Katherine Mansfield Course 2024
Katherine Mansfield: Art and Life
Live online course
Wednesdays, 10 April to 22 May 2024
6.00 to 8.00 pm British Time
SOLD OUT
Katherine Mansfield Course with Claire Davison and Gerri Kimber
Join us to study Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), one of the greatest short story writers of the twentieth century. Born in New Zealand, Mansfield lived most of her adult life in England and other parts of Europe. She was friends with Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence and other writers of the period. She was deeply interested in Russian literature and did much to promote interest in Chekhov in English in the early twentieth century.
Mansfield was a shrewd observer of human relations and human betrayals. She brought pioneering, wide-ranging creative energies to the art of the short story, showing how this concise form could convey a wealth of ideas and emotion. She is often described as a writer who says much through what is not on the page. How does this work? Her writing, though often simple to read on the surface, conveys a complexity of meanings.
During this course we will explore Mansfield’s life and work via close readings of many of her stories, revealing her innovative writing techniques, and confirming her reputation as one of the most important early twentieth-century writers.
The course is presented by brilliant Mansfield scholars Claire Davison (Sorbonne Nouvelle) and Gerri Kimber (University of Northampton); chaired by Trudi Tate. Six sessions, weekly on Wednesdays, 10 April-22 May 2024 with a break on 1 May 2024. 6.00-8.00 pm British Summer Time.
lecture list
Lecture 1. Introduction: Mansfield’s Life and the art of the short story
This lecture provides a brief overview of Mansfield’s life before considering her innovative modernist writing techniques, with examples from a range of stories: ‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’, ‘Bliss’, ‘Life of Ma Parker’, ‘The Garden Party’, ‘Miss Brill’, ‘At the Bay’. GK
Lecture 2. New Zealand Stories and the short story cycle
This lecture examines five of Mansfield’s early short stories set in New Zealand, now considered some of her finest work: ’The Woman at the Store’, ‘How Pearl Button was Kidnapped’, ‘Ole Underwood’, ‘Millie’, and ‘Old Tar’. GK
Lecture 3. Opportunities: New and Lost
Writing in an era when the struggle for suffrage, new educational opportunities and war were completely changing women’s lives, Mansfield’s writing reflects the complexity of contemporary womanhood, from childhood to old age. She explores the ambivalence of new opportunities, while also capturing the restricted lives of many women, and the daily tragedy of lives unlived. This session will explore ‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’, ‘The Little Governess’, and ‘At the Bay’. CD
Lecture 4. Reversals
Mansfield’s stories often turn upon a moment or structure of betrayal, though things are often not as they seem. Staging, make-believe and theatricality are part of her art of reversal and instability. Our focus will be on ‘Je ne parle pas français’, ‘Marriage a la Mode’, and ‘Mr Reginald Peacock’s Day’. CD
Lecture 5. The Great War
This lecture will explore how Mansfield channelled into her fiction some of her most complex and personal responses to the war, in stories such as ‘An Indiscreet Journey’, ‘The Fly’, and ‘The Garden Party’. GK
Lecture 6. The Music of Fiction
Mansfield’s heart was set on becoming a musician before she turned to writing. She was an accomplished cellist, and her writing is strongly informed by her lifelong love of music. This final session will explore how music and story-telling interweave in ‘The Modern Soul’, ‘The Singing Lesson’, and ‘The Wind Blows’. CD
Set Reading
Katherine Mansfield, Collected Stories, introduced by Ali Smith (Penguin, 2007)
Optional Further Reading
Claire Davison, Gerri Kimber and Todd Martin, eds., Katherine Mansfield and Translation, Katherine Mansfield Studies, vol. 7 (EUP, 2015)
Claire Davison and Gerri Kimber, eds., Katherine Mansfield's French Lives (Brill Rodopi, 2016)
Claire Harman, All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything (2023)
Gerri Kimber, Katherine Mansfield and the Art of the Short Story (Palgrave, 2015)
Gerri Kimber, Katherine Mansfield: The Early Years (EUP, 2016)
Delia da Sousa, Gerri Kimber and Sue Reid, eds., Katherine Mansfield and the Arts, Katherine Mansfield Studies, vol. 3 (EUP, 2011)
Claire Tomalin, Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life (2012)
Links
British Library website: article by Stephanie Forward on Katherine Mansfield. (The BL website is down due to a cyber attack, but is being restored.)
Katherine Mansfield Society website publishes many of the stories online.
Recordings
This is a 6-week course, with a live online lecture and seminar each week. The lectures are recorded so that participants can listen again during the course if they wish. The seminars are not recorded.
Course fees
£300 full price for 6 sessions
£270 students and CAMcard holders for 6 sessions
£270 Members of the Katherine Mansfield Society
(Prices include 20% VAT)
Zoom link
We will send you a Zoom link at least 24 hours before the course begins. Please let us know in good time if the link does not arrive, so that we can re-send.
If you cannot attend a course you have booked
Please note that, because places are limited, we cannot usually give refunds if you cannot attend a course. But if you contact us in advance, we might be able to transfer your booking to a different course.
Banner image: Atakan Narman, Unsplash