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Against the Odds: How Women Writers Found their Voices
Description
This course is for anyone interested in discovering the process whereby women came to make their voices heard, transcending the roles assigned them by society. Students must be prepared to read and discuss literary texts during the Study Day.
‘Intellectual freedom depends upon material things,’ said Virginia Woolf. We shall explore this concept as it applies to women writers in Britain, asking questions about gender barriers to success and how these were transcended. Beginning with Woolf’s essay, A Room of One’s Own, we shall look back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, reading a rich mix of short texts – fiction, poetry and non-fiction. Authors will range from the poet Charlotte Smith, who literally wrote her way out of debtors’ prison, to Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, Sara Coleridge, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot and, of course, Virginia Woolf.
Tutor information
Dr. Jane Crozier holds several degrees in English and American Literature. She spent much of her career teaching adults in Further Education, also working as a visiting Tutor at the Institute of Education and as a Research Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. When she moved to Somerset twelve years ago, she had the time to create courses for adults that follow her particular interests, most especially the poetry of place, the literature of landscape and pioneer women writers.
Your questions answered
All course participants will be sent further instructions prior to the course date.
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