Jane Austen and the Heritage Industry

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Research and present material drawn from individual and archival research in an engaging way
• Display, promote and disseminate your research using a number of digital tools
• Assess extant approaches to Jane Austen in museums, libraries, and other heritage sites
• Evaluate adaptations and translations of works of fiction across a range of media
• Distill and rework primary and secondary materials in a way that is accessible to a wide range of audiences

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Collaborate with and/or consult others on a project
• Speak confidently about your own research in public, creatively and persuasively presenting your approach to a topic in a number of different registers
• Think creatively about how to solve problems
• Carry out your own research on a topic

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Specific theoretical and cultural issues around the adaptation and translation of Jane Austen’s work
• Issues around curation and conservation in the heritage sector
• Practical skills involved in the communication of academic work to public audiences
• Archival resources and heritage sites open to Austen scholars and fans
• Aspects of the media and heritage industries around literary figures

Jane Austen’s novels and life have been adapted, remixed, and translated into an ever-growing body of films, television series, books, graphic novels, YouTube channels, and even video games—a thriving media industry. She also continues to play an important role in the life of several heritage sites in Hampshire, England. This module, run in close partnership with cultural and heritage organisations including Chawton House and the Jane Austen House Museum, will introduce you to the creative industries that have grown up around Jane Austen and her work. It will include critical, practical and creative elements, combining traditional seminar discussion with guest lectures, workshops, and field trips to Chawton House and the Jane Austen House Museum in the village of Chawton, and to the Georgian Spa resort of Bath. Sessions led by experts in literature and film will enable you to explore Jane Austen’s afterlives in the media, thinking about issues of translation, adaptation, and corporate branding. A number of guest lectures and workshops will also give students practical insight into key aspects of working in the heritage sector, from conservation and curating for the general public, to engagement with Digital Humanities tools. Topics of study are likely to include: Jane Austen in Hollywood; public engagement; from academia to the world; curating skills, the role of the curator and questions of authorship; conservation skills; understanding Digital Humanities; historic houses in the twenty-first century. The module will encourage a full understanding of Jane Austen’s place in the modern world, allow you to develop vital and transferable skills for positions in the heritage sector, and provide a unique opportunity for you to curate your own mini exhibition on Jane Austen as part of your final assessment.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include:

• Seminars
• Guest lectures
• Workshops
• Individual guidance sessions in advance of the final assessment
• Office hours for individual feedback on the assessment

Learning activities include

• Preparatory reading and research prior to contact hours
• Individual study and research
• Researching and putting together an exhibition display

Resources & Reading list

Journal Articles

Llewellyn, Mark, ‘Afterword: Living in the Library: On My (Neo-) Victorian Education’, Neo-Victorian Studies 10.1 (2017), 133-51.

Textbooks

Misiura, Shashi, Heritage Marketing (Oxford: Elesevier, 2006).

Lynch, Deidre, Janeites: Austen’s Disciples and Devotees (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

Dow, Gillian, and Claire Hanson (Eds.), Uses of Austen: Jane’s Afterlives (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

Martinon, Jean-Paul, The Curatorial: A Philosophy of Curating (London: Bloomsbury, 2013).

Watson, N. J., The Literary Tourist: Readers and Places in Romantic and Victorian Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

Hutcheon Linda, with Siobhan O’Flynn, A Theory of Adaptation, 2nd edn. (London: Routledge, 2013).

Mandler, Peter, The Fall and Rise of the Stately Home (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).

Wiltshire, John, Recreating Jane Austen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Johnson, Claudia, Jane Austen’s Cults and Cultures (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).

Littlejohn, David, The Fate of the English Country House (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

Obrist, Hans Ulrich, Ways of Curating (London: Penguin, 2015).

Assessment strategy

There will be no non-contributory assessments in this module, but classroom activities and individual discussions should help you to judge how you are progressing in the module.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External