (Required)
Jane Eyre (ISBN 9780141441146), Wide Sargasso Sea (ISBN 9780393352566), and Re Jane(ISBN 9780143107941).
Class Attributes
WCAS Writing Seminar
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Weinberg First Year Seminars are only available to first-year students.