Week Two: Austenworld Case Study of a Storyverse

Illustration from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Writing Assignment from First Class: For the first post on your blog for this course, please write a Prologue for yourself, much like the Wife of Bath has a prologue to the Tale we read of hers in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. In your prologue give us a sense of where you are coming from as a reader. What do we need to know about you in order to best understand what you say and perception that you have. What are the assumptions that govern your sense of the world and how it works?  Try to give us 250-350 words on this prologue to you.

Reading Assignment: For our next class we are reading and viewing some texts that are part of the Jane Austen storyverse. The central text we will consider is Pride and Prejudice, the novel written by Jane Austen.  There are a number of remix variants that you might consider reading instead including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, soon to be released as a motion picture.  Because it is public domain Pride and Prejudice can be downloaded online for free from several sites. There are free versions of the text for kindles and nooks, and several audiobook versions, including free ones available. Consult the course resource page for links to texts for this week. 

Audiobooks: Listening to audiobook versions of readings for this class is perfectly acceptable and can be a good way to "read" the texts because you can do some other things while listening to the story being read to you. This is also a good way to deal with required texts if you have a history of difficulty with reading. You can download software that will read any pdf version of a text to you on your laptop. Some students do this for in-class reading as well, using headphones and their laptop. If your native language is something other than English, you are welcome to read the works, like this week's choice, that will be translated into your first language, if you choose.

Featured Film: The featured movie for the next class is Austenland (2013) directed by Jarusha Hess and produced by Stephanie Meyer, the author of the Twilight series. The most complete visual version of the orginal text is probably The Pride and Prejudice Mini-series (1995)starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. The is the favorite of many Janeites including the central character in Austenland. I am also suggesting Pride and Prejudice: A Latter-day Comedy (2003) dir. Andrew Black as an interesting movie varient with a production background that has influenced Austenland, and expecially Bride and Prejudice (2004) dir. Gurinder Chadha in which the story is turned into a Bollywood musical to excellent effect. The most recent big budget movie version of  Pride and Prejudice (2005) directed by Joe Wright is worth investigating especially to see this 18th century story take on a more 19th century reading and adaptation. Please watch at least one Jane Austen influenced film before the next class.

Here is a link to a page of Jane Austen Films organized chronologically.

Please read or listen to a version of Pride and Prejudice and bring your laptop or tablet to class. 

Next Week: We will be discussing genre and literature and reading a Great American Novel, True Grit by Charles Portis.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies  fan art