Winter Mini-term: Syllabus for Women’s Detective Fiction: OLLI at Mason

For a course at the Oscher LifeLong Learning Institute at George Mason University
Day: Tuesday mornings, 11:50 am -1:15 pm,
Jan 23 – Feb 13
4 sessions On-line (location of building housing the office: 4210 Roberts Road, Fairfax, Va, Tallwood)
Dr Ellen Moody

Pushkin Press, 2022 reprint

Women in and Writing Detective Fiction (a continuation of The Heroine’s Journey)

We will explore the genre of detective stories of the mystery-thriller type from the angle of the woman writer, detective, victim & murderer: our three books will be two classics of the 1930s, and one from 40s years later which in many outward conventions continues the popular and acclaimed type: Josephine Tey’s (Elizabeth MacKintosh) The Daughter of Time (a deconstruction of the history of the stories of mysteries concerning a 15th century British king, Richard III); Dorothy Sayer’s Gaudy Night (set in a real early women’s college, which Sayers attended, it is also feminist academic and publishing satire & a lover story); and P.D. James’s An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (more centrally what readers expected post WW2 from a mystery-thriller, but it takes unexpected directions because the detective is a woman). We’ll also see (outside class) and discuss (in class) J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls (as rewritten by Helen Edmunsen and directed by Aisling Walsh) and Robert Altman and Jerome Fellowes’s brilliantly parodic Gosford Park. This is a feminist literary history course, an outgrowth in one direction of the course I taught this past winter: The [archetypal] Heroine’s Journey

Required Texts:

Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time. This exists in many editions (as do the two books below). I have a 1988 copy of the Simon and Schuster Touchstone books, 978-0-684-80386-9; and another by Pushkin Press (a very pretty one), ISBN 978-1782278429

Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night, HarperCollins Bourbon book, ISBN 978-0-06-219653-8

P. D. James, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, Scribner’s, mostly recently reprinted 2019. ISBN 978-0-7432-1955-6

Required Movies:

An Inspector Calls. Scripted Helen Edmunsen, directed Aisling Walsh, a re-do of J.B Priestley’s original play (1945), adapted into a film in 1954 (featuring Alistair Sims as “Poole” in lieu of Goole). Available at Amazon Prime, Brit-Box, Vudu, and YouTube. Also as a DVD for sale, with an interesting feature by Priestley’s son.

Gosford Park. Directed Robert Altman, scripted Julian Fellowes. Streams on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Vudu, and can be bought as a DVD with interesting features (e.g., voice-over commentary as you watch the film).

Supplementary:

There are audio readings of all three books; and you can buy the plays/scripts for the movies:

Priestley, J. B. An Inspector Calls and Other Plays. NY: Penguin, 2000 reprint of 1947 book. The script does not differ as much as one might think; what is dramatized differs.

Fellowes, Julian and Robert Altman. Gosford Park: The Shooting Script. NY: Newmarket Press, 2002.

Sophie Rundle as Eva Smith/Daisy Renton/Mrs Birling/Alice Grey confronts the “boss,” Ken Stoff as Arthur Birling, about to fire her for leading a strike (An Inspector Calls, 2015)

Format: The class will be a mix of informal lecture and group discussion.

Jan 23: 1st week: Introduction on detective versus spy fiction, Scottish literature, Richard III. Then we discuss Josephine Tey and The Daughter of Time.

Jan 30: 2nd week: Women’s detective fiction, Agatha Christie and the 1930s. Then Dorothy Sayers and the first half of Gaudy Night. The 2015 An Inspector Calls.

Feb 6: 3rd week: Carry on with An Inspector Calls and move to the second half of Gaudy Night. The importance of the recurring detective and his or her story.

