Re-thinking Jane Austen is a second and third year undergraduate unit offered by the English Program at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
The unit is designed for students who already have some acquaintance with Jane Austen’s work. Beginning with her early attempts at writing, students go on to read the six major novels in the light of their reception – scholarly and popular – over the past 200 years, and in terms of Austen’s relationship to some of her own literary precursors. Recent television adaptations are also studied for the light they throw on how and why Jane Austen’s novels are valued by modern readers.
For 2008 the selected adaptations are recent versions of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. This year students will be invited to give particular attention to ways in which Jane Austen is seen, by lay and professional critics alike, as a writer of books about romance and the pursuit of marriage.
For further information about the unit, or to enquire about options for enrolling in Rethinking Jane Austen in 2009, please contact Laura Carroll via the English Program.
