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21st Century Women Writers: Away

10 weekly sessions, on Tuesdays at 11am - 1pm, starting from Tuesday 20 January.

Overview

In this course we shall read 4 novels set in different times and environments where issues of physical and mental health are key.  In Deborah Levy’s Swimming Home, an uninvited guest dramatically disrupts a family holiday in a French villa.  In Lucy by the Sea, Elizabeth Strout’s writer heroine is taken to the Maine coast to escape from New York during the pandemic.   In Claire Chambers’ Shy Creatures, an art therapist working in a psychiatric hospital uncovers the secrets of an artist patient.  An Alpine sanatorium before the Great War is the setting for Olga Tokarczuk’s The Empusium, an atmospheric exploration of intellect and gender.  In these novels, which all present places where people are ‘away’, ideas of wellness interact with themes of family, home, art and nature.

  • Deborah Levy, Swimming Home, 2011
  • Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea:  A Novel, 2022
  • Claire Chambers, Shy Creatures, 2024
  • Olga Tokarczuk The Empusium:  A Health Resort Horror Story, 2022/2024

This course aims to explore ideas of mental and physical health across a range of texts with distinctive settings. 

This course would appeal to anyone who enjoys reading literary fiction and who is interested in concepts of mental and physical wellness in relation to particular historical and social environments.  Students will explore their own and others views through small and wider group discussion.

Syllabus

Please note that this is indicative but not definitive.  It is possible that there may be some small changes to the format.

  1. Introduction Deborah Levy, Swimming Home, 2011
  2. Deborah Levy, Swimming Home
  3. Deborah Levy, Swimming Home
  4. Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea:  A Novel, 2022
  5. Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea:  A Novel
  6. Claire Chambers, Shy Creatures, 2024
  7. Claire Chambers, Shy Creatures
  8. Olga Tokarczuk The Empusium:  A Health Resort Horror Story, 2022/2024
  9. Olga Tokarczuk The Empusium:  A Health Resort Horror Story
  10. Olga Tokarczuk The Empusium:  A Health Resort Horror Story

Course lecturer

At Continuing Education, Dr Shirley Jones currently runs courses on contemporary women's writing, and the thematic strand, The Monthly Novel. Previously Shirley has also taught courses on classic authors, such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Dorothy Wordsworth. Shirley's PhD was a study of the Victorian writer, Margaret Oliphant.

Outside of Continuing Education, Shirley is a member of a writers' group and runs the Redbrick Writers, a community writing group, at the Victoria Gallery and Museum.

Course fee

  • Standard fee: £155
  • Concession fee: £80