Feb 13: 4th week: The evolution of the women’s detective novel (some contemporary women writers) and P. D. James’ career. How does An Unsuitable Woman for the Job differ from our expectations. If time permits, I’ll discuss James’s sequel to Pride and Prejudice, Death Comes to Pemberley (her last published novel)

Gosford Park, the Manor house as first seen when cars drive up (Gosford Park, 2001)

Recommended outside reading or watching (if you want to go further):

Cavender, Gray and Nancy C. Jurik. Justice Provocateur: Jane Tennison and Policing in Prime Suspect. Univ of Illinois, 2012.
Coomes, David. Dorothy L. Sayers: A Careless Rage for Life. Illinois: Lion book, 1992.
Craig, Patricia and Mary Cadogan. The Lady Investigates: Women Detectives and Spies in Fiction. NY: St Martin’s 1981. Begins with mid-19th century figures.
Gidez, Richard. P.D. James: the new queen of crime. Boston: Twayne, 1986. Necessarily does not include 2/3s of her (later) career in writing.
Hicks, Michael. Richard III: The Self-Made King. Yale Univ, 2019
James, P.D. Talking about Detective Fiction. NY: Knopf, 2009
Hannay, Margaret P. As her whimsey took her: Critical Essays on the Fiction of Dorothy Sayers. Kent State, 1979.
Henderson, Jennifer Morag. A Life of Josephine Tey. 1988; reprint Sandstone Press, Scotland, 2015.
Klein, Kathleen Gregory. The Woman Detective: Gender and Genre. 2nd edition. Univ of Illinois, 1995. The best single book on women’s detective fiction, with the proviso she deals only with professional police officer-detectives.
Reynolds, Barbara. Dorothy Sayers: A biography: her life and soul. NY: St Martin’s, 1993.
Symons, Julian. Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel: A History. Faber and Faber, 1972. The best of all the surveys.
Walton, Samantha. “The Scottish landscape in the crime novels of Josephine Tey,” Crimelights: Scottish Crime Fiction, Then and Now. Triet, 2014.
Worsley, Lucy. The Art of the English Murder. NY and London: Pegasus, 2014
Young, Laurel A. P.D. James: A companion to the mystery fiction. McFarland, 2017

There was a Margaret Sutton who herself wrote the Judy Bolton series (1932-67)

OLLI at Mason: Contemporary Italian Memoirs & Novels: 2023 spring online

A spring syllabus for reading a group of 20th & 21st century Italian novels and memoirs

For a course at the Oscher LifeLong Learning Institute at George Mason University
Day: Thursday afternoons, 2:15 to 3:40 pm, March 30 to May 18, 2023
F405Z Contemporary Italian Memoirs and Novels
8 sessions online (location site) : 4210 Roberts Road, Fairfax, Va 22032
Dr Ellen Moody

To begin the process of registration go to:  https://olli.gmu.edu/

Description of Course:

In this course, participants will read a group of Italian works with a view to understanding the culture, history and politics of Italy over the last hundred years or so. We’ll read Natalia Ginzburg’s memoir, The Family Lexicon (1963) which takes place in Turin and Rome before, during, and after WWII; Carlo Levi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli, a memoir of his time in exile in WWII (1947); Primo Levi’s Periodic Table (1984), a witty semi-chemical memoir; Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, the first of the Neapolitan Quartet books (2012); and poetry, essays & non-fiction life-writing, and online films (The Bicycle Thieves, Bitter Rice, & film adaptations of our books) as relevant. The course will have as subthemes Italian-Jewish writers, the holocaust and WW2, women’s and life-writing, post WW2 Italy in films.

Required Books:

Natalia Ginzburg’s Family Lexicon, translated by Jenny McPhee, afterword by Peg Boyers. New York Review of Books Classics paperback. ISBN 978-59017-838-6
Carlo Levi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli, translated by Frances Fenaye, introduction Mark Rotella. NY: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-53009-2
Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, translated by Raymond Rosenthal. NY: Schocken Books. ISBN0-8052-1041-5
Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, translated by Ann Goldstein. NY: Europa, 2012. ISBN 978-1-60945-078-6

Format: The class will be a mix of informal lecture and group discussion. The schedule is not cast in cement; if we find we need more or less sessions for any particular text or topic, we can be flexible.

Mar 30: 1st week: Introduction: Italian Literature and history. Ginzburg & women’s writing. Begin The Family Lexicon

Apr 6: 2nd week: The Family Lexicon & excerpts (non-fiction life-writing) from The Little Virtues and A Place to Live.
Apr 13: 3rd week: Carlo Levi & WW2 & fascism. Christ Stopped at Eboli

Apr 20: 4th week: Christ Stopped at Eboli. 1943: German take-over, Willing Executioners,  the Risorgimento, roots of fascism.
Apr 27: 5th week: Holocaust Memoirs. An excerpt from Charlotte Delbo’s Auschwitz and After. Iris Origo’s Diary. Primo Levi, Post-WW 2 Italy. Begin The Periodic Table
May 4: 6th week: The Periodic Table.
May 11: 7th week: Post WW2 Italy: Neo-realistic film: Vittoria De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief (steams online at Amazon Prime, Criterion Collection &c) . Elena Ferrante & My Brilliant Friend
May 18: 8th week: My Brilliant Friend and Bitter Rice (streams online at Amazon Prime) People could watch the first season on the 2019 TV film serial, My Brilliant Friend (also on Amazon Prime, Criterion Collection &c).  Last Thoughts.

