Jane Austen’s World in History, Literature, and Film

In 2025, the world commemorates the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth. In this course, students explore the life and works of Austen, a relatively obscure spinster who lived a quiet life in rural England and died at the age of 41. Whilst prevailing gender and social rank norms disadvantaged her, Austen navigated these constraints and penned some of the most popular and insightful novels in the English language. Through the lens of Austen's novels and letters, students examine the cultural attitudes, institutions, and social practices of England during the period 1750-1850. Using an interdisciplinary approach, we consider topics such as social rank, gender, race and ethnicity, landed society, economics, and culture, as well as the ways in which the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries view the past and seek to chronicle it through film and television adaptations. Students view and debate selected adaptations of Austen's novels (notably, Pride and Prejudice [1940, 1995, and 2005]; Emma [1996 and 2020]; Sense and Sensibility [1995]; and Persuasion [1995, 2007 and 2022]) as well as the most recent biopics of Austen, including Becoming Jane (2007) and Miss Austen (2025).