We will study some works chosen by the class as well as by the instructor. Films in the course will include works from 1995 to 2016 (from 1995, Clueless, Austen’s Emma retold as a Hollywood high school comedy and starring Alicia Silverstone; and Sense and Sensibility, for which Emma Thompson’s screenplay won an Academy Award; and from 2016, the Hallmark Channel’s Unleashing Mr. Darcy, Austen’s Pride and Prejudice transferred to the present-day dog show circuit; and writer/director Whit Stillman’s Love and Friendship, the first-ever film version of Austen’s Lady Susan). R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have become classics of children’s and fantasy literature. In this course, we read Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and investigate the world-building and imagined history that lies behind the books. We trace how Tolkien’s own life experience informed his work—his experience as a soldier of the Great War and a civilian during World War Two; as a scholar of medieval language and literature, and of fairy tales; as a Catholic thinker; and as a lover of nature and the past. We also survey the afterlife of the novels in fantasy, film, and the popular imagination.
We will study some works chosen by the class as well as by the instructor. Films in the course will include works from 1995 to 2016 (from 1995, Clueless, Austen’s Emma retold as a Hollywood high school comedy and starring Alicia Silverstone; and Sense and Sensibility, for which Emma Thompson’s screenplay won an Academy Award; and from 2016, the Hallmark Channel’s Unleashing Mr. Darcy, Austen’s Pride and Prejudice transferred to the present-day dog show circuit; and writer/director Whit Stillman’s Love and Friendship, the first-ever film version of Austen’s Lady Susan). R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have become classics of children’s and fantasy literature. In this course, we read Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and investigate the world-building and imagined history that lies behind the books. We trace how Tolkien’s own life experience informed his work—his experience as a soldier of the Great War and a civilian during World War Two; as a scholar of medieval language and literature, and of fairy tales; as a Catholic thinker; and as a lover of nature and the past. We also survey the afterlife of the novels in fantasy, film, and the popular imagination.