Suggested direct supplementary reading:

Boyers, Peg. Hard Bread [A memoir of the life and writing of Natalia Ginzburg through poetry]. University of Chicago Press, 2002.
Chihaya, Sarah, Merve Emre, Katherine Hill, and Jill Richardson. The Ferrante Letters: An Experiment in Collective Criticism. NY: Columbia UP, 2020.
Ginzburg, Natalia. The Little Virtues, trans. Dick Davis. NY: Arcade Press, 1985. A Place to Live and Other Selected Essays, ed, trans. Lynne Sharon Schwartz. NY: Seven Stories Press, 2002.
Gordon, Robert S, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Primo Levi. Cambridge, 2007.
Ferrante, Elena. The Lost Daughter; the other three novels of the Quartet, all trans Ann Goldstein. Europa, 2006, 2012-15.
Jeannet, A.M., and G. Sanguinetti Katz, ed. Natalia Ginzburg: A Voice of the Twentieth Century. University of Toronto Press, 2000.
Levi, Carlo. Fleeting Rome: In Search of La Dolce Vita, trans. Antony Shugaar. Padstowe, Cornwall: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Another meditative travel-residence memoir.
Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz; The Reawakening; The Drowned and the Saved. Trans Stuart Wolf. Touchstone and Einaudi. 1958, 1965, 1989.

Further list of good books by and about Italian literature & a French TV serial (germane)

Aleramo, Sibilla. A Woman, trans Rosalind Delamar. Univ of California at Berkeley. 1980
Banti, Anna (pseudonym for Lucia Lopresi). Artemisia, trans Shirley D’arcia Caracciolo. Bison (University of Nebraska), 1998.
Bojar, Karen. In Search of Elena Ferrante: The Novels and the Question of Authorship. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2018.
Bondanella, Peter and Andrea Ciccarelli, edd. The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Novel. Cambridge UP, 2003.
Baranski, Zygmunt and Rebecca West, edd. The Cambridge Companion to Modern Italian Culture. Cambridge UP, 2001
A French Village. Developed by Frederic Krivine, Phillipe Triboit. Various writers and directors. 7 year French serial set in occupied Vichy France, 1941-1946, with fast forward to 1975; 2002. Amazon prime, also to buy as DVD sets
Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s The Leopard, translated by Archibald Colquhoun, introd. Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi, trans. Guido Walman. NY: Pantheon. ISBN 978-0-375-71479-5
Moorehead, Caroline.  A Bold and Dangerous Family (a history of a family who fought against fascism in Italy), A House in the Mountains: The Women Who Liberated Italy from Fascism – she has a number of books on fascism and the resistance in Europe, all very good. A Train in Winter is her most famous – it exists as an audiobook.
Origo, Iris. A Chill in the Air, An Italian War Diary, 1939-40, introd. Lucy Hughes Hallett; War in Val D’Orcia, An Italian War Diary, 1943-44, introd. Virginia Nicolson. NYRB Classics, 2017, 2018.
Ortese, Anna Maria. Evenings Descends Upon The Hills: Stories from Naples, trans Ann Goldstein and Jenny McPhee. Pushkin & New Vessel, 2018
Parks, Tim. Italian Ways, A Literary Tour of Italy. Richmond, Surrey: Alma Books, 2016.
Quasimodo, Salvatore. The selected Writings, ed., introd., trans. Allen Mandelbaum. NY: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1960.
Sullam, Simon Elvis. The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy. trans. Oona Smyth and Claudia Patane. Princeton UP, 2018
Testaferri, Ada, ed. Donna: Women in Italian Culture. University of Toronto Italian Studies. Toronto UP, 1989.
Tuck, Lily. A Woman of Rome: A Life of Elsa Morante. Harper Collins, 2008.
Weaver, William, ed. Introd. Open City. Begins with a long fine essay on literary and political life in Italy, especially in the north, and then is a book of excerpts from books by the Italian writers in Post-War Rome.

