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The small town in which Housekeeping is set is a remote outpost in Idaho, America's Midwest. Sylvie, the principal character, is an  'oddball', uncomfortable with settling in one place and afraid to take her coat lest somebody ask her to stay. But stay she does as she tries to fulfil her duty as guardian to her two abandoned nieces. In this course we will explore Robinson's presentation of a lived alone and the social forces that shape identity making us…

T S Eliot’s, ‘The Waste Land’, published in 1922, is the most famous poem of the twentieth century and widely considered to be the great, but difficult masterpiece of modernist poetry. This short course aims to cut through some of those difficulties. We shall examine the poem closely and, as we do so, situate it in its historical and literary moment, and explore its themes, form and complex allusions. If you are keen to understand and appreciate ‘The Waste Land’…

This course is entirely dedicated to one of the greatest literary works of the nineteenth-century and my own personal favourite: George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Written in 1871, the novel deals with such important contemporary issues as political change, education for women, identity, marriage and the changing social structure. It is still deeply meaningful today and this is partly why it has stood the test of time: it is, amongst other things, a series of love stories, an exploration of life in the…