Map of Italy

A winter syllabus 2023: The Heroine’s Journey at OLLI at Mason online

Catherine Morland (Felicity Jones) and Henry Tilney (J.J. Feilds) entering the realm of the ancient Abbey, crossing the bridge (2007 Granada/WBGH Northanger Abbey, scripted Andrew Davies)

For a course at the Oscher LifeLong Learning Institute at George Mason University
Day: 4 Thursdays midday, 11:50-1:15 pm online,
F405Z: The Heroine’s Journey
Office located at 4210 Roberts Road, Fairfax, Va 22032
Dr Ellen Moody

Description of Course:

We will explore the archetypal heroine’s journey across genres and centuries in the western Eurocentric tradition, from classical times to our 21st century female detectives. Our foundational books will be Maria Tatar’s The Heroine with 1001 Faces (written as a counterpart to Joseph Campbell’s famous and influential The Hero with a Thousand Faces), and Maureen Murdock’s The Heroine’s Journey (click to reach the whole text online for free). Our four books will be Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad, Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and Other Tales; Elena Ferrante’s Lost Daughter; and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. We will discuss what are journeys, the central experiences, typical plot-designs, characterizations, and events of the lives of our heroines of classical myth, fairy & folk tales (and connected to this historical romance and time-traveling tales), realistic fiction, and the gothic (and connected to this mystery/thrillers, detective stories). There are two recommended films as part of our terrain to be discussed: Outlander, S1E1 (Caitriona Balfe as Claire Beauchamp transported), and Prime Suspect S1E1 (Helen Mirren as Jane Tennison). I will supply some poetry (Atwood, Carol Ann Duffy, Marge Piercy), two scripts (for the serial episode of Outlander and the 2022 film adaptation of The Lost Daughter by Maggie Gyllenhaal), and one parodic modern short story (“Rape Fantasies” by Atwood), all as attachments.

Leda (Olivia Colman) stopping off to look at the sea sometime during her journey there and back (Lost Daughter, 2021)

Required Books (these are the editions I will be using but the class members may choose any edition they want):

Margaret Atwood. The Penelopiad. NY: Grove Press (originally O. W. Toad), 2005, ISBN 978-1-84195-798-2
Angela Carter. The Bloody Chamber and Other Adult Tales. NY: Harper and Row, 1981. ISBN 0-06-090836X (reprinted with new codes many times)
Elena Ferrante. The Lost Daughter, trans. Ann Goldstein. NY: Europa, 2008.
Jane Austen. Northanger Abbey, ed. Susan Fraiman. NY: Norton Critical Edition, 2004. ISBN 978-0-393-097850-6. Another excellent (good introduction, good materials at the back of the book) modern edition is the Longman Cultural text, ed. Marilyn Gaull. NY: Longman (Pearson Educational), 2005. ISBN 0-321-20208-2

Strongly suggested films:

Outlander, Season 1, Episode 1, called “Sassenach” Written Roger Moore, directed John Dahl. Featuring: Caitronia Balfe, Sam Heughan, and Tobias Menzies. Available on Netflix (and Starz), also as a DVD. I can supply a script for this one.
Prime Suspect, Season 1, Episode 1, called “Price to Pay 1 & 2.” Written Lynda La Plante, Directed Christoper Menaul. Featuring Helen Mirren, John Benfield, Tom Bell. Available on BritBox, YouTube and also as a DVD

Kauffmann, Angelica: Penelope Taking Down the Bow of Ulysses (18th century fine painting)

Format: The class will be a mix of informal lecture and group discussion

Jan 26th: Introduction, Atwood’s Penelopiad, with a few of her Circe poems, and Carol Ann Duffy’s “The Big O” (from The World’s Wife)

Feb 2nd: From Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and Other Adult Tales read “The Bloody Chamber” (Bluebeard), “The Courtship of Mr Lyon,” (Beauty and the Beast)”Puss-in-Boots,” “The Lady of the House of Love” (Sleeping Beauty plus), “The Company of Wolves” (Little Red Riding Hood). Please have seen Outlander S1, E1. Another movie you could see is the 1984 Company of Wolves, an extravagant fantasy bringing together a number of Carter’s fairy tales and fables; she is one of the scriptwriters. It’s available on Amazon Prime.

Feb 9th: Ferrante’s The Lost Daughter, with Marge Piercy’s “Morning Athletes” If you are interested, see the film adaptation, The Lost Daughter, scripted & directed Maggie Gryllenhaal; while much is changed, it is absorbing and explains the book (Netflix film, also available as a DVD to buy); it features Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, and Jack Farthing (as Leda’s husband). I can supply a script for this one too.

Feb 16th: Austen’s Northanger Abbey, with discussion that links the gothic to modern mystery-thriller and detective stories. I will send by attachment Margaret Atwood’s “Rape Fantasies” (a very short story). Please have seen Prime Suspect S1, E1-2. If you are interested, see the film adaptation, Northanger Abbey, scripted Andrew Davies, directed by Jon Jones; while much is changed, this one is also absorbing and adds to the book (available as a YouTube and DVD); it features beyond the two principals, Carey Mulligan, Liam Cunningham (General Tilney) and Sylvestre Le Touzel (Mrs Allen)

First still of Helen Mirren as Jane Tennison, late arrival at crime scene, driving herself (Prime Suspect, aired 6 & 9 April 1991, “Price to Pay”)

Select bibliography (beyond Tatar’s Heroine with a Thousand Faces and Murdock’s Heroine’s Journey):

Beard, Mary. Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations. Liveright, 2013. Early refreshingly jargon-free feminist readings of documents left to us.
Bojar, Karen. In Search of Elena Ferrante: The Novels and the Question of Authorship. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2018.
Carter, Angela. Shaking a Leg: Collected Writings [non-fiction, essays, sketches, journalism], ed Jenny Uglow, introd. Joan Smith. NY: Penguin, 1998
Cavender, Gray and Nancy C. Jurik, Justice Provocateur: Jane Tennison and Policing in Prime Suspect. Urbana: Univ of Illinois Press, 2012.
Cooke, Nathalie. Margaret Atwood: A Critical Companion. Westport, Conn: Greenwood, 2004.
Frankel, Valier Estelle. 3 books: Symbolism & Sources of Outlander: Adoring Outlander: On Fandom, Genre, and Female Audience; Outlander’s Sassenachs: Gender, Race, Orientation, and the Other in the TV series. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015-17 (also on later books, Duane Meyer, The Highland Scots of North Carolina, 1732-1776. Chapel Hill: Univ of North Carolina, 1961.)
Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. 1983; rep, rev Harvard UP, 1993.
Gordon, Edmund. The Invention of Angela Carter: A Biography. London: Chatto & Windus, 2016.
Hirsh, Marianne. The Mother-Daughter Plot: Narrative, Psychoanalysis, Feminism. Indiana: Bloomington UP, 1980
Klein, Kathleen Gregory. The Woman Detective: Gender and Genre. 2nd Edition. Chicago: Univ of Illinois, 1995.
Moody, Ellen, “People that marry can never part: A Reading of Northanger Abbey, Persuasions Online, 3:1 (Winter 2010): https://jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol31no1/moody.html ; The Gothic Northanger: A Psyche Paradigm, Paper delivered at a EC/ASECS conference, November 8, 2008 online: http://www.jimandellen.org/austen/gothicna.html ; The Three Northanger Films [includes Ruby in Paradise], Jane Austen’s World (Vic Sandborn, April 6, 2008: online: https://janeaustensworld.com/2008/04/06/the-three-northanger-abbey-films/
Pratt, Annis. Archetypal Patterns in Women’s Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1981.
Southam, B.C., ed. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion: A Casebook. London: Routledge, 1968.
Stevenson, Anne. “Diana Gabaldon: her novels flout convention.” Publishers Weekly 6 Jan. 1997: 50+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 15 Apr. 2016. Online.
Sullivan, Rosemary. The Red Shoes: Margaret Atwood, Starting Out. Canada: Harper Flamingo, 1998.
Tomalin, Clair. Jane Austen: A Life. NY: Vintage, 1997.
Williams, Anne. The Art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothic. Chicago: Univ Chicago P, 1995.

Claire (Caitronia Balfe) among the stones, just arrived in 1743 (Outlander S1, E1, 2015)